Einstock Icelandic Toasted Porter

I was sent a box of a few beers for a secret santa I participated in over the holidays. Clearly the person did their research and recognized I liked beer. Not that it's hard to realize that but still. I started with the Einstock Icelandic Toasted Porter since it seemed like it had the best chance to be decent.

Smelled of toasted nuts and cream. Nice nose especially if you like porters. Creamy mouthfeel with a light toasted nuttiness and some roast bitterness in the finish. Continued that way throughout. Really, a pretty solid porter and a good way to start things off.

Beers at Sabrina's

Just before Thanksgiving, some friends of mine decided that their cellars were getting too large. To try and start to fix the issue, they asked on twitter if people wanted to go to a BYOB and share some beers and have dinner. I had nothing to do that night and Jo didn't care about eating dinner alone so I figured why not. After some back and forth, we decided on Sabrina's in Fairmount as I figured it wouldn't be too busy as it's mostly a brunch place and it's informal enough that they wouldn't mind us sitting around drinking forever.

After ordering some food and settling in we decided to start with Deschutes The Dissident, the one sour Matt brought along.

Deschutes Black Butte XXIII

Another beer we opened over Labor Day was Deschutes Black Butte XXIII. The base of this is an imperial version of their delicious Black Butte porter with 25% aged in bourbon barrels and some aged with a variety of ingredients. Each year they change that list meaning it tastes differently if you have it year to year or at least I imagine it does as this is the first time I've had it.

Great nose. Just a pleasant bourbon flavor that's not too strong or too hot. Thick body too. So far, so good! Get a little orange flavor in the background, some roast, and a great bourbon vanilla finish. Just really delicious throughout. Glad I have another bottle!

Forgot to mention this is actually last year's version. The newest one, XXIV, came out a month or so ago I think.

Soccer at Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant

Last week, I decided I wanted to watch the gold medal match for women's soccer in the Olympics. Sure it started in the middle of the day, but whatever, my job is cool with me leaving at 2:30. After putting out some feelers on twitter and asking PhillyTapFinder if he had any opinions, I settled on Philadelphia Bar & Restaurant. While they didn't have the sound available on the tvs, the beer list was strong and the food there is pretty good. Plus it's convenient to get to since it's just off the blue line.

I started with a beer I've wanted to try for a while, Stoudts Old Abominable, a barleywine.

Philly Beer Week Day 4: Goose Island

After our pretty crazy Sunday, it was refreshing to only have one event on Monday. This time we planned to head to City Tap House to check out some beers from Goose Island brewery. Goose Island entered Philly rather recently and, at least in beer nerd circles, is well know for a ridiculously great stout named Bourbon County Brand stout, a bourbon barrel stout that clocks in at 14.5%. I knew they were serving it at this event which is partly why I chose to go to that one instead of others.

When I arrived at 5 for the 6pm event, the place was actually still pretty empty. What a nice change of pace from the Monk's event. I got a seat at the bar ordered a glass of the Yards Bourbon Porter to pass the time until the Goose Island stuff was available.

Sam Adams Holiday Porter

Today we have a Sam Adams Holiday Porter. This was another gift from Dan.

Interesting nose. Some roast with a slightly spicy bite backing it up. At first I thought it smelled a bit like molasses but after thinking about it for a bit I realized it was the hop profile blending with the porter base. The first sip showed this to be true with some mild roast being the main point and then some slight bitterness and vague spiciness coming from the hops. Continued that way through the whole glass without much change. Nothing super complex, but decent enough and I enjoyed it.

A Swedish Beer on Saint Lucia

For those that don't know, my wife is half Swedish and so we celebrated Saint Lucia day this year. Saint Lucia is a Swedish holiday where parents force their young daughters to wear crowns with lit candles on their heads which then drip hot wax all over them. Nah, just kidding. Well, okay, sort of kidding. It's really about how the Swedes thought December 13th was the darkest day of the year and so they celebrated Saint Lucia bringing them light. To remember this, they have children wear crowns with candles hence the melting wax. Nowadays, though, I believe they use electric candles so it's much safer.

We finally have enough room at our new house so we had some friends over to celebrate Saint Lucia this year. One was nice enough to bring a beer that was actually from Sweden, Dugges 1/2 Idjit, a porter.

Nose was full of roast, molasses and licorice. Really interesting. First sip had roast, coffee, a little saltiness, and some hints of licorice. The saltiness and licorice made for an interesting finish to the beer. Apparently, salty licorice is a thing and quite a favorite in Sweden so it makes sense to aim for that flavor. It actually reminded me a little bit of Deschutes The Abyss although only in flavor not body. This was pretty unique and it was really nice of my buddy to bring it.

Visiting Perch Pub

I've heard good things about the Perch Pub, located at Broad and Locust, and finally decided to visit last Friday night. The bar was already pretty busy when I got there around 5 as they have a decent happy hour with half off most of their drafts. Right now, they have 14 different draft lines with 2 being reserved for small batch stuff like Hill Farmstead, one-offs, things like that.

I started with a glass of Blue Point No Apologies, a double IPA.

Clean grapefruit nose. Started a little bitter up front, followed by a bit of grapefruit, and then finished with some malty sweetness. Decent enough double IPA although it may be a bit sweet for some people. Nice way to start off the night.

The Meddlesome Moth

I'm in Dallas, Texas right now for work and had one day off to do what I wanted. Of course, I unsurprisingly looked for an awesome beer bar to go hang at for a couple hours. Luckily there is a bar named The Meddlesome Moth about a mile and a half from the hotel which was an easy enough walk. I'd read really good things about it on BeerAdvocate and boy did it live up to its reputation.

The first beer I ordered was the (512) Pecan Porter. The brewery is actually named (512) Brewing Co. which is the area code for Austin where it's located. I don't know why, but I think it's funny that there are parenthesis in the name.

Hanging with PhillyTapFinder

My wife was out of town this past weekend which means time to go out! Since PhillyTapFinder's wife was out of town, we decided to meet up after work and hang out for a while. And, well, a while turned into almost seven hours.

We started out at Prohibition Taproom. Jo and I went there once a while ago but haven't been back since. The most unique part of the place is the oddly shaped bar which is shaped like an E with seats all around it. The inside is really nice looking though and it's a really comfortable place to spend time. When I arrived, Jared had already ordered a glass of Hill Farmstead Abner and was tweeting about how good it was so that's how I started.

Trip to Capone's

It's been quite a while since my wife and I had been to Capone's and since we were heading up to the area, we figured a stop was in order. It was even Jo's idea! Lucky me. My usual course of action is to start with a sampler, but there was a beer on draft from East End, from out in Pittsburgh and since it's really rare here in Philly I had to start with that.

Dinner at Kite & Key

In a change from my regular Tuesday at Kite & Key routine, my wife joined me for dinner so I was there a bit longer than usual. Nice to mix things up every once and a while, ya know? I got there a bit before her so I ordered a Deschutes Black Butte Porter to pass the time.

Delicious chocolate roast nose. Starts with flavors of roast and chocolate, finishing with a slight smoky character. The mix of chocolate and roast is really well balanced. Very tasty. So disappointing that it'll be gone soon and not available year round. If only Deschutes distributed to Philly for real. Oh well.

Mad Fox Brewpub

As I said in this post, my wife and I recently visited the Mad Fox Brewpub, located in Falls Church, VA just outside of DC. Pretty big place, looks like most other brewpubs. One half was tables and normal seating, the other the bar area with some other high tops I think. We got lunch with some friends of ours so I didn't spend any time at the bar. The food was pretty good. They even had something called Frickles which, if you couldn't guess, were fried pickles. Get it? Yeah. Delicious though.

It turned out to be their 1 year anniversary so they had some special beers to be released throughout the day. The first one was their Slobberknocker, an american barleywine, aged in oak barrels. I think they were some sort of bourbon barrels, possibly Heaven Hill, but I never got an answer. I'm pretending it's true in my comments though.

Second Annual Beer Geek BBQ at the Hulmeville

With Natalie DeChico winning the Philly Beer Geek contest representing the Hulmeville Inn, it meant there was going to be a second BBQ party being held this year. If you remember, the last one had a barrel of bourbon Plead the Fifth (I had forgotten I got a full pint, awesome) so I had high hopes for this year. Luckily, Jeff delivered and then some. The US women's quarterfinal game was on, too, which was great.

I started with a glass of Central Water Bourbon Barrel Barleywine. (Shocking that I started with a barleywine, I know.)

Dark Horse at Hawthorne's Plus some Time

Wednesday of Philly Beer Week was pretty busy for me. I needed to fit in a visit to Hawthorne's cafe to drink a bunch of rare Dark Horse beers and then meet my wife for dinner. All without getting wasted since, well, it was Wednesday and I'm not an alcoholic. Tough, I know, but I figured I could manage it.

I arrived at Hawthorne's around 4:30 and it was still basically empty which was nice. I figured it would fill up at some point but all I needed was one seat so success! It was really difficult deciding what beer to order first, but I decided on the one sour on the list, Lambeak Wants Raspberry.

London Grill & Deschutes: East Meets West

Finally we come to one of my favorite (possibly the favorite) nights of Philly Beer Week, the Deschutes dinner at London Grill. However, lets back up about 45 minutes before the dinner started. Kite & Key was doing a Founders Brewing event (named F*CK Monday for Founders Unites Canada and Kentucky, clever) and advertised that they were going to be tapping Canadian Breakfast Stout. Since it is one of the beers that I really wanted to try at some point and is super rare, I knew I had to stop there before heading to London Grill. I arrived around 4:30 only to find out most people arrived at 4 and all of the placeholder cards for a glass were already handed out. Sucks to be me. Luckily, I had met a couple guys the day before at Eulogy and they offered up an extra seat at their table to me. This meant, when the waitress came around for who wanted what, she did her best to include me in the order. Fingers crossed, I just had to wait and see what happened. Waiting paid off as I got my first glass ever of Canadian Breakfast Stout!

Beers at Monks

The final event of the weekend for me was being held at Monk's. Now, I don't know if I've talked about Monk's before, but even on normal days Monk's gets ridiculously crowded. Add in rare Lost Abbey beers and the owner Tomme Arthur and I figured the crowd would be monstrous. I was totally right although some would say it was worse than monstrous. For some background, Lost Abbey is a brewery near San Diego that makes interesting but expensive beer. The unfortunate thing is their bottles sometimes have quality control issues but at least the stuff on draft is always good.

I got to Monk's around 3:45 while the event was supposed to start around 4:30. Since I had some time to kill, I got a glass of Flying Fish Exit 9, an imperial red ale.

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.

Bella Vista takes over Devil's Den

Ahh, Philly Beer Week finally begins. I put up my schedule the other day and so far I've kept to it pretty well. While this post is going to concentrate on the Devil's Den event, my first beer of beer week was actually at the Kite & Key. It was the Troegs Scratch 42, Razzmadizzle, a chocolate raspberry dubbel as far as I know.

Maui Brewing Co. CoCoNut Porter

I got a can of Maui CoCoNut Porter in a trade as an extra a while back and boy am I glad he included it.

Slightly roasty nose with a lot of chocolate notes. Very inviting aroma. Initially a little bit of creamy roast, followed by some almost milky sweetness. Finished a little sweet as well. The toasted coconut adds some slight vanilla along with the milkiness and some sweetness, almost like lactose in a milk stout. Really interesting porter and quite good. The best part is the coconut flavors never taste like Malibu or anything like that and works really well with the roastiness of the porter.  Makes me wonder what a milk porter would taste like.