While Merc wasn’t around for his actual birthday, on his next swing through the Capital District we had a pretty fucking stellar tasting to celebrate. He brought over a shit ton of Russian River bottles and some extras, I brought out some Juicy and Golden Blend, Pig Destroyer Jon brought over some Fruet. Seriously, not a bad beer of the night. Which is near impossible to be had considering how many bad Cigar City beers Merc manages to find and bring over.
It’s been a while since I’ve made it down to the Doom Saloon. The last time was for our epic IPA tasting over the summer. And while the IPA tasting was great, this week’s sour tasting with Ken, Cavedave, Merc, and Jeff2 definitely took the cake. The lineup for the night:
Another great get together with the crew, with some of our recent hauls, some beers Richard brought back from his trip to Seattle and Bill’s birthday beers. This was our first tasting since I finally cleaned up the basement enough to have some beers down there. I have a few stools, a nice 8 foot kitchen prep table I’m using as a makeshift “bar”. The beer cellar is repaired, we’ve got this nice water jug/dump bucket system going (although I really want to get a glass rinser but I don’t think that is in the cards for a while) and I should have a couple more glass racks installed in the ceiling by week’s end. Plus the card table, surround sound system, and the dart board that folds into the ceiling I’ve had for a while now. I’m pretty happy with how the man cave “tasting room” is shaping up.
So after a pretty successful night of running around with Mike, we went back to Chez Fuj and met up with the rest of the guys and a couple of friends of Bill’s from NJ. The lineup for the night:
Other than Luscious, which we only incidentally opened because of Untappd, I don’t think any beer stood out as the clear “best beer of the night” or anything. A lot of really solid beers here, of all different types so it’s tough to compare. Fat Head’s never ceases to surprise me with that IPA, same with that Meadowlark. Black Butte was great, as was Curieux, Oude Tart and Madame Rose. No complaints here.
Richard acting a damn fool.
Dave showcasing pretty much how everyone felt by the end of the night morning.
– From The Bruery’s Facebook Page:
Thanks for all of the amazing Black Tuesday artwork submissions this past week. Some of them were plain ridiculous and we really appreciated that, but the TWO winners are both a bit dark and fit with the blackness that was that fateful Tuesday.
These two may have won but my personal fave was this:
– Snapped these pics after the Gang Bang Beer It Forward. We didn’t drink any of these that day but I’d be doing all of you guys a disservice if I didn’t show off his stash. Some pretty impressive stuff here. Eat it up!
– My buddy Chris was in town and called me up to see if I was in for drink. When am I not?? He showed up with some goodies from his travels in Hawaii (where his fiancée resides and his future nuptials are) and some things he picked up from Decicco’s on his way up to the Capital District. I pulled out some stuff from my recent MA trip, birthday beers from Elise, and since I’ll be at Hill Farmstead this weekend for the Harvest Festival, the Everett I’ve been saving since our trip there over the summer.
A night of having a couple of beers quickly turned into an all-nighter, watching an entire season of Archer, eating an entire 10-cut pizza from Inferno, staying up until 2:30AM and showing up two hours late to work next day. Whoops. Totally worth it, though, as it’s not often I get a chance to catch up with Chris.
As for the beers that day:
I was actually really impressed with the stuff from Maui. I’m NOT a huge fan of most of the stuff we have available from Kona (but I’m sure their other stuff is great) so I was pretty happy the beers from Maui delivered. The porter had a tough time standing up next to Everett (one of the best porters in the world in my opinion) but it was great and not something I’m used to expecting from a can. Even the Sobrehumano had this flavor going on with it that just BEGGED to be sour, of which Jolly Pumpkin does and is fairly well rated. I gotta keep my eyes out for that. Lastly the Trekker Triple really surprised me. I’ve been pretty bored of Belgians lately (well, maybe just bored of Ommegang’s yeast strain) and I thought it was really solid. I’ve been happy with all of the beers from my haul from MA and I’m going to start making my way out there for my next couple of hauls.
Anyways, on to what you guys are really here for, beer porn!
– Again, this was pretty late in the night by the time we cracked this one open and we were drooling over trxxpaxxs’ cellar at this point. This one didn’t wow me the way Cascade sours have, or even some of the other stuff from The Bruery. (Granted, I’m still a sour noob.) Solid, but not mind-blowing.
matthew 'fuj' scher 