"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -Benjamin Franklin
He may or may not have actually said that, but it's still pretty amusing, and an appropriate way to open this entry since I spent a chunk of my weekend in and around Philadelphia, and tried a few new beers while I was at it (two thirds of them were even brewed in Philly!). It was nice to see some of the historic sites that I last saw on elementary school field trips, and just to walk around a different city. Nice change of pace. After visiting the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin's grave, we wandered over to Yards Brewing Company to taste the local brews, sharing pints of the following:
Love Stout: Good stuff. This was nice and lightweight, like Guinness (I know some people find that statement to be completely ludicrous but it's true). Straightforward and smooth.
IPA: Good. Straightforward. No complaints here, and the IPA fan (the other half of this mysterious "we" I keep referring to) who I was sharing this with gave it his seal of approval too. That means it's pretty legit.
Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale: Speaking of Ben Franklin... this was a very interesting beer. I can't say if it was good or bad so much as interesting because it tasted exactly like a spruce tree smells. I love trees and all but I'm not entirely sure a beer should taste like liquid tree. The verdict is still out. Definitely a strong flavor though, so if you have any sort of spruce-sensitivity, don't go near this.
General Washington's Tavern Porter: This was a good porter. Nothing so strong tasting that it knocked me over or startled me, but definitely not a boring beer, either. Count me a fan.
After faffing about for a while in the city, we went to a Halloween party, to which I brought a variety twelve pack of Butternuts brews. I'd previously tried the Moo Thunder (great) and Pork Slap Pale Ale (also very good), and I figured Halloween is all about fun, silly, weird things, so why not get beers in goofy looking cans with ridiculous names? I would be driving to the D.C. area later that night, so I just stuck to trying the two I hadn't already had.
Heinnieweisse: What's not to love about a beer called named heinnie? Well, I guess that's an exaggeration. I liked this beer, don't get me wrong, but I didn't love it. It's a decent hefeweizen but nothing particularly remarkable about it (though as we've been discussing lately, sometimes that's ok).
Snapperhead IPA: This was not good, and it wasn't even the hops that bothered me. In fact, it wasn't that hoppy at all, it was just super sweet and weird tasting. I liked their other beers, especially the first two I tried, but not really this one. And all of the other IPA fans in the room didn't like it either, so it's not just me and my immature taste for the style.
Some winners, some losers, some in-betweeners, but as always, excellent adventures in beer and in life.
Paul: 300
Colleen: 317
Showing posts with label herb/spice beer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label herb/spice beer. Show all posts
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
beer in the news?!
On Wednesday, I babysat for camp's program director's children while he and his wife went to the city to attend a taping of the Daily Show. While pretty jealous and half-contemplating not agreeing to babysit in hopes that his wife would take me instead, it was a pleasant day for us at home and they apparently had a great time seeing John Stewart. I'm watching the episode online now, and as it turns out, beer made the news! Here's the episode-- check around 6:35!*
Why did I post the entire episode instead of just the segment? Because the World Cup has begun and that's exciting! Paul always said that if I was living/working in South Africa this summer, he'd buy us tickets. While life has panned out in other directors, I still remember that deal, as I've been threatening to visit Africa for years and years (and finally will be at the end of this summer).
Anyway, back to the theme of this blog. Yesterday while running errands in the Rutgers region, I stopped at a liquor store near my friends Cheryl and Gurzo's house that offers mixed six packs. I also picked up a couple of bigger bottles to share:
BORIS the Crusher: Recommended to me by my friend Noah back at camp, I was torn between buying this or the oatmeal stout that Paul recently gave a great review. I tend to like this style of beer. BORIS, which stands for Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout, totally did not disappoint. SO good! It has a really strong flavor, but goes down so smooth. I highly recommend this beer.
Rogue Chipotle Ale: I bought this beer because it sounded like it would either be awesome or terrible, but for better or worse, I had to find out. I've recently begun to develop a taste for hotter foods (in baby steps... I cry quite a lot, but I swear I'm enjoying it) so it sounded interesting to me. This ended up being really interesting in a good way. It's warm and spicy, and I definitely felt the heat of the peppers in my throat. What this actually reminded me of is this smoked Tabasco sauce that I recently tried and liked. Kinda smoky, definitely has a hot bite, but really tasty. I'm not sure what I'd drink this with though, since spicy foods require plainer beers to cool the flames, at least for me while I'm still in spicy foods kindergarten. Definitely worth drinking on its own though, or probably pairing with a tamer Latin food, like empanadas.
And several hours later, after dinner, I ended up breaking into the six pack...
Left Hand Good Juju: So good. This beer is made with ginger, which sounded a bit odd, so I went with the same line of thinking as I did for the Chipotle Ale-- it's probably amazing or awful, but I had to find out. It's not an overwhelming ginger flavor, but sort of like a gentle ginger ale- beer hybrid. It was really refreshing and nice! This beer would be perfect on a hot day, but was also really enjoyable on a cool evening.
Cricket Hill Jersey Summer Breakfast Ale: Obviously taken in by the name, as a devoted fan of the great state of New Jersey, I found this to be a bit sweeter than I prefer my beer, so I suppose it would be nice for breakfast. It's technically a pale ale, but was sweeter than the average pale ale. It was light and a bit citrusy, as well a summer beer should be. I hadn't heard of this brewer before, but it's not too far away. Hooray NJ!
I have four more in my mixed six, but till then:
Paul: 239
Colleen: 261
*I tend to get pretty disoriented as far as days and dates go when I'm living at camp... they actually saw Wednesday's show, that's yesterday's (Thursday's). Still awesome!
Why did I post the entire episode instead of just the segment? Because the World Cup has begun and that's exciting! Paul always said that if I was living/working in South Africa this summer, he'd buy us tickets. While life has panned out in other directors, I still remember that deal, as I've been threatening to visit Africa for years and years (and finally will be at the end of this summer).
Anyway, back to the theme of this blog. Yesterday while running errands in the Rutgers region, I stopped at a liquor store near my friends Cheryl and Gurzo's house that offers mixed six packs. I also picked up a couple of bigger bottles to share:
BORIS the Crusher: Recommended to me by my friend Noah back at camp, I was torn between buying this or the oatmeal stout that Paul recently gave a great review. I tend to like this style of beer. BORIS, which stands for Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout, totally did not disappoint. SO good! It has a really strong flavor, but goes down so smooth. I highly recommend this beer.
Rogue Chipotle Ale: I bought this beer because it sounded like it would either be awesome or terrible, but for better or worse, I had to find out. I've recently begun to develop a taste for hotter foods (in baby steps... I cry quite a lot, but I swear I'm enjoying it) so it sounded interesting to me. This ended up being really interesting in a good way. It's warm and spicy, and I definitely felt the heat of the peppers in my throat. What this actually reminded me of is this smoked Tabasco sauce that I recently tried and liked. Kinda smoky, definitely has a hot bite, but really tasty. I'm not sure what I'd drink this with though, since spicy foods require plainer beers to cool the flames, at least for me while I'm still in spicy foods kindergarten. Definitely worth drinking on its own though, or probably pairing with a tamer Latin food, like empanadas.
And several hours later, after dinner, I ended up breaking into the six pack...
Left Hand Good Juju: So good. This beer is made with ginger, which sounded a bit odd, so I went with the same line of thinking as I did for the Chipotle Ale-- it's probably amazing or awful, but I had to find out. It's not an overwhelming ginger flavor, but sort of like a gentle ginger ale- beer hybrid. It was really refreshing and nice! This beer would be perfect on a hot day, but was also really enjoyable on a cool evening.
Cricket Hill Jersey Summer Breakfast Ale: Obviously taken in by the name, as a devoted fan of the great state of New Jersey, I found this to be a bit sweeter than I prefer my beer, so I suppose it would be nice for breakfast. It's technically a pale ale, but was sweeter than the average pale ale. It was light and a bit citrusy, as well a summer beer should be. I hadn't heard of this brewer before, but it's not too far away. Hooray NJ!
I have four more in my mixed six, but till then:
Paul: 239
Colleen: 261
*I tend to get pretty disoriented as far as days and dates go when I'm living at camp... they actually saw Wednesday's show, that's yesterday's (Thursday's). Still awesome!
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