Your quest, should you choose to accept it

Drinking Quest is my next must have of the season.  Not that I have time to play RPGs anymore as the few times we get together to drink are consumed by making beer and/or watching football.  But still, we need to get this and it was an excellent find by Nate.

Last night I had the Peste (another apoc beer) and it was a chocolate chili bock.  I learned that if you mix it with Oatis by Ninkasi, you get a drinkable beer.  Not that it was bad, its just that this is my second or third chocolate chili bock, and I really prefer fruit and spicy and not chocolate and spicy.  Plus mixing it made for a lot of very strong beer and putting down two 22s of dark beer proved to be too much and I still have a little saved for tonight, albeit probably kinda flat.

We have caps designed for the stout and barleywine and plan to order those and have a beer Wednesday night.  And maybe play Munchkin while the wife and kids are out for the night.  I know, we are crazy party animals...

And with these and a few new untapped badges, I will hit 1040 distinct beers tonight.  Somehow it only equates to around 900+ on untapped so somehow I missed a bunch when entering them all.  But I'll still get to 1000 on untapped soon.  Most likely in November.

Winter Beer Fest

facebook > Ian's post > to PDX beer blog to find out the date for the Winter/Holiday Brewfest in Portland.  Nov 28th and through that weekend I think I know what my plans are considering I missed the main brewfest this summer a few days before Liam was born.

I can't wait.

I also started drinking the beers of the Apoc in reverse order.  The 9th, 8th and 6th have been great.  8th was the Blood Orange Ale and it was a fruit beer, and it was good.

And I think I have decided to get the 7th since I will convince my dad to buy it since he likes beets.

6th was the Elderflower Saison and it was also good although I didn't give it 5 caps on untapped.  Saisons really have to be excellent, kind of like Belgians, to get 5 caps from me because they just aren't my favorite types.   Looking forward to #5 tomorrow as tonight I am going to a blazer game finally.  GO BLAZERS!

Also had a new beers from Coors yesterday.

Batch 18 Pre-Prohibition Lager.  Not bad, worth trying one, maybe even buying a sixer if you are looking for something cool for your next tailgate.

Time for the Apocalypse

We had a successful tasting with a few of Nate's co-workers last night after work.  Or as we called it, a homebrewer's meeting.  Amazing that if you say you are going out for a beer that can be frowned upon, but if you have a meeting it's all ok.  The Judge IIIPA is finally gone.  So sad.  But the Fresh Hop Amber and Sunset Ales are in full swing.

We also made a stop at Hop N Grape for a glass of Drunkin Pumpkin by Fort George.  It was good.  I would buy that again.  And I needed to buy a few more Buffalo Bill's pumpkin beers and the strawberry beer for Abby to try.  After reading a blog yesterday that said they didn't like the Buffalo Bill's, I had to re-try.  Then it was home to feed the baby and have a Night Owl Pumpkin Ale by Elysian.

And then came the reason for the title of this post.

I asked my dad to get the Pumpkin Stout from the fridge but I was not specific enough.  And to be fair, there are a LOT of beers in my fridge.  I even said it was Elysian.  But I was referring to the Dark of the Moon Pumpkin Stout I had been saving.

Hence he came back with the Elysian 9th beer of the Apolcalypse, Blight Pumpkin Ale, and opened it before I could explain I was saving them all for December.  Shit.  But it was really good.  And I think I am going to just drink all of them one a day for the next week.  Kind of like a countdown.  I skipped the the one, the Beet beer, but my dad likes beets so now I may buy it just to try and complete the set, and he can drink most of it.  Or maybe I can make him buy it.  even better.

Regardless, this is your warning that on the 24th or 25th the apocalypse is coming.  Because I should finish the 8 or 9 beers by then.  Just FYI.

Also, I am at beer # 1023.  HOORRAAAY BEER!

pumpkin beers

Just a quick post.  I am so excited because my beer fridge is bursting.

Pumpkin beers in mass types and quantities.  Home brew is stocked and the closet has some strong beers fermenting so hard they are blowing tops off buckets.  All kinds of pictures on facebook if you are so inclined to see the barleywine and stout brewing from Saturday in process.  I almost killed myself twice, but I didn't, which is nice.

And I just got this sour Belgian sampler from hop n grape.
globalbeer.com/sour-power-sampler

I need to suck down some other beers to make room in the fridge for these and some other Belgians and sours I have been aging.  And then it is time for some seriously expensive and tasty tasting.

1012

1012, not only is it the month and year if you add a slash in the middle (10/12) it also the number of different beers I have had.  With a few beers on Sunday and a few more last night, I hit 1012 during the month of October, which is cool.  Not sure how many awesome records I have broken, but I am sure it is a bunch.  I wish I had more cool pictures, but alas time does not permit.  Hope to brew a bunch more beer in a few weekends, maybe some pictures then...

Brewvana Tour

A Successful Brewvana tour for the St John Foundation.  Gigantic Brewing, Hopworks, Breakside, and Amnesia all have great beers, and our tour guide Nikki was awesome.  I am now at 990 beers.  Photos mostly from what we uploaded to untapped, in reverse order which you can tell if you look closely. Untapped/fijigus

24 to go

I had a few beers while golfing yesterday, and one of them was a pale ale from Two Beers in Seattle.  And this beer put me at 976, only 24 to go to 1000.  I am hoping to get there this month, and also hoping to get my Untapped account caught up with all my beers so that when I hit 1000 on my list, I hit it on Untapped too.  It will be a day of accomplishments, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

Also planning to brew tomorrow, with 25 gallons currently fermenting in the closet.  Time to get stocked up for the apocalypse.

Let's Pour

I have seen the link for Let's Pour a few times and haven't signed up, but with the options to share the news and get $10 off, plus get others to sign up and get another $10 off, and spin the wheel and maybe get more off, it starts to sound like a good deal.  Ordering some hard to find beers and getting free shipping when you buy 6 or more.  Let's Pour $10 off

I am up at almost 950 beers, with plans to drink a few the next few nights and get to the 950 mark.

We brewed a bunch of beer the other week and are transferring it to secondary tonight.

And the wedding beers were a great success.  The darker hef I brewed, along with the wedding weizen which was the same thing with blueberries added.  The H&JNation which used a hop schedule and grain bill similar to Ruination by Stone, and then some Lucille from Georgetown.  Because it is good.

Thanks to James for use of his killer travel beer dispensing system.  It worked great.

MORE HOPS!

Wow, free hops are awesome.  I got more free hops from Vern and DJ.  And Kennedy emailed on facebook to say he had some for us too and would store them and bring them down soon.  So this weekend we made a couple fresh hop ales, an amber and a pale.  We hope they turn out great to make the pain of dealing with spiders worth the trouble.

hop photos

Well, most of the photos now go on facebook and untapped, which is simple from my HTC.
 But I thought I would least copy over a few hop photos.  Because they are so rad and although it was long work harvesting, drying and then bagging, it smelled really good the whole time and I had a few beers at each phase, so it wasn't too horrible.

I am also at 926 beers now.  I had a He'Brew Pomegranate Amber Ale last night.  Super good and want to get some more of "the chosen beer" from these guys as they have a pretty funny line of beers with some jewish humor.

924 down, hundreds to go

Updated my list and I'm at 924 distinct beers.  With the help of untapped I have found a couple that were missing from my list, including Buffalo Bill's pumpkin and blueberry stout.  Those beers are awesome and I didn't have them on my list.  I am also slowly catching up my untapped list to match my actual list.  My hope is that before I get to 1000 I will be updating real time instead of updating the beer I drink while also adding a chunk of beers I have already had.  No more 3 badges a day once I get to that point...

Did I mention I like beer.  Just saying.

I love you IPA

After spending some time on the giant yard/paths/decks project that has been ongoing for two-three months (and was supposed to be done before the baby was born) I decided I also need to check on my  beer fridge.  And I found that the CO2 was empty.  Sonofa.... I just filled it less than a month ago.  Short version is that the keg of IIIPA has a bad seal I think.  But I plan to replace the regulator regardless, and start drinking the IIIPA but not keep the CO2 cranked on to that keg.  Luckily I am smart enough to know that I am too lazy to fix stuff immediately, and I bought a small back up CO2 tank last month.

But I cleaned the fridge, cleaned the taps and flushed each line with a half glass of beer (cloudy, but still tastes like beer, so of course I drank them) and had my first glass of IIIPA out of my fridge.  Not a bad day.  I have two kegs that are almost done, but I got tired of waiting for them to be empty to find the pressure problem.  Maybe I don't need to replace the regulator.  We will see tonight.  I posted a couple pics on facebook which is quicker than putting them here, so check em out if you are in to that kind of thing.

And I am at beer 914 or something with the help of Firestone Walker Parabola from Nate and a few other beers since last Wednesday.  Plus I have a couple more great ones ondeck.  And yes, still have over 50 others ondeck.  And probably need to brew some more beer soon.  So maybe this blog won't die after all...

Also a great add for southern comfort includes this photo.  Which will be my new avatar.  If anyone can find me a brown speedo to wear that would be awesome.

1,000, here I come

I just crested 900 different beers consumed with my 904th beer Wednesday.  I took a night off from beers last night (passed out with the baby sleeping on my chest if you want to get specific) but with today being Friday, plan to get back on the train and maybe even share a Parabola with Nate and Barb tonight.  Also open another Shaun's Pale and a Sierra Nevada to taste test again.  Shaun reported getting lots of head from the couple beers he opened the last couple days, so we need to investigate if that has happened with the couple I have had in the fridge for a week.  And I of course have tons of other beers to try and plan to get a few of those checked off this weekend while we enjoy our new deck.

I also picked up a few more 32 oz cans of the Moonlight Ale from Cold Spring and the Stone 16th Anniversary beer in addition to the 8th beer of the Apocalypse from Elysian.  Excited about all this, but comes with a catch.  For some reason the distributor didn't get Hop N Grape his cases of the 7th beer of the Apoc.  So unless his guy comes through with a case, I will miss one out of the 12 beer series.  Heres to hoping he gets hooked up so I can get hooked up.  It would be a shame to spend $100 on these beers and be missing one...

Also found a sweet site looking up a hard cider I bought. http://www.nonsnobbeer.com/  I got the Cherry Bomb, so hope it is better than the standard Hard Cider because according to this blog it sucks.  But according to one of the posts, the guy just doesn't know what "real" hard cider is supposed to taste like.  I will have to be the judge since we make our own.

drinking again

It's nice to be drinking again.  Not a bunch with two little kids at home, but a beer here, a beer there.  Finally had my bottle of MacPelican's from Pelican Brewery on the coast.  That was super good.  Also had bought another bottle of Red Rocket from Bear Republic since it was so good.  Shared both of these with my dad and we were both impressed.  MacPelican's was one of their more expensive beers at almost 9 bucks, but would recommend trying it at least once if not more often.  Red Rocket was about 5.50, and I think I should keep that in stock its so good.  Kind of like the Sierra Nevada harvest beers at 5.50 each.

But even better than that, I had a couple of the 32 oz cans of micro brew from Cold Spring in Minnesota.  3.99 for 32 oz, and they are good.  I mean good.  The Moonlight ale is a black and tan according to untapped, and the Ipa was really good.  I plan to get some more of these after I try the Almond Honey Weiss I still have waiting in the fridge.

And to address the lack of posting and pictures, we are now fully addicted to Untapped, posting the beers we drink and photos on that app.  So sorry this site is so bare.  We should be making some beer again soon, but as most of those pics end up on facebook, our little blog is hanging on by a thread.  Maybe once wiffleball is over Nate will come back.

staying alive

An occasional post to keep this thing alive until we can get back to it regularly.  I missed brewfest in preperation for the baby coming last Saturday.  But after getting some baby furniture put together I brewed an all grain batch of 4 Cats Hefeweizen that Friday in preperation for Heather's wedding in September.  So all was not lost at L-Town Brewing.  I also stopped drinking for most of July in support of Abby not being able to drink.  Which means I have a TON of beer at my house still.

Well, the baby was born Saturday, hence me posting at 6:45 on a Friday morning.  With a 2 1/2 year old getting up between 6 and 8 every morning and a 1 week old getting up when ever he feels like it, beer making is on the back burner and beer drinking is likely back, but reduced to one or two every couple days.  That being said, the SNPA I helped Shaun brew last month is ready in time for Angela's birthday.  And I have one of those in the fridge.  And Garrett brought over a Russian Imperial Raspberry Stout that he brewed.  And he left an extra.  It was excellent and I want to drink the other one.  And one of Abby's co-workers has a husband who brews, and he posted on facebook he has a Chocolate Cherry Stout he saved for Abby, which means I get to try that too.  So excited.

And of course I have all the beers from my beer list to try with at least 60 ondeck still.  Including three very fancy Firestone Walker beers that Nate picked up, a true belgian, and a sour from Cascade Brewing.  Those 5 bottles are about $75 total so should make for some very tasty and expensive drinking.  Plus I have the first 6 beers of the apocolypse still chilling and I hope to finally try those at about $50 total.  Good thing I make a lot of the beer I drink.  Otherwise I would have no money at all.  After my hiatus I am at 882 beer tasted and even if I didn't buy another new beer I have 60 in waiting which will put me almost to 950.  Time to get started.  Well maybe in about 8-10 hours...