MN Beer Fun

Since my return to MN, I've been making my way around all the best beer spots. This includes new-to-me watering holes like the Muddy Pig and Green Mill brewpub in St. Paul and Dennis Bros. Liquors in Cottage Grove.

The real beer excitement of week has been Surly's new offering, Bitter Brewer. It's a lighter, English style called a "bitter," but with an American craft beer twist (more hops). It blew my mind with the layering of flavors, from juicy hops to subtle malt and vanilla.

And yeah, that bike is sweet, I wish I know who's it was. It uses a Surly (bike maker, not brewer) frame and note the front disc brake.

Sprecher Mai Bock - A highly potable mix of light grains, with fruit and hops spice.

Green Mill Big Island Porter - Very smooth, but that flavor is a touch unwhelming.

Green Mill Honey Brown Ale - Not too sweet like the JW Dundee's Honey Brown, nothing special but a good pairing for a meal at Green Mill.

Green Mill Grand Marais - A nicely balanced pale ale of citris hops and biscuit-like malt.

Green Mill Kabeelo Lodge Lager - This pale all-malt lager was the star of the sampler. Big malts with complimentary hops.

Monk's Flemish Sour Red Ale - Not as complex as most sour ales, but pleasant and good starting sour ale for anyone interested in wild ales.

Avery New World Porter - Hops + Chocolate = Yum

Bob's '47 Munich Style Lager - A good example of amber lager brewed with German traditions.

Miller High Life - What? I was at a bowling alley, come on. Not bad for the style, fairly clean for a macro lager without many off-flavors. Still not recommended unless you like cheap-tasting beer.

7 Bridges Brown Ale - Lake Superior Brewing can do better. It was all right, but more like an amber ale than a brown.

BEEEEER and some stuff

New beer seems to be around every corner these days. I've already crushed April's record for new beers tried in a month with 65 and counting this May. I should point out that my birthday at Fitger's (pictured) was a big help for the count as with a sampler platter and a few 10 oz. drafts I tried everything they offered. Yum.

Now that I'm back in Minneapolis for the time being, I'll have another run of new beers as I try to review and enjoy as much as I can in good health. Friday I met up with friends at Town Hall and helped finish a couple pitchers of Black H20 and the legendary Masala Mama (ranked #9 overal at BeerAdvocate.com). Last night was more low-key with African-inspired music and a beer at the Blue Nile.

It's also been nice to get back on my favorite local mtn bike trails. I hit up Theo Wirth yesterday and broke my lap time record on the big loop by 2:30. That puts me at about 17:30 and means I suck a lot less now at biking. Today I did a hard 3-mile around Cedar Island Lake and finish in 20:00, averaging 6:40. That's an ok pace, but only 17 seconds faster per mile than I ran at the Mountain Goat 10 miler. I guess I know what to work on.


O'Fallon Unfiltered Wheat - A Blue Moon alternative, but really no better.

Bell's Java Stout - Like coffee and beer? Here's something special for you.

Black H2O Oatmeal Stout - Still my favorite oatmeal stout. Oh-so smooth and delicious with light roasted and chocolate flavors.

Masala Mama India Pale Ale - A great IPA, maybe not the 9th best beer in the world, but one of the best IPA's for sure. Very rich grapefruit and citrus flavors with a lopng-lingering bitterness for hop heads.

Bell's Expedition Stout - At nearly 12% abv, this one was a nice dessert beer, but would benefit from some aging. The dark flavors were too rough and underdeveloped.

Avery India Pale Ale - Big juicy hops flavors without overwhelming bitterness. A good first-IPA for curious folks.

Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bière - A great wild/sour ale from Michigan. A little spendy, but worth trying for the complex tart, pale barley and hops flavors.

Dry-Hopped St. Rogue Red - A great combination of pine and citrus hops with caramel malt.

I'm in Duluth, eh.

Really, Canada's just up the road. Some folks here even have the accent. But anyways, that's my sister next to Lake Superior. Yesterday we also went into Duluth and I got to hit up the bike trails at Hartley Park. It was my first good single track ride of the year and while I still suck at going down hills, my overall balance is greatly improved. I only feel off my bike a few times, it was great.

We also stopped by the local good beer store afterwards, Warehouse Liquor. The place is run by a couple of the nicest liquor store guys I've met (most act like they suck at life). I got a mixed 6'er and a couple bottles of new Norwegian microbrew import, Nogne O. It's the sort of brew that give beer geeks wood and while it doesn't show up much at BeerAdvocate (lack of reviews), RateBeer.com loves the stuff. I'll get to it soon enough. Here's a couple good ones from last night.

Scrimshaw Pilsner - Light, clean and hoppy, like a pale ale for hot days.

Sand Creek Wild Ride IPA - A fantastic IPA from Wisconsin. Big citrus hops flavor without overwhelming bitterness to make for a great drinking IPA.

Grad Week Thoughts

I'm up in Two Harbors, MN now for some R&R before I head home and have more R&R. There isn't much to say about the town other than it's f-ing cold (it snowed this morning) and I haven't had a good beer yet. The beer situation should change on Tuesday. I'm going to Fitger's Brewhouse down the road in Duluth for a birthday dinner and lots of good beer.

One of the highlights from grad week was my bike ride to Ithaca. It finished at 65 miles from my doorstep in Syracuse to the Ithaca Commons. Christine and Rachel (in town from Michigan Tech) met me there and graciously drove me back. For most of the ride I was uncertain if I should continue biking. There were forecasts of thunder and lightning with an ugly look weather radar. The morning of the ride, I still hadn't decided if I should ride, so I looked out side and asked the Cycling Gods for a sign. I was met with a break in the clouds and warm sun. Finally some deities that don't disappoint. I also picked up a bottle of Ithaca Beer Co's IPAbbey ale, of which only 2000 bottles were made. It's a shame I'll never have that beer again, but its gems like it that keep me searching for the next tasty tipple.

Some friends, in addition to parents, came into town for the weekend. We had about as much fun as possible in between ceremonies and family dinner. The above picture is from the Jerk Magazine seniors party we held for our family and friends at the next-to-campus art gallery. Fun was had by all. In the middle of the picture is Steve. He's back in Long Island now, but we jokingly/seriously will open a brewpub some day. Our friendship is best described by this video from Scrubs.

Gradumatation

I'm in Kalamazoo on my way back from Syracuse after the weekend's graduation. All I can really say is everything went pretty well. My family and Christine's got a long great, my parents had their first dinner together with me and my sister in about eight years, and someone tossed around a blow-up doll at the end of the commencement. Not much more you can ask for than that.

There's been, as always, a lot of new beer. But there are so many reviews and I'm "on vacation" that I'll have to just put down the link for all of them. I will say the best recent beer I've had was the Southampton Grand Cru. Simply amazing. Here's the rest.

Catching up on the beer

Oh there's been some good beer lately, in between attempting to minimize my huge stock of homebrew and craft beers and celebrating graduation. The other night, for instance, I took my small store of barleywines and had a tasting with a couple friends. Always in moderation, of course, because nobody likes a hangover. Barleywines, by the way, are just a style of beer that close to wine in alcohol content with a strong barley-centered flavor (usually fruity).

Spaten Premium Bock - A good, standard German maibock, it has a light body with a rich apple juice and spicy hops flavor.

Magic Hat Imperial IPA - Not very imperial, but a nice, bigger IPA. Hops concentrate of bitter grapefuit flavors.

Millenium (Oak-Barrel Aged) - Pineapple hops with only a hint of the whiskey barrel, not terribly rich in flavor, but very drinkable.

Komsky Charlie's Y2K Catastrophe Ale (Bourbon-Barrel Aged) - Still not that much whiskey flavor, but what there is adds a layer on top of the non-barrel aged.

Komsky Charlie's Y2K Catastrophe Ale - An odd, but good barleywine with a strong vanilla and oak flavor with a grassy English hop kick at the end.

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine - This is the standard in American barleywines. Big hops and big malt flavors combine almost to the point of making this tough to drink.

Siberian Night Imperial Stout - #67 on the BeerAdvocate Top 100. Very drinkable with complex chocolate flavors. This would be hard not to love.

Budweiser - Now for something completely different. Not as bad as some beer geeks make it out to be. It's very clean flavors with grainy malt and rice flavors and a slight tang. It's not horrible, and if it were the last beer on the world, I'd probably drink it.

Feel the Burn

The Mountain Goat Run, a 10-mile road race around Syracuse's big hills was this Sunday. As you can clearly see in the picture, I was in a world of hurt.



Christine was nice enough to take this right after Mile 8 going through Thornden Park near campus. Though I look like I'm in worst shape of the group, I was the first across the finish line. I finished in 1:09:35, which was about 10 minutes faster than expected considering my lack of running over the last 2 years. That was good enough for 109th place out of 1376 and 8th in my age group.

Of course, now it hurts to stand up, sit down, walk, go upstair, downstairs, and most other basic movements. To the victor go the spoils, eh?

Finals Week

All my work is now downhill until Men's Health starts up in June. I'm just finishing my final assignment for Leisure Studies, a senior-level class that's more work than the class title hints at. The assignment is based about Mt. Everest and applies all the concepts that go into leisure, recreation and in this case, mountaineering. It's a little eerie to read about Everest because it has such a powerful draw. Yeah, you and/or your friends might freeze or fall to your death, but you might also reach the top of the world. It's the sort of thing I'd love to do in theory, but not really.

I found this Everest guide site where for $65,000 you can have have a guided summit attempt while receiving the (relatively speaking) royal treatment. But who climbs Everest because they can get served tea while at base camp? Sure, the death ratio is down to only one in twenty dying during a summit attempt, but they call Everest above 26,000 feet the "dead zone" for a reason.

Anyways, finals stuff is almost over and I still have a lot of beer in my apartment. You should stop by and have some. Help a guy out.

New to me:

Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA: The first beer in a horizontal tasting of the Dogfish XX Min IPAs. A nice mix of sweet and tangy hops, worth a try for IPA fans.

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA: They call it an "imperial IPA." I say it was an imperial amber ale with some decent hops. Just too sweet and not enough bitter for me to call it an IPA, still tasty tho.

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA: Damn, this beer weighs in at roughly 20% abv. That makes it one of the strongest beers in the world. The overal taste wasn't amazing, but the malt and hops made for a beer liqueur taste that pretty good.

Michelob Light: I was really thirsty after the Daily Orange-Jerk kickball game (we won) and this sure came close to water.

Church Brew IPA: This one's big on the perfume-like hops, they got a little overwhelming.

Stone Smoked Porter: A pretty good porter, and an amazing accompaniment to my spicy sandwich at the Tusk.

Long Trail Blackberry Wheat: An insult to craft beer, blackberries, and wheat. Avoid.