A Trip to the Mixing Bowl

Yesterday, since I am starting to become hopelessly behind in the beer count, I ventured over to the Total Wine near the Mixing Bowl to make another custom six pack. I know I linked to the Wikipedia page for the Mixing Bowl, but perhaps the Google Map with do it more justice. I used a GPS to get there - which should be slightly shocking to anyone that knows me, since I think they are cheating. However, given the glorious mess that is the Mixing Bowl, I thought I would try out the used GPS that my cousin Brendan so generously gave me. Intentional wrong turns just to see what it would do? I think so.

Right now I am watching the AFC Championship game - Go Jets! Football and beer just go perfect together. Writing that makes me notice the fact that I am missing pizza, but a custom six was my treat for the weekend. Speaking of which, it was a rather quiet weekend with some awesome time spent with the girlfriend.

I think I made a halfway decent mix of beer styles, though I do love stouts and porters. Here goes my reviews:

Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier: Weihenstephaner has been brewing beer since 1040! It is the worldest's oldest brewery. Say what you want about the Catholic Church, we kept the beer going during the Dark Ages. This beer was nice and cloudy, like most Hefe's. It did however, have a nice aroma and went down quite clean. Brendan took a few sips, but did not like it. His loss is my gain!

The Duck-Rabbit Porter: I've had one other Duck-Rabbit beer, their Milk Stout. I do not like Milk Stouts, but I thought I'd give them another try. I thought this was heavy on the chocolate malt after taste, and came with more of a roasted after taste. Translation: A pretty good porter indeed.

Stone Levitation Ale: My experiences with Stome brewing company have shown that this company makes solid, hoppy ales. This beer doesn't diverge from that generalization. It was a Gold Medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival (I need to go to one) in 2007. I thought the beer was quite enoyable. I really liked it. The beer leaned toward the hoppy after taste, but went down smooth and wasn't overly bitter. I'd like to have this again.

Starr Hill The Love Wheat Beer: I like Starr Hill beers. I think they do a decent job across a broad spectrum of beers. Unfortunately, my fellow beer snobs at Ratebeer.com do not agree with me for the most part. I've been drinking this beer as I was writing this post, and I've enjoyed it. It's your standard, run of the mill unfiltered Hefe. It remined me of Hoeggarden to some extent.

Obviously, I am missing two of the six. I expect to review them some time this week. I also noticed a transcription error when it comes to my count. Note: I typically just add my new beers to the last posted count on this blog, however I do check my spreadsheet from time to time. If you go back a few posts, I went from 173 to 172. This isn't a big deal. I just thought I'd explain the discrepancy. If someone calls shennanigans, I would be happy to share my google doc spreadsheet with you.

I also talked to my sailing buddy Hazen the other day. He mentioned some extensive beer cellars in DC that I can check out. I hope to do some in the coming weeks. After all, I am still behind!

The scorecard:
Colleen: 192
Paul: 179

Cheers,
Paul