The Beer Growler: Don't go

This is secondhand, but from multiple trusted sources.  The Beer Growler is originally from Athens, but has a fairly recent outpost in Avondale.  This is not a business to support.  They are responsible for tattle-taling on 5 Points Bottle Shop in Athens for selling cool bootleg stuff, causing a fine of $75,000.  Yes, 5 Points was taking a risk selling us the stuff that we wanted that is stupidly not legally available here, but for a supposed member of the craft beer community to turn them in is completely unforgivable.

The owner of a local beer shop that I know well also tells me that when The Beer Growler was opening, one of the owners comes into this guy's shop and starts cussing him out saying stuff like "We're going to fucking own this town."  Every other beer establishment in this city operates with a level of respect towards other quality beer establishments.  The Beer Growler thinks it can be successful by being the bully.  Therefore, I would like to see them fail.  If you're near the Beer Growler you're also near Ale Yeah! or Oakhurst Market, both run by nice people and responsible members of the beer community.  If I had only heard one of these stories I wouldn't have published anything, but hearing both makes it clear that there is no excuse for visiting The Beer Growler.

Hotoberfest this Saturday!

Hotoberfest is Saturday and the list looks great.  You can come talk to me while I'm pouring in the VIP tent, and speaking of VIP, check out the VIP section of that beer list.  Casks from Allagash, Sweetwater, Atlanta Brewing Company, and more, including a few that are only appearing here.  De Ranke Pere Noel will be my first Christmas beer of the season and it was one of my favorites last year.  There will be a few spiced pumpkin beers to kick off the beginning of fall (sure it technically started awhile ago, but it just came to Atlanta this week) from Hoppin Frog, Great Divide, Weyerbacher, and Southern Tier.  The amazing Harviestoun Ola Dubh 30 will also be there, along with some aged beers from Stone, Oskar Blues, Left Hand, Lagunitas, and Old Dominion.  Some good Belgians and a bunch of barrel aged strong ales round out the list.  Lots of good stuff in the general tasting area as well, but I'd recommend upping it to VIP.  I've heard there aren't many VIP tickets left, so get them soon.

Petrus Aged Pale on tap at The Porter anniversary!

Just a few days ago I mentioned that Petrus Aged Pale has unfortunately never been on tap in GA.  I just found out that the wait is almost over though and it will be at The Porter for their 2nd anniversary celebration September 11th.  This is one of my favorite sours and it's awesome on tap.  There should also be a bunch of other fun stuff so it's not a day to be missed.  Festivities start at noon.

Speaking of festivities at The Porter, their Cask Festival will be September 25th, which happens to be the 2 year anniversary of the first time I went to The Porter. 

Brouwerij De Molen

A few years ago I was in Amsterdam and decided to bring a gift back for my dad.  It was a Dutch beer I had never heard of, but after paying to check a bag home it was the most expensive beer I've ever bought.  I gave it to my dad and told him to age it for a few years.  I didn't remember what brewery it was until I was in Green's last week and saw that distinctive black and white label.  After looking into it I realized that De Molen actually already had one beer for sale here, Storm & Averij, but it was missing the distinctive label so I didn't notice.  3 new beers were approved for sale here last month, Hommen and Granaten, Heaven and Hell (a.k.a. Hemel and Hel) and Engels.  I had a bottle of Heaven and Hell at Midway Pub (I saw it in the window but the bartender didn't know about it and it wasn't on the list yet).  This was almost a great imperial stout, rich, with bitter chocolate and intense.  There was also a slight alcohol burn.  The label says it can be aged for 25 years and it really does taste like a beer that will be unbelievable if you cellar it for awhile.  It's a pretty expensive beer, but probably worth picking up a few to age.  I look forward to trying the others.

NW Beer Tour

Since I last posted my girlfriend and I took an unbelievable trip to Seattle and Portland to experience one of the country's great beer regions.  The beer bars were amazing in both cities and we had a lot of beer we've never seen before.  This is basically what we drank and where we drank it.


Uber Tavern (Seattle): this was our first stop in Seattle because they had Russian River Supplication on tap.  It's a brown ale aged in Pinot Noir wine barrels for one year with sour cherries, Brettanomyces yeast, and Lactobacillus & Pedicoccus bacteria.  This was a little more sour than I remember from drinking it in on tap in San Francisco.  This is like a great Flemish sour with almost no sweetness.  Then we tried the Cascade Frite Galois, a fairly mild farmhouse type sour.  Nice, but later completely overshadowed by some other great Cascade beers.  We came back a few days later because they had Petrus Aged Pale on tap.  It's one of my favorite Belgian beers and it's never been available on tap in GA (it's very rarely available on tap anywhere).  On tap it seemed even more intensely sour with nice woodiness and tart apple.  Also had Schooner Exact Hoppy da Woodsman,which was medium strong and dark, a little hoppy, but nothing special.

Yes, that's a bottle of RR Temptation

Brouwer's Cafe (Seattle): This Seattle beer bar is consistently ranked one of the best in the world for a reason.  There were about 60 taps, with almost all of them looking pretty interesting, and a massive bottle selection.  We came here a few times and got to know the great bartenders Nat and Tommy.  We started with two Bockor sours, Bockor Cuvee de Jacobins Rouge, a very nice tart Flemish red and Bockor Bellegems Bruin, a much more mild oud bruin that almost tasted spiced.  I would rank the Cuvee de Jacobins as one of the best Flemish reds I've had.  Then was some local beer with the Skagit River Watou, a Belgian strong from Mt. Vernon, WA.  It was a little smoky, had an interesting hop profile, but the yeast was a letdown for the style.  Even more local was the Pike Old Bawdy Barleywine '07.  This was an awesome, rich, creamy smooth, complex barleywine.  We hadn't had enough of Brouwer's so we went back the next day and had what I think must be two of the best Belgian style dark ales made in America, the Midnight Sun Monk's Mistress and Lost Abbey Judgment Day.  Wow they can make a good beer in Alaska.  The Monk's Mistress seems to actually fall somewhere between a barley wine and a quad, but it was beautifully complex and creamy.  Judgment Day is a quad and tasted of rich, sweet, and intense dark fruits, with a little more booziness than I would expect from an actual Belgian but I won't hold that against it.  This is when things started to get crazy.  My girlfriend is awesome enough that she decided we should order the 750 bottle of Russian River Temptation, which might be my favorite beer (I wrote more about it here), and also happens to be almost impossible to find, even in places where it's actually distributed.  As if that wasn't enough, Nat, the cool manager, decided to give us a bottle of a 2002 Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws.  This was probably the best barleywine I've ever had, a great creamy mouthfeel with great carbonation and very complex.  The flavor was very well blended, rich and spicy.  When we came back to Seattle after being in Portland we came back to Brouwers again.  Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Belgian was a disappointment.  I didn't detect much Belgian influence except maybe a little yeast fruitiness, but it was very similar to the standard Little Sumpin' Sumpin'.  We were impressed with the Black Raven Trickster though, which was just a great, balanced IPA from Redmond, WA.  The New Belgium Le Fleur Misseur is a sour pale, which sounds great, and it probably is my favorite NB sour, but that doesn't say much and it's not that interesting.  I'd be willing to try it again though.


White Horse Trading Company (Seattle): This place really isn't that interesting if you're looking for a good selection, but actually interesting in it's lack of selection.  The full extent of the menu is 1 firkin (Sam Smith Brown mixed with port), 3 Sam Smith bottles, a jug of mead, 1 red wine, 1 white wine, and a Pomm's cup cocktail.  No food.


Bottleworks (Seattle): Nice bottle shop associated with Brouwer's Cafe that has a few taps.  Elysian Perseus Lost-is a barrel aged Porter, nice, with some cherry or raisin, mild sourness, a little chocolatey sweetness.  Port Brewing Company SPA is good example of west coast, grapefruit hop single IPA.


The Stumbling Monk (Seattle) was a cool little place, but it was our last stop of the trip and didn't have anything we hadn't had before.


Salmon Creek Brewery and Brewpub (Vancouver, WA):  We took a train to Portland and stayed with our friend just over the river in Vancouver, WA.  The beers were good and I talked to Larry, the brewer, for a few minutes.  Salmon Creek Brother Larry's Belgian is a nice brown, reminiscent of Corsendonk though with not as much yeasty spice complexity.  The Salmon Creek Pale is a Belgian style pale, with a nice thick mouthfeel (maybe more like a Tripel), a little sweet and fruity.


APEX Beer Bar (Portland): Awesome setup and execution.  They got rid of the parking lot and put in a bunch of picnic tables and the biggest bicycle rack I've ever seen.  The building is pretty open to the table area and jsut creates a nice, open community vibe.  The beer selection was unreal.  Our first night we had some St. Louis Framboise, which was unfortunately a fairly sweet lambic, lacking the complexity of an older lambic but not as cloying as Lindemman's.  Much better was the Russian River Consecration, one of the best American sours (see same link as above).  We came back a few days later and got to try more of their deep menu.  I was excited to try the Cascade Summer Gose, which was light, tart, and faintly salty.  The salt is a little weird, so gose will never be my favorite style, but it was nicely refreshing.  Even more exciting was Cascade The Vine '09, a blend of soured Triples, Blonde, Quads and Golden ales that were re-fermented and aged over six months with the fresh-pressed juice of white wine grapes.  It tasted like an awesome sour lambic with grape.  This was one of my favorite new finds of the trip.  Hair of the Dog Adam was a nice strong ale, and the collaboration New Belgian/Elysian The Trip was a kind of disappointing, muted Flemish sour.

4, Barrel 4, 5, 6, 7, Long Pepper 6

Upright Brewing Company Tasting Room (Portland): Cool tasting room, which is really just the other side of the room from where they brew.  We had a tasting flight of 6 of their beers: Four is a decent wit while Barrel Age Four (only available at the tasting room the day we were there) was a very nice, complex, tartbeer; Five was a decent hoppy beer; Six was a good dark rye; Long Pepper Six was only slightly different than Six, but wouldn't have guessed long pepper, and Seven was a decent attempt at a saison.  We were happy that every beer was at least pretty good.

Barrelfest at Bailey's

Bailey's Taproom (Portland): We happened to be in town for Bailey's Barrelfest, which was an epic beer event.  Lots of great beer for incredibly cheap (I think we spent $17 each and that included a nice tasting glass): Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza, one of my favorite examples of a sour, pale Belgian style beer.  It's never been on tap in GA, which will hopefully change soon;  Cascade Bailey's Quadratic Formula, which was a crazy blend of fruity, caramel, sour, and awesome, maybe the best beer of the fest;  Block 15 #181 firkin, which was "lambic inspired" and tasted tart, dry, and woody, with a touch of vinegary harshness I don't generally associate with a lambic or geuze.   I would have liked to have had more of this;  Upright Lambicus Six-the best of the 3 versions of Six that we've had, reminding me a little bit of the Norwegian sour, Haandbryggeriet Haandbakk;  Hair of the Dog Cherry Adam- Their Adam aged with cherries in Bourbon barrels, this was intense, boozy, and great.  I don't think HotD makes a bad beer;  Fort George '09 Illuminator is an interestingly sour doppelbock.  There were some weird flavors I couldn't discern, and though I'm not sure if I like it very much my girlfriend does;  Lagunitas Pinot Saison-is a decent saison, though it tastes more like a Belgian pale ale;  Lompoc '08 Boubon LSD smells bourbony, tastes ok, it's a little thin, but gets better as it warms;  Deschutes Pinot Twilight was a pale aged in Pinot barrels.  You could clearly taste the wine and this was a decent pale;  Firestone Parabola was a nice, rich, boozy stout;  Moylan's Kilt Lifter was aged in apple brandy barrels, giving it a cider edge;  Full Sail Black Gold I don't remember, but wrote down that it was good.  Though we had already had it at APEX we couldn't resist the cheap Russian River Consecration.  Like I said, epic.

Horse Brass Bar with Pliney

Horse Brass Tavern (Portland): An institution in Portland and one of the country's first craft beer bars.  It's British style pub focused on local beers.  We were thrilled to see Russian River Pliny the Elder, often considered the second best IPA in the world, only after Pliny the Younger, on tap here.  It was as good as we remembered from San Francisco.  The house beer is Rogue Younger's Special Bitter (brewed for Horse Brass and named after the owner), and the cask is an awesomely smooth and well balanced bitter.  Hair of the Dog Fred was yet again another great, complex HotD.  I wasn't as big a fan of Hair of the Dog Blue Dot IPA, but only because it was a NW IPA, and I'm not a fan of extremely hoppy beers in general.

Concordia Ale House (Portland): We happened to show up here during their Concordia IIPA Cup.  We got a tasting tray of 12 numbered Oregon IIPAs and selected our favorite.  Some were pretty good and some were undrinkable.  We got the results a few days later and found out that we both chose Laurelwood Green Mammoth and the winner was Deschutes Hop Henge Exp.Batch #8 (in both of our top 3). Our least favorite was from Cascade, which was surprising because most of my favorite beers from the trip were from Cascade.

Lompoc brewpub (Portland): The best Lompoc we had was the Lompoc '08 Boubon LSD at Bailey's barrelfest.  Lompoc Stout is sweet and unremarkable, Lompoc Cascade IPA tastes like a hoppier Sweetwater 420, and Lompoc LSD was a decent, balanced, moderately strong, dark ale.

Laurelwood brewpub (Portland): Laurelwood Old Reliable Barleywine was a slightly hoppy, mild,decent
American barleywine and the Laurelwood Workhorse IPA was a hoppy, grapefruit bomb NW IPA.  Meh.

Henry's 12th Street Tavern (Portland): This had more of a commercial vibe to it than the other places we went, but I was happy to be able to try Goose Island Matilda, which was a great, Bitter and mildly funky Belgian pale style from Chicago.  Ninkasa Domination IPA was quite hoppy, but decently balanced and a good representation of the NW IPA.

We can't wait to head back.

Hotoberfest Early Bird Special!

If you haven't been, Hotoberfest in East Atlanta is probably Atlanta's coolest beer festival.  Advance tickets are normally $30 for general admission and $50 for VIP (more and better beer).  Today you can get general admission tickets for a mere $20, and that's for all the beer you can drink (be responsible) and a souvenir glass.  I'll be pouring and talking beer in the VIP tent so it won't help you come see me, but it's still a great deal.  Only limited early bird special tickets available, so get them fast.