Good Friday

That's right, so far it's been a good Friday for me. I woke up around 10, went for a nice long run through the local quarries and state park with Ben and Meghan, found out I'll get decent money for my articles at Esquire.com (and that my interview with the Perry Bible Fellowship cartoon creator Nick Gurewitch will run soon), and soon I'll be bottling my nut brown ale. There's more beer and Wii on-tap for later. I can see why it's called Good Friday.

Here's a few new brews:

Wachusett Nut Brown Ale: A classic brown ale. Hopefully mine will taste this good.

Lagunitas IPA: It's hoppy enough, but I'm just not into the hops profile, too grassy.

Xingu Black Beer: It's not a German schwarzbier (black beer), its just a Euro dark lager from Brazil. Pass.

LongShot Dortmunder: From the Sam Adams homebrew contest. A good step up form American "premium lagers."

Also, here's my weekly beer article in The Daily Orange. Ever wanted a beer that tastes like cough syrup? Read on to find out!

New month, new beer

March was a big month for me, I set record for new beers tried. I will quickly point out, I was still nowhere close my record alcohol consumption, and that's a-ok with me. But I had 36 new beers in 31 days. That put me at about 410 beers reviewed.
I also went out for my first real road ride of the year. Naturally, I figured the best way to get into the swing of things was for a painful 1:45 ride to Lafayette and back. The ride started with a dull pain in the teardrop quad muscle next to the knee, and moved out to the rest of my legs. what can I say, I had a good ride. I averaged about 16.5 mph on the hilly ride and hit a top speed of 40 mph. Hills are fun.

Here's a couple new beers I've had that were both pretty awesome:

Michigan Brewing Co. Peninsula Porter: A great example of the style with a dry bitter (in a good way) coffee and cocoa flavor.

Sled Dog Trippel Bock: It's really a doppelbock, just a relatively rich one. Sweet brown sugar and fruit flavor with some balancing bitterness.

Weekend Review

There's been a lot of new beer lately, along with a few people acting life dinosaurs. That Archie doing a Stegosaurus impression. I've been on a bit of pilsner and Euro pale lager kick lately and I think that's about over as I can't find anymore decent ones in Syracuse. And because Euro pale lagers are kind of a boring style anyways.

Here's a rundown of what's new, good, and bad:

Kalnapilis Original: A supposed award-winning Lithuanian lager. Nice, but ho-hum.

High Seas Holy Sheet: It's a cute name, but this is the worst attempt at a Belgian I've tried (next to my failed Belgian homebrew).

Michigan Brewing Bavarian Dark: A little cocoa flavor, but too mellow overall.

Yuengling Traditional Lager: This adjunct-fuel amber lager is ok at best. I call it over-rated.

Smuttynose Hanami Ale: A pretty cool cherry beer and I don't usually like fruit beer. A little sweet and a little tart. A little like beer and a little like fruit juice.

My favorite beer that I've had recently was actually my home brewed IPA. It clocks in at 7.5% abv and 75 IBUs from the 7 oz. of hops used in the boil and dry-hopping. I'll also mention my new hefeweizen is chugging away next to me around 68F. If I stick my nose next to the airlock I can smell the banana and clove coming from the yeast. This is why I love homebrewing and today's crappy weather makes me want to brew some more. I think a chile beer might come next.

Better Know a Continent: Australia

At the request of my friend Shelby, who's abroad in Australia, I've reviewed some Australian beer. I picked up the four best I could find. There were two others, Toohey's New, which has horrible reviews on BeerAdvocate, and Bluetongue Pilsner, which apparently isn't horrible, but got a crappy review in a beer mag I read recently.

That leaves us with Coopers Brewery and a lager from James Boag:

James Boag's Premium Lager: Nothing special, just a sweet inoffensive lager.

Coopers Original Pale Ale: It may be original, but it sure ain't special.

Coopers Sparkling Ale: Like the above two beers but lighter and with more carbonation.

Coopers Dark Ale: Not bad. Some cocoa flavors come through here, still a little bland.

Coopers Best Extra Stout: This is an old review. By fall the best Aussie beer I've tried. As a stout it gives Guinness a kick in the sack.

And yeah, there's probably some Foster's oil cans somewhere around Syracuse, btu we all know it sucks anyways. I do hear Foster's Bitter is drinkable. Also, check out this beer map of Australia for breweries. As far as I can tell Little Creatures Brewing is the best brewery in the land.

Cheers.

New Brew: Hefeweizen

Here's a quick brewing update. I just finished brewing up a batch of German wheat beer, here's the run-down:

5# wheat malt
4# German pilsner malt
6 oz. Caravienne
1 oz. Saaz (3.8% AA) @ 60 min
1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min

149 F mash for 30 min
1 gal decoction for 15 min

SG: 1.047
Anticipated FG: 1.010
Anticipated alcohol: 4.6%

Notes: I attempted to vorlauf as per the someone's suggestion of pouring the recirculated wort over fin foil. This worked until my mash would get stuck. Use rice hulls on the next batch of wheat beer.

Celebrating with beer

This Tuesday afternoon I got the call from Rodale offering me a six-month paid internship with Men's Health. I've been sweating this internship out for a month or so now and finally getting offered it was great news. To celebrate, I went with Christine down to the Blue Tusk, a beer bar with 69 taps and good food, for a little snack and beer.

This was a pretty big day considering all that happened. In the morning I went out for my first road ride of the year, a nearly 2:30 bike with Lindsey that included three 10-minute hill repeats. I was so fucking tired and muddy after. I took a picture for posterity. Notice the mud freckles and don't mind the chest hair.

It was also my two-year anniversary with my girlfriend Christine. Until now, I didn't know you could date someone that long and still like them. It works for me, go figure. We had a great dinner at Pastabilities and then went back to the Blue Tusk for a couple dessert beers, Goose Island Imperial IPA and Leffe Brown.

New beers:

Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat - Jacob recommended this one to me a while ago and I had one with dinner tonight. It's not a bad summer beer.

Goose Island Imperial IPA - Pretty good, but not quite great. The hops need some fine tuning so the finer flavors aren't overrun.

Leffe Brown - A smooth dark Belgian, but a little flavorless. I call it the Guinness of Beligum, looks fantastic but tastes so-so.

Brooklyn Smoked Weissbock - An interesting (and strong) wheat beer thats big on malt flavor.

Magic Hat's Ravell - A nice vanilla porter. Tastes like chocolate and vanilla candy.

New Weekend, New Beer

I didn't get too crazy this weekend, although I may have drank a little too enthusiastically at a friend's belated St. Patrick's Day. The picture has me, our friend Nate, and Christine on a couch. I ended the night funneling (the logic being after college it'll never be socially acceptable to funnel beer) Genessee Cream Ale - a beer I have long-touted as one of the best cheap beers available. It cost a dollar or two more that Keystone and Natty Ice, but taste infinitely better. Not only is it inoffensive like a good cheap beer, but it actually has some pleasant flavor.

Thanks to the single beers available at The Party Source on Erie Blvd, I averaging one new beer a day for the second month in a row. This may sound like a lot, but those seven beers a week account for the majority of beer drinking. I like drinking and TASTING beer a lot more than getting drunk, which usually ends unpleasantly anyways.

New Beers:

Sierra Nevada Stout - A great beer if you love the taste of roasted grains, way richer than Guinness (screw Guinness).

Middle Ages Tripel Crown - An alcoholic, but unimpressive hybrid of Belgian and English brewing.

Arcadia Scotch Ale - A decent Scotch Ale if you're into this sort of thing.

Kuhnhenn Bourbon Barrel Barleywine - Best beer of the weekend, tasty, about 14% abv and amazingly smooth.

Thomas Hooker Irish Red - A rich, tasty red ale, but a little heavier than I'd have liked.

Saranac Pomegranate Wheat - Brand new from Saranac, nice and not overly-sweet like so many fruit beers.

Bitburger Premium Pils - One of the best imported pilsners available, mostly because it comes in a brown bottle (green bottles, like with Pilsner Urquel or Spaten, allow skunking).

Perla Chmielowa - A decent Polish pilsner, a little more mellow than Bitburger.