Wednesday, July 29, 2009

FFF-Apocalypse Cow



I picked this up at work a few weeks ago. Couldn't pass up a new Three Floyds with such great art on the bottle. This is a nice well rounded double IPA. Nothing really super exciting about it tough. The Floyds usually make such great stuff I think i may be jaded. It has citrus and maybe mango notes with a great mouthfeel. It's alot like Alpha King. The name comes from the use of lactose sugar. Bottle art was done by a chicago artist Dan Grzeca. I like it so much that I bought a print of it. For $20 you can't go wrong with a handmade print. Once I get it framed I share some picks.

Friday, July 24, 2009

New Glarus Brewery Tour




Alex and I went up to to the land of cheese and beer for the weekend last month. While there we drove to the newly opened hilltop brewery. The drive out to the brewery is great. You go straight though the winding roads of the Driftless area. The Driftless area is a part of southwest Wisconsin that has deeply carved valleys from glacial drift. There's also some great fly fishing for trout in streams no bigger than one lane of highway in the area. No fishing this time though. We passed the old brewery on the way to the new one. Once you see the new facility you wonder how they ever did it all in the old one. This place is the nicest micobrewery i have seen. The front is setup to looks like an european village. There's limestone steps that lead you to the brewery with a waterfall besides it. Once inside you can grab yourself a pint or a sampler. They had 6 beers on tap. For $3.50 you get a taster glass and 3 4oz samples. They only have guided tours on the weekend, so we took the self guided one. Wich means you cna walk anywhere thats not ropped off. The first thing you see once leaving the gift shop is the new copper kettles. Then you follow the hallway which leads you past a yeast storage room, a chemistry lab like room, the bottleing/kegging and past the fermetion tanks. NG put in 20mil to make this new brewery happen. They have expaned from 65,000 to 130,000 barrels. Looks like it was worth every penny. I almost forgot one of the coolest reason for stopping in, beer. They have a beer depot by the parking lot. Everything that they bew is there and sold by the case. Even brews that are out of season, like the iced barleywine. I spent way too much money there. But then again you have to stock up since it's only sold in Wisconsin.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Hakim Stout


I went out with Alex and her parents to an Ethiopian restaurant last week. The waiter recommended a number of Ethiopian and African brews. A African stout he mentioned intrigued me. When I heard him say it i was kind of confused. It's not one of the things I could picture being made in such a hot arid place. The bottle and glass came and waiter poured me some. It has a great label. The beer pours and looks like a Newcastle. The taste isn't that far from one either. Has a stronger malty sweetness to it though. I would call this a brown rather than a stout. It went great with the food. It's definitely worth a try if you come across some.