This past Saturday my ultra-good-friend Kina brought me a super-special limited edition bottle of Deschutes Brewery‘s Jubel 2000 Millenium.* I don’t know where she found this, or if she’d been saving it since the year 2000 or whenever… but Kina: thank you! This was awesome. And it’s a very good … Continue reading

For Father’s Day I got a bottle of Big Daddy IPA from Speakeasy Brewing in San Francisco. It’s got a great bottle (picture at right is so-so, but you get the idea). Straight to my notes! Appearance: Not-quite-clear and orange in color. Fluffy white head started out promising but fell … Continue reading

Somewhere along the line I acquired a bottle Eastside Dark, a lager from Lakefront Brewery in Wisconsin. I’m not exactly sure where it came from, as I found it near the back of the pantry in a six-pack container with some of my homebrew… No matter, found beer is found … Continue reading

Sadly, these homegrown hops aren’t at my house (not for lack of trying), but at my mom’s. That’s good though, because I can pick all I want. Check out how insane these are growing: This hop is crazy big, and summer hasn’t even started. It’s growing up a trellis right … Continue reading

There’s an interesting article on the Philadelphia Daily News site about Simcoe hops. Simcoe is a relatively new hybrid variety similar to Cascade but higher in bitterness… What attracts brewers – and drinkers – to the variety is a distinctive citrus aroma combined with a high alpha-acid content that imparts … Continue reading

The interesting thing about Original Flag Porter from Darwin Brewery in England is a blurb on the label: "Brewed with 1825 yeast salvaged from a sunken vessel in the English Channel using an original 19th century recipe." Wow, that’s cool if it’s true… but I have my doubts. I can … Continue reading

With a name like Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale, you can’t help but respect what Lagunitas Brewing Company is doing… namely, having fun with their beer. The text on the label reads, "We brewed this especially bitter ale in remembrance of the 2005 St. Patrick’s Day Massacre and in celebration of … Continue reading

…because that beer may prevent prostate cancer! I know, this is basically a repeat of this story I already blogged back in October. But it had such a good tabloid-ish ring to it that I figured, what the hey.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’ll be offline for the Memorial Day weekend—through Tuesday, actually. Hopefully everyone has a safe and fun holiday weekend!

The other beer I had from Ballast Point Brewing was their Big Eye IPA, a 6% alcohol ale with an interesting hop profile. It’s not an extreme hop-bomb India pale ale that seems to be all the rage these days, but for that, it’s still a pretty good, drinkable beer. … Continue reading