Haven't gone away yet

Disregarding my anemic post count for June, I'm still interested in writing this blog. It's been a lot of fun over the years and I've met a ton of people because of it. With Pax being here, though, it's been a tough transition in the morning from having around an hour to do stuff to having like fifteen minutes and being tired while doing it. I'm still going to try to post stuff but things will almost definitely still be random and lackluster until he goes to day care in August and Jo goes back to work. We'll see, though, maybe I'll finally get a schedule together and it will get better. Pigs may fly, too, you never know.

In the mean time, here's a couple pictures from the class I took at Tria over Philly Beer Week with Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey.

That's all the beers we got to try during the class. The two on the left were full, blended sours and were Duck Duck Gooze and Cable Car, left to right. Amazing beers with Cable Car being the better of the two to me. The former is being re-released later this year but Cable Car is basically only available on site at Toronado in San Francisco or San Diego so it's hard to get to say the least. I'm definitely interested in trying it again though and will try to get a bottle when I'm in San Francisco again. The others on the mat are barrel samples which were totally still, aka, uncarbonated. Amazing to get to try the different barrel flavors before they were blended. Some were almost undrinkable which shows how much of an effect blending has on turning out something good. Just a neat experience that you get very rarely.

Lost Abbey Deliverance

I decided to open up something fun last night because why not? Best way to end the worst day of the week is with a fun beer. Lost Abbey Deliverance is a blend of the Brandy Barrel Angel's Share and Bourbon Barrel Serpent's Stout. You can't get the latter beer for the most part but the Brandy Barrel Angel's Share is usually available.

Wow, absolutely powerful nose. Huge bourbon with a hint of brandy sweetness. No whiff of the 12.5% ABV which is really impressive. Just crazy strong though. Thick as oil with limited carbonation. Bourbon caramel up front, some vanilla, light alcohol burn but not astringent or sharp. Chocolate and caramel in the finish with a nice sweetness rounding things out. This beer isn't fooling around at all but it was delicious. Totally lived up to my expectations. As I said, though, it's a sipper and quite powerful. You have to like that bourbon flavor to like this.

I just wish Lost Abbey stuff wasn't so expensive because when it's on, it's quite amazing. But I generally don't like spending close to $20 for a small 375mL bottle so oh well.

Lost Abbey & New Belgium Brett Beer

We opened this the same night as the Lime-A-Rita so at least we knew it would be better than it's competition even before opening the bottle. This was a collaboration between Lost Abbey and New Belgium and given the bottle design, came out of New Belgium specifically. Brett Beer seems to be a pale ale base that was fully fermented with brettanomyces yeast in order to best showcase how that yeast strain affects a beer.

Dry earthy nose with some pineapple fruitiness in it. Following was a fruity body with pineapple and some bread notes along with faint spiciness. A little bitterness and a little earthiness finished things up. This was quite decent and the pineapple was real nice and clear. It was a great example of the kind of  flavors brett can impart. Usually those flavors are overpowered by lactic or acetic acid especially in American Wild Ales so it's nice to get a clean version of them.

Lost Abbey Judgement Day

Last Tuesday, I stopped by Kite & Key and ordered a Lost Abbey Judgement Day, a quad brewed with raisins. The description mentioned that it's the base for Cuvee de Tomme which I didn't know and thought was pretty interesting.

Slightly roasty nose with dates, raisins and hints of chocolate. I think the roast was in my mind though and it may have been more of a smoky flavor or the combination of raisin and chocolate. If someone else has had this maybe they'll offer their thoughts. Flavor followed with a nice blend of raisin and chocolate with a caramel, malty sweetness finishing it off. Super clean flavors, a nice body, and no hint of the ABV made this one quite enjoyable. After having the Cuvee de Tomme back during beer week, I can sort of see how souring this would turn into that.

Lost Abbey Serpent Stout

I stopped in at Kite & Key for my usual Tuesday visit and noticed they had Serpent Stout on draft. I'd actually heard good things about this one so I figured I had to try it.

Roast, coffee, and chocolate nose. Very clean and quite nice. The body was quite thick for a normal stout, almost chewy. Flavors followed the nose with lots of chocolate then some coffee and finally a little bitterness which kept it from being too sweet though I probably wouldn't have minded either way. A really well put together stout and quite delicious.

Lost Abbey 10 Commandments at Kite & Key

Had a really excellent beer at Kite & Key this past Tuesday, Lost Abbey 10 Commandments, a Belgian Strong Dark Ale.

Smelled of dark fruits, plums, and caramel. Really inviting nose. Started with caramel, edging towards chocolate, with some light banana flavors in the background. Very light Belgian notes which blended really well with the stronger plum and caramel flavors. The light touch is really welcome compared to some other beers in this style. I really enjoyed this. Another great draft offering from Lost Abbey.

I also found out that Kite & Key's Savage Sixtel Sunday was actually named after their Sunday night bartender, Jim Savage. Only reason I found that out was because he was filling in this Tuesday. Funny as I always thought it was named that just because the owner was putting on awesome beers.

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.

Philly Beer Geek Contest at the POPE

This past Monday, I finally had a chance to make it to a bar that was hosting a Philly Beer Geek prelimary qualifying round.  The Philly Beer Geek contest is sort of a beer quizo kind of thing but the prelim rounds vary slightly depending on the bar.  The one at the POPE (Pub on Passyunk East) was hosted by Carolyn Smagalski, Beer Fox of BellaOnline, and last year's Philly Beer Geek Steve Hawk. (If you've been reading long enough, you may remember I went to a BBQ in his honor at The Hulmeville Inn without knowing what it was a while back.)  The contest was separated into four rounds.  The first two rounds were ten questions with each question being one and two points, respectively.  The third round was two beer samples off the draft list and I was supposed to identify them and they were each worth fifteen points.  The last round was eight slightly more difficult questions worth four points each and two very hard questions worth ten.  

Lunch at Eulogy

Met up with my buddy Greg at Eulogy, a bar in Old City, this past Sunday.  I haven't been there in quite a while and it was near the theater so there we go.  Nice place for those of you that haven't been.  Two floors (useful knowledge since the first floor gets busy) with a number of tables on both.  It does get busy at night (or at least it used to) but just go earlier and it's fine.  When I got there it wasn't too busy though the bar was pretty full.  I got a pretty tasty burger (blue cheese and onions, yum) and Greg got what looked like a decent grilled cheese.  They also had the usual Belgian stuff, Mussels etcs, as well if you are into that.  All in all a great place to go.