News of the Beer'd

-The list of breweries for ABR has already surpassed last years total. I thnk there were 48 last year, now up to 55 and growing. I'm looking forward to trying everything from Lagunitas, Dark Horse and Fitgers whether I've had it or not. It also looks like Pizza Luce will be returning...yeehaw! There will also be some new stuff going on, including tours of the old Grain Belt brewery, food pairing seminars and pedal pub runs from the parking areas.

-It looks like a St.Paul location for Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery (will they call it St.Paul Town Hall Brewery?) is getting closer to reality. The Pioneer Press restaurant news has short blurb.

-Colorado's New Belgium Brewing Company has finally picked Bill's as a local distibutor and we should have it in store sometime in the next month., so you'll finally be able to get Fat Tire on Sundays.
Update: Our distributor is now saying we will have New Belgium in store the week of September 21st, per the brewery.

- A little bird tells me that there may soon be a new brewery startup in Menomonee making a big splash.  They have a lot of money and talent behind them, so there may be a new kid on the block.

Gordon on tap!

That's right...the restaurant now has Oskar Blues Gordon on tap. This keg isn't gonna last very long, if for no other reason than we all love it and make everyone who comes in try it. There's an elaborate desciption in my previous post here.

New Arrivals Part 2

Good things really do come in three's. In the last couple days, we've received 3 more popular beers:

Three Floyds Moloko Milk Stout - If it's from Three Floyds, it's gonna go fast. This Baltic Milk Stout is named after the famous milk drinks from "A Clockwork Orange." We only got one case, so...

Capital Autumnal Fire - They take their Octoberfest and turn it into a Dopplebock. It's thick, sweet and won a gold at GABF.

Dogfish Head Theobroma - This one went quick last year. From the label : This beer is based on chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras which revealed the earliest known alcoholic chocolate drink. As per the analysis, Dogfish Head’s Theobroma (food of the gods) is brewed with Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs, honey, chilies, and annatto (fragrant tree seeds).

New Arrivals

Friday we received 3 highly anticipated brews all in one day.


New Glarus Unplugged Old English Porter ($9.99 4-pack) - Every new beer in the Unplugged series receives alot of attention, and this one will be no exception. While it's called a porter, it seems closer to a sour brown ale, with an emphasis on sour. This one comes through with an almost vinegar and brown sugar flavor, as the tartness covers your tongue. According to their site, "to add to the authenticity of this brew, half of the batch went through a souring fermentation in the traditional way. This also helps to promote the characteristic wine-like acidity." I'm hearing that 'sour' is the new 'bitter', and this one definitely lives up to the "unplugged" name.

Summit Unchained Kolsch ($9.99 6-pack) - Summit says they aren't trying to keep up with the Jones' with their new Unchained series. They are not meant to be extreme, but extremely accurate representations of their brewers' favorite styles. There aren't very many true Kolsch style beers being made by craft brewers and this one has ingredients sourced directly from Germany. Word is the next in the series will be a Scotch Ale released in November.

Central Waters Brewhouse Coffee Stout ($10.99 4-pack) - This seasonal is a personal favorite and the best coffee stout this side of Dieu Du Ciel Peche Mortel. Unlike Founder's Breakfast Stout, it has almost no coffee bitterness. It's a smooth, thick stout full of coffee flavor. What makes it great is that although it's not bitter, it's also not sweet, just balanced. Highly recommended.

Great Taste of the Midwest 2009

Crazy big. That was my first thought at walking in to Saturday's GT beer festival in Madison. Despite the 6,000 people in attendance, the event was very well organized. And as usual for craft beer festivals, there were alot of drunk people, but none were disorderly. As much minor planning as we did, we still missed a bunch of beers and events we wanted to get to. I really wanted to hit the education tent for Dan Carey's cheese and beer pairing, but didn't make it. This festival really makes you realize how great the midwest craft beer scene is, as we got to try some of the most sought after beers in the world. The one that really lived up to the hype was Three Floyds Dark Lord. I'm sure you've all heard of the mind-blowing Imperial Stout with phenomenal balance, no trace of alcohol and a very smooth flavor. This beer was almost as hard to get at the festival as any other time, with the 3F booth under a seemingly constant attack by festival goers. Since there were 112 breweries and 700+ brews, there's no way I could do any kind of "best of" list, but there were some really good (and a couple bad) ones:


- The beer geeks within the Ale Asylum distrubution area are lucky, cause this brewpub cranks out some nice beer. Their Hopalicious Pale Ale is very good, as is the excellent Ambergeddon Amber Ale. Wish I could have tried more.

- Three Floyds Dark Lord is really good.



- At the cask tent, my favorite was the Arcadia bourbon-barrel aged Hopmouth DIPA. Arcadia is a nice Michigan brewery if you ever run across any. A close second was the New Albanian Hoptimus.

- Founders Hand Of Doom was surprisingly much sweeter than it's base Double Trouble, but we were 4 spots from the front of the line when the Canadian Breakfast Stout keg ran out...doh!

- As far as the new/unreleased beers debuting here, the Summit Unchained Kolsch was already gone when we got there, but the Surly Hell made up for it. It's a tasty Munich Helles that's unfiltered like a Kellerweis. The other one we got to try was the next New Glarus Unplugged Olde English Porter. I'd call this a sour porter, if there is such a thing. I will say it's different, but I don't know how popular it will be.

- A couple other nice beers/surprises:
Kuhnhenn Creme Brulee Java Stout- most coffee flavor I've had in a beer. Kind of tasted like Starbucks Iced Mocha Frapachino.
New Holland Imperial Mad Hatter IPA- Holy crap is this good
Tyranena Chocolate Imperial Porter- The guys from Lake Mills make some mean porter.
Half Acre Daisy Cutter Pale Ale- This is a Chicago brewery with some nice brews.
New Albanian Thunderfoot- I'd never heard of New Albanian, but I guess they're from outside of Louisville in southern Indiana.
Central Waters Brewhouse Coffee Stout - Can't pass this up. Should be in-store soon, this year in 4-packs.
O'Fallon Smoked Porter
Schlafly Tripel

- I have to get up to Duluth and go to Fitgers Brewhouse. Their El Nino double-hopped IPA was great, but I'd make the drive just to drink their Peace Coffee Porter, probably my second favorite beer at the fest after...

- Did I mention that Three Floyds Dark Lord is really good?

- Best Hop Hat goes to this guy:

- My Best Beer Name goes to Dark Horse's Smells Like Weed, with Arcadia's Papy's Big Dick a close second.

- My Best Booth goes to Surly, who had a couple hookahs (with some kind of raspberry tobacco or something) set up on a rug under a tent manned by none other than head brewer Todd Haug, with Omar pouring the brews. Cool.

It seemed like we tried a ton of beers, but it was really a pretty small percentage of what was available if you really budgeted your time and were organized (and everyone knows organizing when you're half in the bag is about as easy as herding cats). While I think that ABR stands up very well with this festival, one thing GT has on them is the buses and $1 taxis subsidized by the fest. There are buses running to 6 different places, including the Great Dane Brewpubs (where I had an awesome Black & Tan Cheddar Burger before hopping on the bus). No one drives home from this festival. Many thanks to Mike and Jory from Goose Island for working hard to get us in, and to Tim (put some ice on that) and Sarah for putting us up (and putting up with us).

Dave's Brewfarm Update

Sent an email to Dave Anderson of Dave's Brew Farm fame to see if he would be attending the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison this Saturday and also got a little update on how he's progressing:

Would love to hit the GT but am scrambling here - will plan on pouring next year! I've got three test (10 gallon) batches fermenting away and hope to get the 7bbl system up and running soon. Still have more permits/licenses to obtain - it's unbelievable how many I need...

So it looks like we may have some liquid love from Wilson, Wisconsin next year. I'm sure there's alot of people interested to see how his experiment works out. It's like good beer, minus the guilt, at least the carbon footprint part of the guilt (I saw something recently that said it takes 20 gallons of water to produce a pint of beer). No matter how green he gets, he can't take away the beer gut. Wouldn't that be somethin'........