Weekend Beers

The weather was kinda crap this weekend, so it seemed like a good idea to drink more beer.

Here are a few more from nearby Lupulin Brewing:

#11005 Lupulin La Flama Blanca is a real tasty, clean, hoppy beer. Citrusy, floral, with a nice bready maltiness.

#11006 Lupulin Straight Hash Homie is a pretty typical hazy IPA. Thick, slick, and fizzy.

And finally, #11007 Lupulin Adult Sophistication is a nice Barleywine, nicely complex and really dangerous at 12.5%abv.

Back at home, we knocked back a few cans on Saturday.

#11008 Toppling Goliath Pompeii is an unusually tasty hazy IPA, hopped with Mosaic. Fruity and citrusy and reasonably well balanced, it's definitely a cousin of pseudoSue. We found the can at Northbound Liquor in Elk River MN.

A lucky find at the Costco in St. Cloud was this can, #11009 Surly Barrel-Aged Darkness 2022, an incredibly tasty complex strong beer,. Its 12% abv is very well hidden. We saved a second can to taste next year.

Three more from Northbound, starting with #11010 Warrior Valkyrie. It's a 5.5% abv Golden Honey Ale. Good beer, a little sweet for me.

I think I tasted the next one during an Omaha Beer Week event a couple years ago, but I must not have written it down. #11011 Stone Fear. Movie. Lions. is not a bad beer, as hazy Double IPAs go. Fruity Pebbles and citrus hops. The beer's name comes from the what3words version of the location of Stone's Richmond VA brewery.

And one more from Warrior, #11012 Warrior Samurai Imperial Red. Big, and yet kinda thin. Huge fruity hops and dark caramel malt. Finishes more balanced than it starts.

It seems like we just made a beer run, and yet the tasting fridge stands empty once more.

Tag des deutschen Bieres

April 23 is German Beer Day, the anniversary of the Reinheitsgebot.

And here am I with no German beers in the house.

Schlechte Planung.

Plans (or ideas, anyway)

 

A nice day for a beer or six

 Forty degrees and sunny yesterday, so we got out of the house to enjoy the day.

First stop: Hayes' Public House, about 45 minutes away in Buffalo MN. Good beers in a fun Irish-type pub setting. They've also got firepits and tables out front, and a patio on the roof with a great view of Buffalo Lake.

I'm a big fan of smoke beers, so I went straight for the Folliard's Smoked Irish Ale, pulled from a cask.

It's a Real Tasty Beer, although it wasn't all that smoky. A beer engine really makes for a smooth, creamy beer, but CO2 does release the aromas more efficiently.

I'm also a big fan of Schwarzbier, and they just happened to be pouring their Black Lager.

Medium body, chocolatey, and malty. Another real good beer. (That's Paris and Choo waiting for me to join them in the raising of the glasses; Kathy is just off-camera to the right.)

Heading back in the general direction of home, and after some Navigator misnavigation, we were at Bauernhof Klause Tap Haus & Bourbon Room in St Michael MN. There's a surprising number of good beers on tap, and an even more suprising number of bourbons on the shelf! Kinda spendy, but you have to pay for quality.

I've always said that a great name sells the beer, so I was drawn immediately to WarPigs Waking the Witch. I'm pretty sure this is brewed by 3 Floyds, but they might contract it out to Summit. In any case, it's a terrific Black IPA, malty and roasty and grassy.

The shot of Whistlepig Old World Cask Finish Rye 12 year required a chaser, so I ordered a nice, clean Third Street Minnesota Gold. Billed as a premium lager, it was refreshing and surprisingly flavorful.

We're running short on beer at home, so we made a quick stop at Northbound Liquor to stock up. No idea what we bought, though; it's still out in the car.

Finally, not that we needed a reason, but Aegir Brewing is right on the way home. They didn't have anything new on tap, but I enjoyed several Oaked Whiskey Rye IPAs and Allfathers Porters.

And now, a restful Sunday!

#11000 Aegir Zekey Less Freaky

 And there it is! Aegir's new Tripel, Zekey Less Freaky, is beer #11000!

A timeline of thousands

 Funny, yesterday I realized that this year — January 3, to be exact — is the 30th anniversary of Beer Me! Because of some bookkeeping confusion in those early days, the first beer I recorded is actually listed as #1953, Blitzen Barleywine from the long departed La Jolla Brewing Company in California. (I had driven down to the San Diego area for the spectacular "Ring of Fire" solar eclipse.)

The first beer in the notebooks, beer #1 was Butterfield San Joaquin Golden Ale, on March 22, 1993. I had it at Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland CA, my local hangout back in those days. Of course, time goes on, and Butterfield and Pacific Coast have closed since then.

• #1000: Redhook Märzen, June 7, 1995 at The HopYard in Pleasanton CA, my other favorite hangout back then. I wasn't really a fan of Redhook beers, apparently.
• #2000: Bellows Steam Lager, August 12, 2000 at The Great Taste of the Midwest. That's a great festival, but good luck getting tickets. I visited Bellows in 2002, but they've closed since then.
• #3000: De Troch Chapeau Tropical Lambic, July 25, 1998 (more bookkeeping confusion) at 1st Wines and Spirits in Allouez WI. This was back in the day when I would try pretty much anything, even though I had already recognized my aversion to grocery beers by then.
• #4000: Avery Hog Heaven, October 28, 2001 at Chicago's amazing Map Room. I spent some time there when I was at Siebel in 1998. Three years later, when Paris and I visited, the bartender remembered me! (Hog Heaven is a fantastic beer, by the way.)
• #5000: Köstritzer Maibock, August 6, 2003, at the wonderful Essen Haus in Madison. Köstritzer Schwarzbier is one of my all-time favorites; their others are drinkable.
• #6000: Elysian Whoville Weizenbock, April 13, 2006, at Elysian's "The Hill" brewpub in Seattle. Great beer. This was about nine years before the buyout.
• #7000: Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale 2008, May 9, 2008 at another of my local hangouts, Omaha's Crescent Moon Alehouse. Sierra Nevada's special releases are always a treat.
• #8000: Carlow O'Hara's Leann Folláin, October 29, 2009 at the Bull & Castle in Dublin. I had other Carlow beers that day that tasted a lot better than this one. I gotta say though that Bull & Castle was probably my favorite Dublin bar.
• #9000: River North Hypothesis, December 31, 2012, on the Beer Porch in Omaha. Our friends Nick and Julie Bernard brought the bottle from Denver, and it was terrific.
• #10000: Scriptown Winter Honey Lager, December 5, 2018 at Scriptown Brewing in Omaha. Looks like I slowed down quite a bit during that decade. Brewer/Owner John Fahrer hosted a 10000th Beer Party at the bar, and a good time was had by all.
• #11000: Well, there's a plan, and it's going to happen today...

Lupulin Brewing, Big Lake MN

In preparation for beer #11000 this weekend, we went to nearby Big Lake and visited Lupulin Brewing for two more beers.

#10998 ドキドキ "Doki Doki" is a fantastic light beer, billed as a "Japanese rice lager". It's got mild grainy malt flavor, mild floral hop flavor, very low bitterness, and a fantastic balance and even complexity. Great stuff.

#10999 Brave Noise was less impressive. Weirdly floral, weirdly citrusy. And look, if you're going to serve murky beers, at least call them out on the menu. This one was labelled "Pale Ale - American", which is why I ordered it.

See you tonight at Aegir Brewing for beer #11000!

Almost 11,000

This Saturday, beer #11000 will go in the books! We'll be at Aegir Brewing in Elk River MN around 6 or 7pm on Saturday; they have a new Tripel that would do nicely.

JOIN US! And stick around for karaoke afterwards!