Friday Beer Post: 2011 Gameday Beer-o-the-week - UCLA Edition

Each week throughout the football season I'm going to suggest a good beer for the ubiquitous pre-game tailgate. Let's be honest, with tailgates it's not always top quality that you're looking for. To steal a phrase from the heinous beer terrorists at Budweiser, you want "drinkability." (or what a real beer connoisseur calls "a session beer") So, be warned, these may not be "the best" beers around. But,     in the words of Dave Chappelle as Samuel L. Jackson "IT'LL GET YOU DRUNK!"

A Bruin, for those of you who haven't figured it out, is just a common brown bear.  The bear has been a symbol for California since before it even became a state, hence why the two primary public institutions of higher learning, UCLA and Berkeley, use it for a mascot.  Ostensibly a symbol of "strength and unyielding resistance" the bear has remained on the California flag since it was first raised during the California Republic revolt in the Mexican War.

As a result, Bear Republic imagery is common throughout the state, and one of my favorite Californian breweries is even simply called "Bear Republic Brewing."  Their very delicious Racer 5 IPA is my tailgate beer-o-the-week.

Sure, their Cloverdale brewery, located north of San Francisco, is no where near LA, but... Bear.

I'm back on familiar ground with this one.  A good ole American IPA, rockin' with hops and arrogance, and plenty good enough to wash down some football.  It's even award winning: Racer 5 won the gold medal at the '09 GABF for best American-Style Strong Pale Ale.  Did I say strong?  Yes I did; this brew clocks in at 7% ABV, giving you plenty of kick in a 6-pack.

From a state known for cranking out some incredible IPAs, Racer 5 is easily in my California-based top-3.  (In no particular order: Stone IPA, Racer 5, and Russian River's Blind Pig)  You should be able to find some in your local beer-mart, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.


Happy Friday!  Go Buffs, beat the Bruins!

Friday Beer Post: 2011 National IPA Championship

It's back!  The National IPA Championship is back in business for it's 4th year of competition.

If I've said it one, I've said it a thousand times; throw a bracket on something and I'll instantly start paying attention.  The NIPAC combines my love of brackets with my favorite beer style in something I lovingly refer to as the best idea ever conceived by man.  Last year Fat Head' Brewery and Saloon in Cleveland took home the crown for their Head Hunter IPA.  This year it's anyone's guess as 128 gloriously hoppy IPA's are competing for the title.

If you've got some time to burn (and It'll take some time to review 128 beers), check out the locker room list and fill out a bracket.  You can get a free case of the winning beer if you win their bracket contest!

Who do I think will win?  Well, I've always liked Boulder's own Avery IPA.  Additionally, I've enjoyed Chicago favorite Goose Island IPA (competing against Boulder native Hoppy Boy), Wynkoop's Mile HIPA, Great Divide's Titan IPA, New Belgium's surprisingly tasty Ranger IPA (Hey, they just discovered hops!), and Stone's IPA this year, and they're all fantastic.  To be honest, I've never heard of most of these beers, but it's always fun to bullshit about which beer is better.

Because I love beer in a can, and the beer is damn good, I'm going to randomly select Ska Brewing's Modus Hoperandi to win my bracket.  I'm literally basing this off of nothing.

Modus, for what it's worth you've got my vote.

I can only hope that I get to try many of these at some point, I'm sure they're all fantastic.

Happy Friday!

Friday Beer Post: Gameday Beer-o-the-week - Sasnak Edition

Each week throughout the football season I'm going to suggest a good beer for the ubiquitous pre-game tailgate. Let's be honest, with tailgates it's not always top quality that you're looking for. To steal a phrase from the heinous beer terrorists at Budweiser, you want "drinkability." (or what a real beer connoisseur calls "a session beer") So, be warned, these may not be "the best" beers around. But, in the words of Dave Chappelle as Samuel L. Jackson "IT'LL GET YOU DRUNK!"

Finally, after weeks of lame beers I get to pick a solid beer. Kansas, besides being flatter than a pancake, is also home to a legitimate craft brewery. Well, sort of. You see, Boulevard Brewing, who brews this week's pick, is technically in Kansas City, Missouri. But, damnit, Kansas is in the cities name, so I'm calling it Kansas. In addition, Lawrence, KS is much closer to KC than Columbia, MO, so you can suck it; Boulevard's Double Wide IPA is this week's Tailgate beer-o-the-week.


A double IPA version of their Single-Wide IPA, Double-Wide is my favorite Boulevard offering. It's strong on the hops, with well-balanced fruit flavors. As you can see from the picture, it has a beautiful complexion with a strong, frothy head. Part of Boulevards "Smokestack Series," Double-Wide is a quality IPA that sits well on your palate, with plenty of bitter, sweet and floral flavors to go around. I checked with Liquor Mart, and they've got it in stock so I'm good to go. No big party this week, since the game is only on the radio, so I'll have some time to enjoy this big beer properly.

Happy Friday! Go Buffs, Beat Sasnak (please)!

Friday Beer Post: Victory and Maharaja

Wednesday night was glorious. Smack-dab in the middle of a week that sees me struggling to move out of my house, Wednesday brought an evening of frivolous bliss. The mighty Walker Texas Rangers were in the spring softball championship game, which gave me an excuse to get out of packing/boxing/cleaning for the evening. We, of course, whupped the competition, securing the title that had been rightly ours since the 1st week of the season. Winning, as should be expected, leads to celebration, which found me at the local excuse for a "sports bar." Surprisingly enough, Avery's Maharajah was on tap.

In retrospect, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that Avery's "great king" of Imperial IPA's was on tap; the brewery is just down the street after all. Never-the-less, flushed with post-championship adrenalin, I could barely contain my excitement as I ordered (along with the requisite wings and chili-cheese-fries). I have always enjoyed Maharaja. It's wonderful IIPA, especially because of the balance between the large amounts of hops and malt. Typically, you can only find Maharaja in 22oz bottles, so finding it, at a sports bar no less, on tap was a delightful find.


The first thing I notice when tasting the "great-king" is the light fruity/citrus flavors of the hops. Compared with other IPA offerings from Avery, specifically the impactfull Dugana, the hop flavors are allowed to "sing," rather than "punch." Don't get me wrong, there is bitterness, and acids floating around in there, it's just that the high malt content covers them up so that the higher fruity and floral notes can shine through (I tasted lots of musk-melon along with the typical citrus). The same effect can be said of the high (can be 10%+, depending on year) alcohol content. The balance between the hops and malt is such that you don't notice the alcohol. On the same vein I had Oskar Blues "Gubna" (another Imperial IPA) last night, and the high alcohol content, along with the strong bitter hop flavors was almost too much. Through this, you can really see where balance and craftsmanship comes into play (Although I believe that absurdity was what OB was going for with Gubna, so take that with a grain of salt).

Maharaja made for a great cap to my evening. On tap it is very drinkable, and the pint-sized pour is perfect for session consumption (22oz is almost too much for one go, even over the course of a full evening). In addition, I find that the sharper hop flavors are muted slightly when tapped, making it more enjoyable. If you find it on tap, get it and thank me later.

Happy Friday!

Friday Beer Post: Sink the Bismarck part 2

A while back I talked about the most alcoholic beer in the world: Sink the Bismarck from Scottish brewers BrewDog. The story of the beer, and the brewers, was so unique that I figured a tasting would be necessary. Over a month ago, I ordered a bottle. Heck, how often do you get the chance to taste a 41% ABV quadruple IPA?

Arriving at my house, after haranguing the post office into delivering it to me, I took note of what BrewDog had sent me. A plain box from their Tokyo beer style housed the precious bottle. It was encased in 12 feet of bubble-wrap, and neatly wrapped in brown paper. Someone had even taken the effort to hand-write "41%" on the paper in sharpie, I guess to remind you why you went through all the trouble to purchase this. As a shipping industry insider, I took a peek at what they had listed the beer as for customs purposes. "Yeast Samples for Analysis." Well, I guess I was about to "analyze" something...

(Seriously? A sharpie? This bow is a nice touch, however.)

Unwrapping the bottle, I discovered something rather plain. The bottle was mostly non-descript, and reminiscent of their other varieties of beer. If you saw it on a shelf somewhere, you would more than likely over-look it, unaware of what's actually in there. In all honesty, after over a month of waiting, I had expected some sort of fanfare. Perhaps a choir of angels singing the beers praise as I took up the bottle. I guess, in reality, all a bottle of beer can do is sit there until you drink it.

(It doesn't hover or anything...)

Since the bottle contains something with the same alcohol content as a bottle of whiskey, I invited a friend over to help me sample to goodness. With a simple pop of the top, and a light pour, we were off. We initially marveled at the carbonation of the beer (with the high alcohol content, how could bottle conditioning yeast survive?), and the fact that it briefly maintained a head (about 1/2 an inch). Dark golden brown/red in color, the beer had a very pungent bitter hop, alcohol (duh), and sour fruit aroma. Maybe a little spice? Forgetting to waft (like I was taught in high school chemistry), the first sniff of the beer was almost enough to knock me on my ass.

At $127 per 330ml bottle (after tax, shipping and conversion to US$), this needed to be one hell of a beer... and it certainly was. The first sip took my breath away, literally. The first thing you taste is the back end of the hop (like an uber version of Green Flash). The flavor was very reminiscent of the time I tasted a raw hop pellet. There was not much of the fruity/floral hop character to the flavor, mostly relying almost entirely on the hop itself (it was postulated that they probably use American hops). As I swallowed the first sip two things occurred. First, almost all of the moisture in my mouth disappeared; the beer had an extremely dry finish. Second, the beer gave me a very comfortable warm feeling, much like a whiskey, in the center of my chest. Overall, the flavor reminded me of a sour apple mash, with a heavy resinous hop flavor and a little hint of dark chocolate and caramel up top.

It's not easy to compare this beer to another. The most direct comparison I could make was to 26% ABV Sam Adams Utopias (When you talk about beers with this much alcohol content, there are very few to compare to). A few years back at the Great American Beer Festival, I was able to get about 6oz of the mythical Utopias, and enjoyed what I tasted. Compared to StB, Utopias was much thicker (almost viscous), sweeter (very strong dried fruit taste with honey and caramel), and lacked the carbonation present in the Scottish offering. However, by the very nature of the brewing process, Utopias is in a different league than StB. Utopias is brewed using traditional brewing methods, and StB gets around the limitations of those methods through a process where they freeze the batch and pour off the un-frozen (and more alcoholic) excess four times.

(Utopias is famous as much for the process as it is the result)

The only conclusion we could make was that BrewDog had accomplished something remarkable. While we mostly figured that it couldn't really be called a "beer" per se, the ingenuity required to push the boundaries into the unknown was plain to see. You certainly wouldn't want to drink too much of this in one sitting, but everyone who tried it was impressed both by the engineering and the result. To be brutally honest, I was expecting something awful and undrinkable; that the brewers would've been too caught up in the process and forgotten the result. But, the "beer" was not only drinkable, it was kind of good! An impressive effort all around. You don't get to try something like this every day, and I was happy to have taken the shot in the dark to taste it.

Happy Friday!

Friday Beer Post: Quick, Sink the Bismarck before zee Germans get here.

So today I checked in with one of my favorite worldwide breweries: Brew Dog. These Scottish brewing wizards are notorious for bringing strong, craft brewed beer to the British Isles. Until recently they had the distinction of brewing the strongest beer in the world. Called "Tactical Nuclear Penguin," it weighed in at an impressive 32% ABV. While some questioned weather or not it could actually be called "beer," most were just impressed with the gall and creativity of the brewers.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.

As with all records, it was not to last, as German brewers from Schorschbraeu crated Schorschbock 40, conveniently containing approximately 40% ABV. With true Scottish pluck, BrewDog went back to the drawing board and came up with a whopper: A 41% quadruple IPA called "Sink the Bismarck!" (History geek aside: the Bismarck, as opposed to the 19th Century German Chancellor, was a gigantic German Battleship from WWII. It was the largest ship at time of construction. It was involved in one operation, sinking the HMS Hood, and provoking Winston Churchill to order the British Armed Forced to "Sink the Bismarck." When the British Navy caught up to the Bismarck, they fired near 3,000 shells at her before sending the beast to the bottom.) Quadruple IPA, eh? O.K., you have my undivided attention. Tell me more...

"Sink the Bismarck is a quadruple IPA that contains four times the hops, four times the bitterness and frozen four times to create at a staggering 41% ABV.

This is IPA amplified, the most evocative style of the craft beer resistance with the volume cranked off the scale. Kettle hopped, dry hopped then freeze hopped for a deep fruit, resinous and spicy aroma. A full out attack on your taste-buds ensues as the incredibly smooth liquid delivers a crescendo of malt, sweet honey, hop oils and a torpedo of hop bitterness which lasts and lasts." -link

After my post last week about my love of hops, and their use in my favorite style of beer: the IPA, you can see why I might be intrigued by such beer. I MUST HAVE THIS!

Sink the Bismarck! from BrewDog on Vimeo.

Friday Beer Post: I got an IPA jones.

For those of you who don't know, I love IPA's (India Pale Ale for those uninitiated). It's my style of choice. While, as I mentioned previously on this particular inter-tube, I don't like to pigeon-hole my beer love, I will confess that I favor IPA's over all others. (it's no coincidence that I chose to highlight the IPA championship last week) It's the hops! Mmmmm, I love hops! The more the better! At times bitter, fruity, floral, spicy, and earthy, hops bring the awesome to any beer party And no beer style shows off the fantastic character of the hop quite like the IPA.

(Probably my favorite IPA label. Comes from the Clay Pipe Brewing Company in Maryland)

Historically, the IPA was made famous through trade from England to India via the East India Company around the late 18th century. The length of the journey from England to India required the beer to have a certain "survivability" that the higher alcohol and large amount of hops provide. While the first true IPA is widely acknowledged to be the "October Beer" from George Hodgson's Bow Brewery in England, the style quickly gained in popularity. (There's a good write-up on the history of the style here.)

It's no wonder, because of the inherent high hop content, that the style became extremely popular amongst the brewers of the modern-day Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest is known for growing hops (They even have a hop museum! Here.), and the region took to the style like no other. These varieties are ofter referred to as West-Coast IPA's, and tend to lay heavily on the more bitter and citrus-y flavors of the hops (which I like).

Personally, I enjoy the American take on the IPA over the more traditional styles. Varieties like Stone IPA, Avery IPA, Hop Devil from Victory, and Green Flash's West Coast IPA are typically what I gravitate toward if available. When I try out a new brewery, I more often than not judge them on their ability to create an enjoyable IPA. If you can't make the IPA work for you, I almost don't want to try anything else you have to offer.

While I realize that, for some, hops can be overpowering at first, I do encourage that everyone give the hop, and specifically the IPA style, a chance. The flavor really is like no other.