There and Back Again

On Friday night I went to Bilbo Baggins in Old Town with my college friend Robert, and work buddy Jeremy. The place is known for its beer menu and food, so I thought it would be a good place to at least expand my beer horizons. The roads were still treacherous from the snowpocalypse, but we all managed to arrive and leave safely. I enjoyed catching up with them and trying a couple new brews.

Clipper City Bilbo Baggins: This is their house lager, which is brewed by Clipper City. In the interest of having their house brew, and that Clipper City usually does a good job across the board, I decided to give it a shot. I really liked it. The beer reminded me of Samuel Adams Boston Lager.

Rogue Yellow Snow Ale: Confession - I got this beer because of the name. I thought it was pretty good. The waitress pointed out that the juniper after taste reminded her of gin. I somewhat agreed with this assessment. I don't really like gin, but this beer was fine in my book. I thought this was a smooth pale ale.

On Saturday, I ventured to Williamsburg, VA to visit the girlfriend. It is Valentine's Day weekend. There wasn't enough time to make Guiness cupcakes, but it will happen. We hung out with some of her friends Saturday night. The drinking game of the night was Jenga, or some variant thereof, and each piece had a drinking instruction on it. Things got interesting fast, and fun was had by all. I also managed to try two new brews. I was limited to tasting two (alliteration anyone?), because the first was a 22 oz bottle and had an ABV of 10.5%l. Drinking that in less than an hour started to put me in a happy place - thank God for leaving notes on your cell phone.

Stone Double Bastard Ale: This beer is the next evolution of Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale. This beer was incredibly complex and aggressive. There were multiple different effects during the after taste. It certainly was a clean beer, but not for the faint of heart. I can probably name the people on one hand who could appreciate, let alone finish, this beer (Colleen included, of course). If nothing else, the back of the bottle is worth reading (click the image for zoom). You can also read the back of the bottle for Arrogant Bastard here.

Samuel Adams Noble Pils: This is the latest seasonal by Samuel Adams. Colleen recently tried this beer. I was surprised by its very light color and citrus taste. I expected more bitternes, or bite, since the company promotes the beer based on the hops. Perhaps this is a characteristic of Noble Hops? I thought this was ok, but they do a much better job on their other seasonals.

I also got a custom six pack for Valentine's Day, which means I have a few more beers to try at some point. I'm hoping I can manage another trip the Brickskeller this week, but we shall see. Enjoy the Olympics friends, hopefully with a nice beer (especially you Colleen)!

The scorecard:
Colleen: 203
Paul: 196

Cheers,
Paul