2016 Gameday Beer-o-the-week - Oregon State 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!"

I'm sure you've heard by now, but this will be the last weekend, ever, for Conor O'Neill's.  As a veteran of countless Boulder bar crawls - Conor's was even the jumping off point for my 21st birthday party - it's like saying that this is going to be the last Thanksgiving ever.  The humble Irish Pub is an important fixture of the Boulder's drinking establishment, and it's a crime against the very fabric of the town to hear that it's shutting down for good.  Shame, shame, shame on those that are pushing this venerable institution to the curb in favor of... whatever hack faux-hipster bullshit will, inevitably, take it's place on the Mall.

Anyways, as many of you are undoubtedly planning, as well, I've scheduled a trip to Conor's this weekend to send the old girl out in style.  And, of course, when I hit up Conor's, there's only one drink on the menu: Guinness.  That black nectar of the gods is this week's beer-of-the-week.

I was surprised to realize that I've never featured this beer before as a gameday selection.  Guinness is a stable brew, after all, for consumers everywhere.  You'd have thought, after six years, I'd have gotten around to 'a pint of the black stuff' at some point.  Oh well, guess I'll just have to make up for lost time.

Guinness is, I assume, the national beverage of the good people of Ireland.  Whether or not that's actually true (in retrospect, it's probably whiskey, which is also #good) is immaterial.  What is important, however, is that the Irish not only invented this dry stout, but then chose to bless the rest of the world with its presence.  Poured motor-oil black from a nitrogen-infused tap or can, the celebrated cascade effect allows for a perfect pint wherever you are.  There's not much on the nose, but the taste is bready malt and toast, with a milky/creamy backing.  Eminently drinkable, you can session with Guinness for hours, should you choose.  Owners Diageo move nearly 2 billion pints of this stuff per year, much of it on St Patrick's Day, making it one of the most popular brands in the world.

Discussion of Guinness actually allows me to bring up one of the more interesting beer inventions in the history of the industry: the widget.  Finding a way to bring the pub experience of the nitrogen-infused pour home was a focus of the brewers in the late 1960s.  Their response was to drop a internal component into each can and bottle to release the gas upon opening, and thus the widget was born.  Without it, Guinness would taste verrrrry different at your tailgate.  This tactic, of course, was further improved with Lefthand's widgetless nitrogenation for their Milk Stout, which is probably my favorite stout around.

Regardless, you know Guinness, and you know you want one.  Further, you know you want it from one of the taps at Conor O'Neill's before they tear it down.  Find your way down to 13th and Lawry right quick, while you still can.


Happy Friday!  Go Buffs, beat the Beavers!

Friday Beer Post: 2011 Gameday Beer-o-the-week - USC 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!"


Tomorrow should be a great evening to watch football... wait, the game's tonight?  Shit, I better get drinking!

Getting straight to the point, yesterday was, apparently, International Stout Day, so I'll honor that.  I'm naming Boulder County's own Lefthand Milk Stout Nitro as my tailgate beer-o-the-week.

I've been trying to get this in a beer post for a month now.  Black as night, (see where I'm going with this...) the Milk Stout is unique in that it's brewed with lactose to give it a milky/creamy/sweet taste.  Serving it with nitrogen, instead of carbon dioxide, makes the taste even smoother.  The result is a sweet, dark concoction that has put many under its spell over the years.

Lefthand's nitro-infused version, a long-time favorite at their tap-room, was recently released for the first time in bottles.  "What's so special about that," you might ask, "Guinness has been doing that for years!"  Indeed they have, but they've been using a proprietary widget to infuse the beer with nitrogen upon opening.  Not only is Lefthand the first domestic brewery to ship nitro beer, but they use no widget.

The nitrogen, a tricky gas to store in beer, simply appears when poured, as if conjured with black magic, giving the beer that traditional draft flavor that many have come to know and love.  Lefthand, in fact, spent nearly three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to find a way to gas the beer with nitrogen to create the draft style you can enjoy at home.

While they aren't saying how they do it, appreciating the beer takes a bit of a trick.  Contrary to what you've been taught your whole life, to get the proper "draft" pour of Milk Stout Nitro you have to "hard pour" the beer into the glass. Take a look:

So grab a glass, pour hard, and enjoy some fine Milk Stout.  You'll need the resulting "beer-blanket" to protect you from the night temperatures.

Happy Friday!  Go Buffs, Beat USC!

Friday Beer Post: How to pour 56 beers in a minute.

There have been many developments in the beer world that have raised eyebrows.  Innovations in the way beer is stored, transported, and consumed have made beer culture more accessible around the globe.  Walk through the aisles of the GABF this fall and you'll see numerous new ideas (many of them crap), intended to better your beer experience.  Innovators and entrepreneurs continually try to change the way we think of beer consumption, and, while many are gimmick based, some actually have a kernel of genius to them.

One of the more interesting ideas I've seen has a little of both.  The BottomsUp beer dispenser looks to find a way to rapidly dispense beer to shorten wait times in large-crowd situations.  The device uses specially designed cups that affix onto the top of a placement-mounted spigot.  Beer flows through the bottom of the cup, quickly filling it with beer, and avoiding too much head.  A plastic disk over a hole in the bottom of the cup both allows the pour system to work and keep the beer in the cup. It's astonishing to watch for the first time. 



The system is now utilized in over 25 venues across the country, and inventor Josh Springer believe that this is a game-changing design that will eliminate the need to wait in long lines for beer at sporting events. (I thought that's what beer-men are for).

Unfortunately, at least in my mind, the system is tainted by it's association with Budweiser.  As this reviewer notes, a Bud Light poured from this invention still " tastes like ass unless you’ve already had copious amounts of Bud Light."  But at least there's no "bullshit foam rip-off."

Should I come across this invention while out and about, I'll certainly give it a real life try.  I'm interested to see how well that disk on the bottom holds as you drink more and more of the beer.  I still think it's more on the gimmick side, but it at least seems to perform as advretised.

Happy Friday!