Buying for bottles: Good Juju and Sam Adams for the win!

lefthandbrewing.com

I have been a bad little beer consumer, and haven't been keeping great track of the individual beers I have been drinking. Shame, shame upon my head. I'll try to do better next time. I've been busy/lazy/drunk? Do any of those excuses fly?
Anyways, you are in for a treat. Its summer, and what beers go best for summer? Something lighter, less malty and refreshing of course! On my way to a boxing match viewing extravaganza, i stopped off for a 6 pack and picked the first thing that grabbed my attention. Good Juju has a very distinct label and packaging, and its by left hand brewing company, which is a pretty stable bet for me. So i bought it for about a reasonable 9 dollars for the 6 pack. Its no honey brown for price, but hey, i wanted fancy freaking beer.
At first taste, you get a mouth full of ginger with this stuff. Did i mention that? Its a ginger infused beer. Surprising at first taste to say the least. Not in a bad way, but in a wow, that is a powerful flavor sort of way. It reminded me of how all sushi tastes when i go eat it.... like
pickled ginger.
I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I drank all of them. And enjoyed them. Its more of a try it and see how you feel about it.

borrowed from: http://onceuponastein.com/taste-tested-samuel-adams-spring-thaw-variety-pack/

I also picked up a mixed pack of sam adams a while back. Holy shit there were a lot of varieties in this box. While they all blended together (i'm not sure if that's sacrilegious for someone from near boston to say) but they weren't too distinct. The ipa, white lantern,  and alpine spring were hoppier than the rest, although i'm not sure i could tell them apart while drinking. The maple pecan porter was wayyyyy overly malty, at least in my option. I'll keep my candy in my icecream and out of my beer next time i think. The lager and the irish red where just basic beers.  A solid mix, and all of them were drinkable, but nothing too distinct. I feel like i've let down my boston roots. Oh well :). There are plenty more colorado beers to try!

Cheers!

Brew Kit and U Brew Farmington

I finally did it. I bought my own brewing equipment!
Its the start of something big... I can tell :).
I went down to U Bru in Farmington, New Mexico, who conveniently bought the inventory to the old Durango, Co store that went out of business last year. They were knowledgeable, interesting, and super helpful for my beer journey. However, they don't carry all grain kits and were a little surprised that a spurned easy peasy starter kits. U Bru can be found here :
http://ubruathome.com/
I picked up the basic bucket kit and they threw in a thermometer for me to get started.... once i buy a pot, a kit and some spare time....
Wish me luck! I'll update with progress when i get off my butt...

Working my way through the Beer tour of the Southwest

While i still mourn the lack of availability of some of my favorites, like Yuengling and Three Floyds, trying new beer around here has been a very good time. At least for my taste buds.

artzberger.com

This past weekend, I stopped a local shop to pick up some beer for a graduation party. When picking out beer in a store, i'll be honest. I'm a pretty lazy shopper. The number of beers is usually overwhelming, and i'm never quite sure where to go. The simplistic red cans of this beer from the Santa Fe Brewing Company caught my eye. Double plus good on the Irish Red, usually a potable beer even at its mildest. As soon as I had the cans off the shelf my roommate praised my choice. Although, i'm not sure how good her recommendation was, considering her lack of preferences. 

Anyways, I was happy. Even without pouring them, straight from the cans they were robust, malty and good. Not overly hearty, but still fairly rich. Mmmmm.... I only managed three, and at a low ABV of 4.5, it was a nice relaxing evening. I would definitely recommend these. They are a suitably good pick at about 8.50 for the 6 pack. 

Next up: some back blogging and my quest to collect brewing bottles :).

Sometimes you pick up and move to Colorado

What have you done in the last 30 days? I packed up the majority of my belongings and moved. To Colorado. 

What does that mean for the blog? Different regional awesome microbrews. Many more, and much more often. On my way out here I stopped in the middle of nowhere Kansas, I believe, to make a quick exchange with a friend driving back from the Grand Canyon. I gave him back his book on JAVA programming, and he  passed me a very, very warm american pilsner from the Grand Canyon Brewing company and a souvenir magnet from his trip. At least he knows me and knew that beer is my souvenir of choice. I packed it with me and drank it one evening while i was staying at the Amazing hostel in Durango, Co. It wasn't anything too special, but not bad for a light pilsner. 

Later on in the week when I had gotten a bit more settled, i picked up a 6 pack of the locally brewed Steam Engine Steam Ale, an amber lager. While nothing truly exceptional i thought it had a decent amount of flavor for an amber lager. I also like that it comes in cans, however, they are somewhat pressurized and I didn't manage to open even one out of the 6 without getting beer everywhere....

Finally, I picked up a bottle of wine this week. Unfortunately i haven't found any good cheap wine stores yet, but I haven't been doing much looking either. Anyways, This RACHA wine, imported from argentina was pretty good. This malbec while not super complex or fancy pant, wasn't too bad for about 10 dollars where i purchased it. I'd rate it 3.5/5 for flavor, and 3/5 for value. I've got to get bargain hunting.

Well cheers! And if you make it to the area, lets grab a local beer!

Spring Break and and Ode to Yuengling

This past spring break was one of the most hectic I can remember. I'm not even in school anymore, so this shouldn't be happening. There is always an excuse to have a good time and mine came in the form of a job interview in Georgia. In order to get to this job interview I decided it would be a great idea to hop in my car and scoot down from Massachusetts to Georgia for a long weekend. A very long weekend. Georgia, apparently, is rather far from Massachusetts.

Ideal Beer Drinking Location

To make a long story about a long drive a lot shorter, I'll just give you the high points. Yuengling beer is quite awesome.

After some of the chaos had died down i picked up a 12 pack of their most delicious lager to drink at the spring break cabin in Bryson City, NC where i ended up. Beer was followed by another 12 pack of their black and tan, and another 12 pack of lager. No i was not drinking alone, sharing is more fun. My weekend just turned into a few days in a hammock with some cold (some of the time) beer shared with some awesome people.

For those of you who have never heard of this brand. You should. Or you just might live outside of their limited but growing distribution area. Check out their website :D Mmmmm Beer!

They are really old company with some really good products! If you want a cheap beer that you can actually consider tasty, this beer is for you. I rank it about Old Style and PBR. Its my "i want to buy in bulk without sacrificing taste" beer. To put it in prospective, my beer chugging friends wont even consider this for any game that involves rapidly consuming a 30 rack. It is reserved for drinking slowly, preferably around a campfire, after a long and awesome day. Its a 5/5 or value and a 4/5 for flavor (this is an incredibly drinkable beer, 4/5 is great!).

Cheers!

Beers of Dubious Vintage...

Over at my uncles the other day and nabbed a Sam Adam's Noble Pilsner from the fridge. While the nifty little age indicator on the bottle said best before August 2012.... begging the question when will a beer no longer be good to drink?

Beer is a perishable product, meaning, it will at some point go bad. However, nothing can really grow in beer that will kill you. So, using my patented rachel logic, I drank the beer. It was pretty good. Light, a touch hoppy, but still mild, i think i liked it.
Anyways, here's the lesson for today. I may have said this before, but most commercial beers (non craft or micro) are pasteurized. Sam Adam's isn't an exception for most of their beers. This particular one was kept refrigerated  which is said to help keep the beer from hitting that skunked state for a little longer. Skunked, by the way, is what happens to beers that have passed their prime. Normally, beers are said to last 3-6 months, but that can be stretched. Honestly, not much is going to happen to the beer, just maybe a steady decline into not tasting as good for quite a while. With proper storage, some beers can improve, however.
Check out the Beer Advocate: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/store
Anyways, the moral of the story is, if you find a beer in the back of your fridge and you have no idea when its from, take it out, pour it in a glass, sniff it and see how feel about it. It might not be half bad yet!
Cheers!

Drinking Beer at Uno's Usually isn't a good Idea

Friday night, for the first time in a long time, I went out with some friends from Undergrad. While it was great to see them, unfortunately, since we were all coming from different directions, we chose to meet at an easily findable location; sadly, an Uno's Bar and Grill.
It took a while for our third friend to make it so we decided to pass the time with some beer from their small, but not terrible selection of local beers. For like 6.5 bucks you got a decent sized beer. For going out, i guess its somewhat reasonable. I chose Quinn's Amber Ale from Wachusett Brewing company. Normally, I really like a red, and I can say confidently, that this isn't a bad one. Its more like a keystone of a red. A bit too light to be taken seriously. More of a meh, it was something to drink and i needed room for "food" as its called at Uno's, so i didn't get the much tastier sounding stout.
Also, just as a side note. Don't eat at Unos'. Please. This is a plea straight from my stomach and taste buds. Drinking there, sure whatever, but food... please no. Not only where our "too hot to touch pizza's" cold, congealed  and somewhat gross, our grilled cheese appetizer almost too hard to chew, but one of my friends got a little food poisoning from his meat pizza. Go somewhere where they actually cook food. :). My recommendation to you.
Cheers!