Beer!

Excellent!

Got another beer gift from an employee....4-pack of Dragon's Milk.
Delicious!

Dragon's Milk is awesome! It's even better if you cellar it for 6 months to a year.

That's actually the one that started me on the road to beer snobdom.

I just got back from the Schlafly bottleworks.  I got my 2 free bottles of Old Ale plus two T shirts; one with the Pumpkin Ale logo on the front and the Thoreau quote on the back and the other features the Schlafly logo in a baseball design on the front and the back has the "name" as Schlafly and the number is the silhouette of a bottle.

My brother and I have had an annual Christmas Eve tradition for a number of years where he comes up to the house and stays over till Christmas day, which gives us an excuse to stay up half the night watching Christmas stuff on TV and drinking an obscene amount of beer.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, however, stuff happened this year and he couldn't come up till Christmas morning...but I didn't find out until after I'd already hit the beer store and "prepped" for the evening's planned drunkening... so I had a 30 pack of Coors Extra Gold, and 12 packs of Yuengling Lager and Heineken in bottles all to myself. I didn't come anywhere close to finishing all that beer, of course, but damn, I had me some fun trying (belch)....

Rounded up 26 more 750ml bottles of Schlafly's Old Ale today.  That brings this year's Beerquest total to 64.  Not bad but a far cry from the 92 bottles I rounded up on last year's Beerquest.

Been enjoying Deschutes Obsidian Stout, Alameda Black Bear Stout and Big Bear Black Stout. I sense a theme.

That Deschutes Obsidian is great.

It is. The Alameda Black Bear is a Portland Craft that is excellent. I forgot to mention the Mocha Irish death which is a local Wa. brewer.

Quote :

Mocha Irish death

That would be a GREAT name for a band.

Ha, maybe. Is Mocha death metal a genre?

My Wife took me to the Black Dragon Brewery ( http://www.blackdragonbrew.com/Black_Dragon_Brewery.php ). Had a Dragon's Eye Porter and we shared a five beer sampler and found out that I still find IPAs nasty and LOVE my Porters and Browns.

They have a Slayer cd in a small picture frame and it says: "In case of hipsters, break glass"

chewie wrote:

My Wife took me to the Black Dragon Brewery ( http://www.blackdragonbrew.com/Black_Dragon_Brewery.php ). Had a Dragon's Eye Porter and we shared a five beer sampler and found out that I still find IPAs nasty and LOVE my Porters and Browns.

They have a Slayer cd in a small picture frame and it says: "In case of hipsters, break glass"

I'm with ya  on IPAs.

The Slayer CD picture is a nice touch.

And from the brews available on that link you posted, I'd have gone with the Dragon's Eye porter too.

tohostudios wrote:

chewie wrote:

My Wife took me to the Black Dragon Brewery ( http://www.blackdragonbrew.com/Black_Dragon_Brewery.php ). Had a Dragon's Eye Porter and we shared a five beer sampler and found out that I still find IPAs nasty and LOVE my Porters and Browns.

They have a Slayer cd in a small picture frame and it says: "In case of hipsters, break glass"

I'm with ya  on IPAs.

The Slayer CD picture is a nice touch.

They have an old Slayer poster in the hallway as well and I can't remember if it's autographed or not.

Yeah, I do not know how people drink those....

While Texas and beer are associated with each other, so far my experience with Texas brewed beers has been less than satisfactory. First it was stouts from a place called Buffalo Bayou. They were nasty sour, and quite bitter (almost like an IPA stout). This time it was a Belgian from a place called Cedar Creek. This one has a slight sour/bitter taste at the beginning but it died out real quickly and while the remaining flavor certainly didn't make it the worst beer I ever drank, for a Belgian it was highly disappointing.

Seems to me that the yanks and the Canadians make the better brews. I could always try the Belgians actually made in Belgium but at the price those go for, I'm not sure I want to take the gamble.

DallasBlack wrote:

While Texas and beer are associated with each other, so far my experience with Texas brewed beers has been less than satisfactory. First it was stouts from a place called Buffalo Bayou. They were nasty sour, and quite bitter (almost like an IPA stout). This time it was a Belgian from a place called Cedar Creek. This one has a slight sour/bitter taste at the beginning but it died out real quickly and while the remaining flavor certainly didn't make it the worst beer I ever drank, for a Belgian it was highly disappointing.

Seems to me that the yanks and the Canadians make the better brews. I could always try the Belgians actually made in Belgium but at the price those go for, I'm not sure I want to take the gamble.

If you ever see a Belgian with the "St. Bernardus" or "Gouden Carolus" labels, you'll be safe.  "Ommegang" is another good quality Belgian brewer.

Domestically-brewed "Belgians" are pretty iffy.

I found a new store-specific beer today; another collaboration between our Schnucks chain and a local brewer.  This time it's 4 Hands.
 
This one is called "Bock N Black".  It's a bock wheat beer that's brewed with maple syrup and spices.  This stuff pours almost black and has a semi-sweet taste. Most bocks have a sort of sweet taste to me and this one has that but it's amped up a little bit.
 
I'm really enjoying this beer and I'll have to start rounding more up because like the Schlafly Old Ale/Schnucks collaboration, it's a limited release.

So I've got a new "BeerQuest" upon which to embark this weekend.

Pretty weak for a Belgian (acutally from Belgium) but not bad. Certainly better than your average popular American beer. It also wasn't particularly expensive (the reason I decided to try it out):

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16132/38297/

Yeah, not a highly rated one and not one I'd really try again, but at least I don't have to pour this one out.

DallasBlack wrote:

Pretty weak for a Belgian (acutally from Belgium) but not bad. Certainly better than your average popular American beer. It also wasn't particularly expensive (the reason I decided to try it out):

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16132/38297/

Yeah, not a highly rated one and not one I'd really try again, but at least I don't have to pour this one out.

I've never heard of that one.  And based on that BA score, I'm probably not missing much.  But then again, I don't always agree with the BA score either; they love stuff I hate and hate stuff I love so if you like it, that's what counts.

tohostudios wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

Pretty weak for a Belgian (acutally from Belgium) but not bad. Certainly better than your average popular American beer. It also wasn't particularly expensive (the reason I decided to try it out):

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16132/38297/

Yeah, not a highly rated one and not one I'd really try again, but at least I don't have to pour this one out.

I've never heard of that one.  And based on that BA score, I'm probably not missing much.  But then again, I don't always agree with the BA score either; they love stuff I hate and hate stuff I love so if you like it, that's what counts.

Well this beer has turned out to be weird one. Upon first drinking it from the fridge, it is as I described it. After warming up it almost tasted like a Maudite. Then after it got warmer, it became tart and slightly bitter. Apparently this beer is only good when it's between cold and room temp. Guess I can chock this one up to a failure.

Oh well, only cost about $5. The other ones I got will be more promising (particularly the last one which is from one of the ones you recommended, Ommegang):

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/207/645/
&
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42/142/

Oh yeah, you can pretty much count on anything Belgian from Ommegang as being good.

I'm still holding off on that "vintage" pack of their "Three Philosophers" Belgians I bought several weeks ago.  It features 3 different vintages of their "Three Philosophers" Belgian and the oldest is from 2011.  I bought one of these packs before and the 2011 vintage is to die for...

tohostudios wrote:

Oh yeah, you can pretty much count on anything Belgian from Ommegang as being good.

Except probably Belgian Pale Ale .

Well anything with the word "pale" in the title is suspect.

You and your Belgians. Too fruity for my palate. I picked up a sixer of Leinenkugels Vanilla Snowdrift Porter, mostly 'cause it was cheap. It's decent, i'd say more of a starter if you are just getting into dark beers.

I tried that Snowdrift Porter last year. It's OK but nothing I feel the need to buy again. Going out now to buy more Bock In Black.