Trophy Brewing in Raleigh, NC

After drinking quite a bit at a very good bar, The Busy Bee, for my friend's rehearsal dinner, I decided the mile walk to Trophy brewing would do me some good. Turned out I was right since the walk was easy and it let me sober up a bit before getting there. I wasn't sure what to expect but Trophy looks like a small store front with a bar in the front and probably a large back room for the brewing area.

When I got there, probably around 10:30pm on a Friday, there were a couple of seats at the bar so I sat myself down and ordered a 30 Fathoms, a Baltic Porter. I had been excited to try their Rosemary Gose but it unfortunately had kicked the day before. Oh well.

Duck Rabbit Baltic Porter

This was another gift from someone along with the Cafe Royale I drank earlier in the year and a bottle of KBS. Obviously this is a baltic porter from Duck Rabbit which you probably guessed from the name.

Creamy roasty nose with some dark fruit in the back. First sip was similar. Lots of dark fruit with a bit of tart milkiness and some roast in the finish. Basically continued that way with the roast and dark fruit coming and going. Decent enough though I feel like a bit less dark fruit and the addition of some chocolate flavors would have balanced it out a bit more.

Voodoo at the Khyber Pass Pub

After a great couple of beers at Capone's for lunch, Jo and I took a few hours off to run some errands and prepared for dinner and beers at the Khyber Pass Pub. The event Saturday night was with the Voodoo Brewery with head brewer Matt Allyn and his assistant. Voodoo is a Pennsylvania brewery located all the way on the west side of state. It's a really small brewery with just Matt and his assistant as the employees and then a group of volunteers for when they need more people. They make a few really good beers that can be found in Philly although I don't know how far their distribution really gets. On Saturday, the Khyber also still had some taps from their Ballast Point event the night before, some Duck Rabbit stuff, and then a whole bunch of other awesome beers on their 20 taps. So it really wasn't just a Voodoo night as far as beers go which allowed for variety.

Ballast Point at Capone's

With the first day of Philly Beer Week under my belt, my wife and I planned some errands around stopping at Capone's for lunch for the Ballast Point event. I knew this would be the only day I could get out there and how could I have a beer week without involving Capone's?

We arrived around 12:15 and while there were a few people, it wasn't too crowded. Apparently the Hill Farmstead event the day before was ridiculous as a bus full of beer geeks showed up so that would explain that. Even though this was the Ballast Point event, I noticed Hill Farmstead Fear & Trembling was still on draft and decided to start with that instead. This was brewed with some smoked malt then aged in some sort of red wine barrels if I remember correctly. There are a bunch of different versions of it on BeerAdvocate but I think it was the Cabernet version.

Vacation Beers 4: The Final Night

Twas the last night of vacation,
and all through the house,
I was drinking beer,
not just one but four.

Okay enough of that.  The last night of our trip to Vermont I went through a bunch of quality beers and had a grand old time.  After discovering that absolutely everything was closed in Brattleboro on Christmas Day including McNeill's brewpub, we stopped at Brattleboro Discount Liquors on our way back to the house.  I like to check random beer stores in hopes that they have interesting things.  Nothing super here although they had some local stuff so we picked some up including bottles from McNeill's.

Victory and Yards

Jo and I were going to head out to Lancaster brewing and Spring House brewing, but our plans changed so we instead went to Victory brewing and Yards brewing.  First we drove out to Victory and then we circled back to go to Yards.

The last time we had been to Victory was before they renovated their brew pub and we couldn't believe the difference between now and then.  Before, it was like a creepy school cafeteria and the food was only okay.  Now, the brewpub had really nice atmosphere, the tables looked really comfortable, and the bar was really inviting.

I had read about the renovations to their brewpub but I was not expecting such a significant upgrade.  Now, I'd totally be willing to bring people to the brewery whereas before there is no way I'd suggest it as a place to visit and this is just based on first impressions and has nothing really to do with the beer.

Sierra Nevada Beer Camp

London Grill had an event tonight where they showcased two of Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp beers plus an anniversary ale (Jack and Ken's), the pale ale, and the Tumbler autumn brown ale.

I talked to the Sierra Nevada rep about Beer Camp and it was pretty damn cool.  They invite bar owners and some other popular beer figures from around the US to their brewery and let them decide on a style of beer to brew.  I can't find how many have been done but since it started early 2009 and seems to occur every 2 months, my bet is there have been around 8.  Who knows though.  The point being that tonight at London Grill they were doing a Beer Camp vs. Beer Camp event.  For Philly beer week, Sierra Nevada invited Philadelphia area bar owners to Beer Camp and they came out of the event with ExPorter.  Apparently, the owner of London Grill really wanted to put almonds into the beer, but got out voted by everyone else in the camp.  Of course, the next camp group decided to put almonds into their beer and ended up with Almond Marzen Project.  The result of all of this is that Sierra Nevada felt bad and sent London Grill a keg of the Almond Marzen Project and as a result we have tonight's event.  It's actually pretty impressive of Sierra Nevada because they had to go through the whole pain of registering the beer for one single night and paying whatever costs that involves.  Stupid PA beer laws.