Full Speed Ahead

Beer #270 TRI-PA / Full Pint Brewing Company, North Versailles, PA

Dearest Insurance Company,
If you would like me to pay the premium on the home insurance policy, you may wish to consider sending me a bill.  While I believe I'm quite perceptive, my powers of telepathy apparently have not yet matured to the point where I can anticipate when bills are due or in what amounts.

I notified you that we were refinancing back in the spring, and yet the bill for our policy was still sent to the old mortgage company to be paid from escrow.  Which would be hard to do, considering they don't have my mortgage any longer.  All of this may help explain why I didn't pay it - but thanks for the letter telling me you're cancelling our policy.  Enjoy the check I dropped off today, but realize that's money I could have spent on ESP lessons.

Warmest regards,

Gary

The beer for today is the TRI-PA, an Imperial IPA from Full Pint Brewing.  This one was on draft at Mad Mex in State College - interesting that in a town where cheap macro brew still reigns supreme, there are bars  putting forth very solid beer lists, and Mad Mex is definitely ahead of the curve in that realm.  In the glass, I think this beer is sort of brown.  Well, it was hard to tell due to the fact the bar was dark with green lights all around.  The aroma (thankfully not affected by the dark lighting) has a lot of malt for an imperial IPA, and the taste was more Belgian than IPA in my book.  Instead of a high degree of bitterness, with tons of grapefruit and pine, I noticed more of the caramel malt, sweetness, and stone fruit notes along the way.  Maybe the green light threw off my taste buds?  It wasn't a bad beer by any measure, just not what I was expecting.

It's brown, right?

This brewery is a newcomer to the scene, and it appears they've set up shop in an old John Harvard's brew pub.  Looking forward to trying some of their other offerings as they make their way east across the Commonwealth.

Thing to Think About Today:
In the recognition of Full Pint and things that are full, we'll go with a Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise, a quite fantastic and wonderfully mellow song by an incredibly talented group, The Avett Brothers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEr9gMYdkHI

Beer 270: Fort Collins Red Banshee

On the drive home today, I encountered an ambulance not quite pulled off the road into a local parking lot. It's lights were whirling their warning. The rear doors were ajar and the stretcher was clearly en route to someone who needed it. And all I could think is that people should know better than to eat at a chain restaurant. The local parking lot was at a Bertucci's. I'm going to hell, aren't I?



Tonight's beer is the Red Banshee red ale from Fort Collins Brewery in Colorado. Somehow in all of my trips to Colorado, I haven't managed to get myself to Fort Collins. Perhaps I'll remedy that situation next year!

The Red Banshee poured a dense red tinged brown ale with a tan head that is leaving nice lacing in the glass. The aroma is toasted malt sweetness with earl grey tea undertones. The flavor is light and surprisingly sweet and the tea is much more noticeable when drinking it versus smelling it. I'm noticing dark bread flavors as well as a nice balance between malts and hops.

I'd say this is a good beer. Cheers!

Tales from The Other Side

Beer #269 Red Banshee / The Fort Collins Brewery, Fort Collins, CO

I really wish I had more to talk about today, but for some reason my brain is fried.  Wait, I know why - because everyone and their brother returned back to work today, and all of the things which have been on hold came roaring to life with the return of the masses.  I love the fall, but enjoy the relative quiet late summer brings to the office.

We'll unwind with a beer; the Red Banshee from The Fort Collins Brewery.  This red ale has a dark amber color, with a lingering off-white head.  The aroma is very malty, and when you drink it you get flavors of stone fruits, lightly toasted malt, and hints of cocoa - not overly sweet, however.  Good fall beer, even though I imagine summer temperatures will be hanging around for a few more weeks.  Fall can hurry up and arrive, and then post up and stay here for quite some time.

She looks mean.

I've been to Fort Collins twice, but unfortunately both trips happened before I switched into full on beer geek mode.  Hope to get back there again soon to pay these guys and their seven year old brewery a visit.

Thing to Think About Today:
In Irish folklore, a banshee is a spirit in the form of a woman, whose appearance and wailing is taken as a sign someone is going to DIE.  Wow, that's seriously depressing.  To cheer you up, let's call on another member of the spirit world to brighten things up - Ghostface Killah!  To make sure one of my favorite members of the Wu (just kidding, they're all my favorite) is more accessible to the delicate sensibilities of this beer blog audience, I'll go with a mash-up here.  That's right, we close tonight's show with Ghostface and indie music darlings Beirut putting their heads together for Save Me Concubine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcXke4I6Hhc

You want a live performance of this?  You got it!  Not sure Beirut and Ghostface will ever be in the same place at the same time, but here's someone covering this mash-up.  Rather interesting version, actually:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3pQ3MJTaFI

Beer 269: Three More Things including Twin Lakes Brewing

1. Everyone should live by the words: In a year from now, will this matter? It may dramatically change how we all behave.

2. Thanks to a friend, I stumbled into a series of fortunate events. She shared a video for the current single for the David Byrne and St. Vincent collaboration. It may be found here. I could watch him dance all day. So then I checked out St. Vincent's Facebook page. And that led me to NPR's first listen page. How happy am I right now??? This concert can't get here soon enough.

3. I drank a Twin Lakes Brewing Company Caesar Rodney golden ale. Brewed in Delaware and weighing in with a 5.5% ABV, Caesar Rodney poured a slightly hazy, deep gold color. It had a white head of medium thickness. I didn't note anything remarkable about the aroma.


The flavor is kind of buttery and bread-like. It's very evenly balanced...not too much malt, not too much hop. It has a medium mouthfeel, kind of creamy and does finish with lots of hop. I'd call this a good beer.

Cheers!

Beer 268: Full Pint Triple IPA

Me with a little time on my hands is a scary thing. Stuff knocked off my to do list today included:
-all the laundry
-cleaned out all the stuff I never wear from my closet and bagged it up for Goodwill
-found the desk in my at home office (!)
-watched the final episode of Breaking Bad and will now suffer my own withdrawal until summer 2013 when it returns for the final season
-made magic in the kitchen resulting in this...




I can only take credit for the chocolate, chocolate chunk muffins. The pickled peppers are all Gary's doing. The muffins are from Joy the Baker's cookbook. If they're anything like the blueberry muffins I made from the same book, we are in for a definite treat!
Today's beer was found at Mad Mex in State College this past weekend. The food at Mad Mex is average at best but they have an everchanging and pretty impressive beer list.
The Full Pint Brewing Company's TRI-PA was sold to us as a triple IPA...but we went for it pretty much because we've never encountered this brewery before. And the rule lately is drink it as soon as we find it. Don't assume it'll still be around tomorrow. Ah the pressure of the final 100 breweries!




The TRI-PA poured an opaque sort of chalky-looking brown. This photo doesn't do it justice. It had a resinous hop aroma with underlying sweetness. The flavor was fig, malt, rich caramel sweetness. It was kind if boozy (9% ABV) up front, fruit in the middle and hoppy at the end. Honestly I think there was just too much happening with this beer. It was only ok in my book. But the brewery is relatively young and I'm excited to try some of their other stuff.

Cheers!

Go For the Gold TodayI

Beer #268 Heady Topper / The Alchemist, Waterbury, VT

Lost in the excitement of the weekend was the fact we're now under 100 days to go for this blog adventure! Plenty of good beer in the books, plenty of good beers still to come.  People always say if you love what you do, it won't feel like work, and that's completely true here.  Now, if I can just figure out how to get someone to pay me money to do this, I'll really be set...

I'll celebrate this milestone with a great beer: Heady Topper from The Alchemist.  The can is clearly labeled with, "Drink from the can!", so I did.  However, curiosity got the best of me, which led to a quick pour of a splash into a glass, which showed off a very light amber color.  The aroma is straight up hops, with wonderful notes of grapefruit and piny hops.  When you take a sip, you get the perfect amount of hop bitterness.  This isn't an IPA that's trying to bury you under a mound of hops just because it can.  Instead, the flavor has a welcome bitter undercurrent, with a strong citrus and pine backbone, and a nice malt balance.  Truly a fantastic and very easy drinking beer; without a doubt a standout among the IPA crowd.  This beer (which was a gift from a fellow beer geek!) and brewery has earned a spot in my Top 25 list for being so awesome - the second brewery from Vermont to do so this year.

I like it in the can.

Right now, The Alchemist is only producing Heady Topper, although there are plans underway to add additional capacity and to can other beers as well.  If you're looking for this beer, good luck if you're not in Vermont - they currently do not ship outside their home state, although obviously I hope that changes sooner rather than later.

Thing to Think About Today:
Alchemy commonly refers to attempts through the ages to turn ordinary metals into precious metals such as gold.  Not sure anyone has figured that one out just yet, although The Alchemist Brewery certainly turns his ingredients into some amazing beer.  In the spirit of pursuit of gold, we'll let The Black Keys wrap things up today with Gold on the Ceiling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yCIDkFI7ew

Back to work tomorrow, so let's enjoy the rest of today, shall we?

Good to Be Back!

Beer #267 Brown Ale / Diamond Knot Brewing Company, Mukilteo, WA

The first Penn State game is in the books, and while the result on the field wasn't very encouraging, it was tremendous to be back in State College for a football game.  Maybe now we can go back to debating the merits of the back-up quarterback or blitzing linebackers or kicking game woes, or whatever else it is people talk about at tailgates besides Jerry Sandusky.  While the game was lost, we easily continued our streak of being undefeated in the parking lot.  It was great to see everyone again all in one place, and we ended up having a sizable contingent of friends stop by to spend the day with us.  One of the highlights of any tailgate is welcoming back old friends I haven't seen in a while.  We'll do it again in two weeks, and try once more to get a win on the field to match our effort at the tailgate.

A few items for consideration:
1. Yes, we were among the first to arrive and set up shop.  I'll be worried on the day we pull in and see hundreds of other cars around us.

2.. After the game, kids from Penn State's marching band, The Blue Band, roam our parking lot, playing some songs for the crowd in exchange for donations to help support their whatever it is they do with our donation (hopefully buy beer).  When they stopped by our tailgate, I was able to get the rhythm section to recreate snippets of the final battle scene from the movie Drumline, complete with the whole 'play other guy's drums / drop sticks vibe'.  More on this later.

3. Managed to get a blog beer going at the tailgate, too!  While there were plenty of macro brew light beers consumed by the crowd (including a few by me), there were definitely some good beer options as well.  SweetWater was one of the more notable good beer choices I saw in our flotilla of coolers.  Word on the street is New Glarus will be making an appearance next time.... love it.

My beer review for the day comes from Diamond Knot Brewing Company's Brown Ale.  In my blue plastic cup (always blue - never red), it seemed to be a dark brown color with a fluffy white head.  Your nose is greeted with a malty aroma, and the taste gives you caramel, malt, bread, dark fruit, and some sweetness  Nice and balanced at 6.0% ABV.  Not the beer I might have gone with on a sunny, 90 degree day, but I definitely enjoyed it, and will try some of the other Diamond Knot beers when I see them in the future.

This beer is approved by Tailgate Cheetah, our official tailgate mascot

Diamond Knot was named for a shipping vessel which sunk while sailing to Seattle in 1947.  In the cargo hold was up to 10% of the canned salmon harvest from Alaska that year, so a huge effort was made to recover the tin cans from the wreckage.  Not quite as lyrical as the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but topical for the town where this beer is brewed.  Now you know.

Thing to Think About Today:
So, the Blue Band's recreation of this scene wasn't exactly perfect, but I give them credit for at least having some fun at the tailgate.  Consider the film Drumline your bonus College Week material in this space - while this movie wasn't terribly representative of my college experience, it's a pretty decent flick, and certainly provides more marching band excitement than your average Penn State game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIn-xXYpS-k

Beer 267: Three Things Including Caracole Nostradamus

I'm thinking about three things this gloomy Sunday.

1. There is a whole lot of you who read the blog and seemed genuinely interested in it. That is a pretty awesome feeling. Although best comment of the day goes to someone who doesn't read it. "I see that you write that blog. I don't read it. But I notice that you write it." I'm paraphrasing wildly but have to share because it cracked me up. I love brutal honesty.

2. Penn State football. Going into yesterday's game, there were times that I thought, of course, we're going to beat Ohio University. Who doesn't beat the Ohio University Bobcats? There were moments that I was convinced there was just too much pressure on a young team and we'd choke and spend the afternoon embarrassing ourselves.

The result was pretty overwhelmingly the latter but there were a lot of glimmers of hope. Those moments of clarity where things clicked and all was not lost. But the team couldn't string enough of those moments together and those darn Bobcats won the day. It is going to be a long season. It is going to be a roller coaster of a season. And I am going to love every moment of it.

3. Beer. Although for the past eight or so months, it's challenging to pinpoint a time when I'm not thinking about beer.

Today's beer: Caracole Nostradamus - a Belgian strong dark ale brewed in Belgium that weighs in at 9% ABV.


It poured an almost black brown color with a very thick, dense tan head. Based on the beer's smell, I knew I was going to love it. I may even have declared that I needed a spoon so I could eat the head like ice cream! It was creamy and tart sweet.

The smell was toasty bourbon with caramel and some spice. It drank with a medium mouthfeel that was lightened by the carbonation. The flavor had anise, roasted malt, caramel and molasses. As it warmed up a bit, hints of lemon and raisin came through. This is an excellent beer.

Cheers!

FINALLY!

Beer #266 Gaffel Kölsch / Privatbrauerei Gaffel Becker & Co, Cologne, Germany

Finally, it's here!!!!  After a long, tumultuous off season, we're back in business in State College today.  Tailgate starts at the bright and early hour of 7am, the motor home should be arriving by 8am, and we'll be in full swing shortly thereafter.  I've been going to Penn State football games since I was seven years old, so by now it's simply part of my DNA.  Some of my fondest memories happened in that parking lot, and I intend to use this season to continue that trend.

The beer for the day is Gaffel Kölsch from Gaffel Becker, which has a clear gold color.  There are aromas of grain and barley, and the flavor is clean and simple, with prominent notes of grain, biscuit, and a hint of sweetness.  Easy drinking beer for warm, late summer day.

Hi there.

This brewery traces it's roots back to the late 1800's.  I think... my German isn't that good, and the Google translation doesn't seem to be very coherent today.  Whatevs.

Thing to Think About Today:
We wrap up College Week with not just the greatest film about college ever, but probably one of the greatest films ever, period, end of story.  I'm not sure when I first saw this film, although I specifically recall watching it when I was in high school, and making my mind up that my time in college was going to be the greatest time of my life.

I'm sure you've all seen this one, but it's a tale of the Delta house, a group only worried about the next party they can throw.  That comes to a screeching halt when the Dean decides he wants to kick the trouble makers off campus for good, and enlists the elitist fraternity to help him in the cause.  When he succeeds, it's time for Bluto (expertly played by John Belushi) to lead the Delta's in one last suicide mission for the ages.

In a movie where every scene is a great one, how can I possibly choose one to highlight here?  I've already showed Bluto's speech to rally the Deltas in this space back in January, so let's let Eric Stratton have the floor.  I desperately wanted to be Eric Stratton when I was in college.  Admittedly, I failed in my attempt, but when you reach for the moon and miss, you still land among the stars.  Thanks for spending some time here during College Week.... wonder what we can do to top it next week?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROxvT8KKdFw

"Mr. Blutarsky....ZERO POINT ZERO."

Beer 266: Shadow's Wild Black and Then Stiegl

For whatever reason, as I sit down to write something profound about the first Penn State game under Coach O'Brien, I managed to get The Second Week of Deer Camp stuck in my head. So there's that.

What are my hopes for today's game? Honestly to make the haters stop hating, but I realize the lofty nature of that wish. I want everyone wishing for the old days to stop it. Those days are over. Over. We have got to move on as an alumni group, as a student body, as human beings. This should have, could have, would have is not healthy.

It's a new day in Happy Valley. Let's all enjoy it and celebrate it. Let's have a real good time.

You know what's also a real good time? This crazy ass premium blackberry lager from Blue Dog Brewing called Shadow's Wild Black. The problem is that it's made by Anheuser Busch InBev. Oops. So I guess it's a 2 for 1 today.

The Wild Black is made with natural flavor and color from juice and has an ABV of 8%. Somehow InBev claims this one is brewed in Baldwinsville, New York. Honestly I did not have high hopes for a fruit lager. The color is a clear ruby with a thin ring of white head.


The smell is all blackberry - nothing else. It has a very strong aroma of fruit. The flavor is very boozy. There's a noticeable alcohol burn and it's almost schnapps like. But all that fruit flavor tastes natural...nothing artificial about it, which is great. The fruit and carbonation overpowers any hints of malt or hops. I will admit this one is unusual and I probably couldn't drink two in a row. That being said I did enjoy it. I shall rate it good.

Ugh. InBev. You kill me.

Now I'll tell you about the real beer for opening day. The Stiegl Pils is brewed in Austria. It pours a golden color with an off white head. I think it was leaving lacing but I couldn't really tell in the goofy plastic cup I was drinking out of. It smells rich and of grains. The taste reminds me slightly of melon with some hop bite. This is a nice beer. I'll rate it good.


Now I'm off to cheer on the white and blue because I've never stopped believing. Cheers!