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Fate, destiny, love of beer;  all on the same wondrous collision course into the realm of my alcohol-infused reality.  I keep asking myself, did I find this great IPA from Georgia, or did it find me?  But what’s with the rainbow trout on the label? Now think about this, although the label is extremely bad ass, do trout really live in Georgia?  It’s fucking hot there.  I’ll leave this question up to those more knowlegeable than myself on Georgian specifics. Chaos.  Madness. The journey continues.

Pours golden with a nice creamy head into my shaped pint glass. Color is on the darker side of the IPA spectrum.  Smells of tropical fruit. Pineapple, mango, guava. Hops, hops, and hops.
Taste is everything that I hoped it would be and more. Fruity, hoppy, dry, bitter, all of the elements are here that make a great IPA. And still manages to carry less than seven percent alcohol. As I drink this and it warms a bit it keeps getting more and more flavorful. Like eating a pineapple while drinking a Stone IPA. I respect this beer.  Mouthfeel is creamy and the carbonation elevates this beer to another level. I would like a keg of this little sister of Sculpin and Pure Hoppiness.

The whole time I’m drinking this beer I’m thinking “is this really what they’re doing down there a?”  Fantastic.  Wonderful.  Thank God for fate!

I’ve been getting into barley wine lately. Had twenty or so samples of the style in the past year, both on tap and bottles. Barrel aged and not. I’d say after the experience of these tastings, that I really love a good barrel aged barley wine. Something about the aging really makes the smell and taste pop while maintaing a good balance of flavor.
I obtained a 2008 bottle of HOTD Fred From the Wood (the wood aged version of their normal Fred) and split it three ways with my cousins, who are fine conisseurs of many things, but don’t know much about good beer.

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Was just set on writing up a review tonight. Figures the first bottle (a Baltic porter) I cracked was horribly flawed with some medicinal, metallic shit going on. Reminded me of another highly frustrating ordeal. You know, the one where you’re spankin to the free video clip that cuts off in the middle before a money shot or anything? If at first you do not succeed…

My second choice, North Coast Brewing 2008 Old Stock Ale at 12.5% abv, treated me right nice. From the cardboard four-pack:

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There are times when my curiosity gets the better of me. I remember back in high school when “a friend” brought over a porno and exclaimed, “this one has chicks with dicks!” I was pleasantly disgusted by this announcement and sat for an hour mesmerized by these well-endowed shemales.

Saturday at Toronado my curiosity was again piqued by the hype surrounding a now infamous beer, Cable Car, brewed by Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing/Lost Abbey fame. Apparently there were only 1000 bottles of this produced, and I’m just clever enough to know where to find one. Split with BJR, J David, and SOB Steve (thanks for the pic!). I plopped 45 bucks on this bottle (the most expensive I’ve had to date) and it was worth every penny. You just can’t put a price on something like this. Not that the taste was so outrageously good (which it was), but the overall experience of drinking one of my “white whale” beers on the first day of spring break with great friends made all the difference. Now if only Juanote lived a little closer…

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I’d been avoiding this beer now for close to 2 years. It scares me. From what I could remember, it was a great big malty, bitter (102 IBUs), alcoholic (10.27% abv) motherfuckin’ beast. More of a chore than a pleasure to put back. But after initially hating Green Flash Imperial IPA (it was a bad bottle), then really enjoying it on tap a few months back, I decided to give some IIPAs that I hadn’t really enjoyed another chance. Having just been bottled in February (thanks, Avery, for the bottled-on date), I thought I might catch Batch 9 nice and fresh and maybe enjoy it a little more. One thing is sure, it’s still a fuckin’ beast.
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Oh the fine state of Alaska: Can 11,236 Eskimos really be wrong? For a state that lives in perpetual darkness for most of the year and whose official sport is dog-sledding, they make a damn good barley wine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not encouraging anyone to move to a state that borders on three seas and is twice the size of Texas (thanks middle-school geography report), but considering the quality brew that is coming out of Alaska, it might not be all that bad.

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I can think of a lot of stupid shit that I’ve done over the course of 30 years. Whether it was throwing my own shit at the neighbor’s house, lighting the backyard on fire with M80’s smuggled from Mexico, anal chugging a 40 of King Cobra, or sneakily busting out the shocker on unsuspecting victims…I think that I’ve lived long enough to recognize stupid. At least long enough to know that there is nothing stupid about this beer.

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After making our pilgrimage to wi…, er, beer country back in February for my wife’s birthday, we’d been anxious to try Apex IPA again. Among other non-bottled offerings that we enjoyed at Bear Republic, Apex was definitely a standout for both of us (although the Chardonnay Hop Rod Rye was my favorite), but were we just caught up in the moment, wandering euphorically at half-mast just at the thought of finally getting to the source of Racer 5? Well, maybe just a bit…
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After nearly a year long abstinence from Boozereviewing, I have been feeling the pressure to post up something. Consider the rust that builds up after a year of drinking without thinking. That’s the difference right? I have become complacent in my drunken stupor, not willing to use my brain while attempting to diminish its capacity. Hopefully I can shake the atrophy as I warm up. I probably could have chosen a simpler beer to ramble about in my return. Label description: “Extreme ale converging San Diego style imperial pale ale and Belgian style trippel.”

While ignoring the mirrored text resulting from the laptop cam snapshot, you can see the deep orange hue to Le Freak in the pic. Fairly cloudy, the “Freaker”, as I have dubbed it, had a creamy, frothy head that dissipated slowly.

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It is not the case that this big, 10% ABV Stout should ever be consumed for breakfast. Not unless you have most of the rest of the day to take a nap. They call this one a breakfast stout since it has the best coffee flavor that you’ve ever had in a beer. That, plus it’s full of some mellower whiskey flavors from being stuck in barrels for a time before being bottled.

This one came in a 12 ouncer. I got three, and enjoyed them all equally. If you’re looking to get into coffee flavored beers, this is definitely one that you need to seek out and cross off of the list. I’ve never been particularly partial to coffee in beer (or coffee in general), but I can down one of these masterpieces without blinking an eye.

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