Kastenlauf 2011!

At the latest BC4M meeting, the boys were busy discussing their Kastenlauf team. As usual, it was sheer madness as the group couldn’t decide what beer to drink during the competition. “Hell or High Watermelon Wheat!”  shouted Prince, but he was immediately threatened with his life if he even mentioned this shit beer again. D-Rail made the mistake of suggesting Bud Light, and just like that, Fred’s rage boiled over. He leapt over the table and began trying to bottle feed a Chocolate Rain into D-Rail's chocolate starfish. 10pm offered to help save D-Rail, but it was already 10:01, so he quietly slipped out the side door. Chairs where flying, beers were spilling, when J. Wilder shouted, “Where’s Bim?” Bim, taking advantage of the mayhem, was in the process of sexually assaulting Wilder’s dog. “Hey man, that fuckin dog’s been giving me the eye all night. She wanted it”. Since none of the members are proficient in dog, we let Bim off the hook. Snake missed all the commotion, as he was busy with his side gig, TV preacher. With order restored, we got back to the business of tasting beers. We began the night with the Nogne O Sweet Horizon (14%). This sweet Norwegian ale with coffee added made us all in the mood for a “schmoke and a pancake.” This is the Slurpy syrup of beers, over-the-top sweet, but still quite good, and thus rated so. RJ Rocker supplied the Fish Paralyzer Belgian Style IPA (7.9%). No self respecting Belgian would drink this Round-up infused swill. It was just all wrong, rating a sucks. Thornburg Jaipur IPA (5.9%) is a British IPA and was just so/so. The Brits may have developed IPA’s, but the Yanks perfected it! Hair of the Dog Adam ( 10%) is described as an old world ale. It tasted as if it’d been salvaged from an old world fire-pit, with a strong smoky flavor that no one liked. It was a so/so.  Heine Brothers Coffee Stout(6.5%) was thin, weak, and another so/so. Next up was Mikkeller’s Baltic Porter (8%). Finally, a decent beer. This really is a tasty porter, and probably one of the better ones we’ve had, rating a good. Deschutes Hop Henge IPA (7%) gave us a cool bottle and high hopes, but the flavor disappointed.  A decent beer, just not hoppy enough for an American IPA.  Jailhouse Brewery’s Midnight Special (10%), part of the Atlanta haul, was an India style black ale, and was nothing to write home about, rating so/so. Port Brewing Midnight Express Lager (5%) was a decent session beer. Nothing special, but quite drinkable, rating a good. Lakefront Brewing Co. India Style Black ale (6.5%) was better than the Jailhouse version, and rated a good. And then we opened the best beer of the night thus far, the Goose Island Lolita 2010 (7.0%). This sour beer was really good. It’s just a shame that the brewery sold out to the big boys, and all their beers from here on out will be suspect. Let’s hope they don’t start brewing Blue Moon clones! Pannepot Reserva gave us Old Fisherman’s Ale 2008 (10%), a tea flavored (not on purpose) sweet beer that the group liked, giving it a good.  Shipyard Brewing Co’s Double Old Thumper (11.2%) was also liked, rating a good. It’s a heavier version of their regular Old Thumper, with about twice the alcohol. By this time, we’d pushed through 13 beers, and should have stopped. But Fred, having worked for many days straight at the salt mines, was looking for an all-nighter, so we gladly agreed to drive on. The Bruery’s Hottenroth (3.1%) is a Belgian style tart wheat ale, reminding us of a British shandy.  At 3.1% alcohol, you’re more likely to die from water intoxication before you’ll ever catch  a buzz off this, but it still was damn good. Ridgeway’s Reindeers Revolt English Christmas Ale (6%) (who brought this shit? It’s May for fucks sake!) rated a good. Nogne O, known for their sweet beers, provided the Tiger Tripel (9%), a very rich, complex beer that we loved, giving it a really good. This was followed by Lakefront Brewery’s Bridge Burner (8%), a strong ale, that, while not that strong, was good. We closed the tasting with a French Broad Anvil Porter (6%). Nothing was written in the book about this except “good” so I guess we liked it. Who the fuck knows? Don’t believe us??? Start your own beer club and rate it yourself! See you at the Kastenlauf, Hundinnen!

Road Trip To Georgia

Me (Bim) and my ole lady decided on a road trip to Georgia. The goal? Kickin ass and taking names. After putting on my best traveling clothes, we loaded up the chopper, and away we went. First stop was Atlanta. You history buffs may know what Atlanta is famous for...not history or Gone with the Wind or any of that shit... it's known for great titty bars! But titty bars were not on the menu for this outing. We were heading there to meet one of Bim's oldest friends, a guy who, during his professional days, went by the name of Ron Jeremy. He now lives in a town called Cumming, GA, a well known retirement community for washed-up porn stars. As a youth, long before Al Gore invented the internet, Bim and his pal would watch 8mm porno movies projected onto the neighboring house's white siding (this is actually sad but true). Imagine, the great John Holmes, the human jackhammer, 12 feet tall and doing his thing on the side of the Wilson's house while the family inside watched Leave it to Beaver, totally oblivious. First stop in "Hotlanta" was the Sweetwater Brewery. Sweetwater is known for brewing lackluster session beers, and they didn't disappoint! The brewery tasting was packed with 20-something kids whose idea of adventure was driving their BMW's through the Atlanta ghetto...with the windows down. The servers were all hot chicks which is always a plus, and the sampling glasses were pints filled 3/4 way to the top. This apparently was an attempt to keep the focus off the actual beer quality, and it worked! First up was their signature beer, 420 Extra Pale Ale (5.2%). I believe they must have been stoned when brewing this and forgot to add hops. I like beer, and who doesn't like weed, but this one reminded me of neither. Next was the Road Trip Blonde Ale (5.3%) which reminded me of bland, urine colored, Suwanee River water. The Sweetwater IPA (6.4%) may be the one that redeems them, a well brewed, nicely hopped IPA that actually tasted like IPA. The Georgia Brown Ale (5.4%) was a good representation of this style, very carmely. And lastly we tried the Blue (4.8%), a suck-ass blueberry beer that they should be ashamed of putting their name on. For six bucks, it was a generous tasting and helped start the night. Next stop was a place called Taco Mac, which sounds oddly like a Mexican Joint, but is actually a wing place with an amazing beer selection. 140 beers on tap, 200 in bottles. Well done guys. The next day, after hitting a couple of local bottle stores, we bid godbye to Ron and his lovely family (including his 3 sons who hope to one day follow daddy's film legacy) and it was off to Athens. The goal was to kick Michael Stipe's ass for 30 years of bad music, find the Indigo Girls and turn them straight, and hopefully drink some good beers. What a disappointment. This college town is apparently owned by Annheiser Bush. The only redeeming point was the fact that Terrapin Brewery resides here, and thay make So Fresh and So Green Green, an awesome seasonal IPA. For that reason alone, I let Michael Stipe off the hook with little old fashioned bitch slappin. Then it was off to Wilmington, North Carolina for more fun. Wilmington is home to Front Street Brewery as well as several fine beer bars. The first one we stopped in was the best, Cape Fear Beer and Wine. The concept here is that this is a bottle store which has a bar... the best of both worlds! Drink something you like? Take a 6 pack home with you! The selection was great, the bartenders, Megan and Kris were quite knowlegable as well as being very friendly to a couple of beer geeks from Virginia. They helped us get loaded several nights in a row, and even opened Bim's eyes to a brewery that we had previously written off, St. George's from Hampton, VA. These guys brew some shitty beers, but their cask IPA was damn good. My advice to St George... stop brewing everything else and stick to the cask ales. After some debauchery in Wilmington, it was back home with the booty, 30+ bottles of new beers to sample and not a single arrest or animal molested. Until next time, Cheers!

Lent: Time to Give it Up Baby!

If you grew up Catholic, you know about Lent. It's that time of year when believers give up something they cherish. With that in mind, the BC4M gathered the troops and declared what we were giving up for Lent. First up was Bim. "I'm giving up fucking sheep," he declared, "but all other animals, farm and domestic, are still in play". D-rail, always the pragmatist declared that he was giving up sex...with women... which, for some reason drew howls of laughter. Next was Fred's turn. Fred, who invented the worlds largest silicone breast implants, gave up his favorite past time, motorboating. Johnny Wilder, the CHC dance champion, offered to give up dancing for a month, which made everyone else at the BC4M dance club ecstatic. Prince Mike offered to give up drinking Hell or High Watermelon Wheat beer, which we all called "bullshit" on, as everyone knows that drinking your own urine is better than drinking this shit! And lastly Snake, who, unbeknown  to even his wife, is a renowned pornograhic tree collector,  offered to quit masturbating to his tree pictures. Fred immediately volunteered to safeguard the collection. With the declarations complete, it was on to the tasting.

We are still slowly working through Fred's massive haul from San Diego, so he provided us with plenty of new beers. Bim had also recently been on a beer exposition, and brought the group a fine selection from Georgia. First up was Karl Straus' Big Barrel Double IPA (9.0%). Despite the 9% ABV, this was a real nice beer, hoppy, malty, and would make a great session IPA... rating: good. Terrapin has produced a "Georgia Theater" series, sold only in the Athens Georgia area. We tried 3 of these beers (didn't get the heffeweisen, as they all suck balls). We started with Hoptaneous Combustion (9.3%), a Imperial Smoked Double IPA. An IPA version of a campfire in a bottle, it rated only a so/so. Next in the series was the Iron Tankard (9.4%) and old style ale. This glass of sugar pops was sweet, syrupy, and had an alcohol punch to the face. The boys liked it and rated it a good. The last beer in the series was Sound Czech Pilsner . Pilsners aren't our favorite beers, but this one was a good representative for the style, and rated a good. Fred then produced an Epic Armageddon  IPA (6.66%). Epic, from New Zealand, did a collaboration beer with Dogfish Head, a type of tomato beer that tasted like you'd think it would taste. This one tasted as if it may have been brewed with Peter Jackson's urine. A rather watery, weak alcohol taste, with a vanilla extract flavor. Who knew that Peter Jackson's urine tasted like vanilla? Needless to say, the beer was a so/so. Left Hand graced us with their 2009 Barrel aged Imperial Stout (10.4%). This beer was sweet and a good drinker, but lacked a strong stout base. Still, the group rated is a good. Mischief Gone Wild (8.5%) from the Bruery was next. What a nice beer. Tart, light refreshing, we all unanimously rated it a good. Saint Somewhere's Lectio Divinia (8.0%) was next. This is a really good beer and is advertised as a cross between a saison and a abbey double. Our first from this brewery, but it won't be our last. Hair of the Dog's Fred Barleywine (10%) was next. Of course Fred loved the name, while we all loved the beer. It rated a really good. Things were going great up to now. 10PM had just left the building (it was 10:01 after all) and Bim pulled out a Summit Wayside Cliffhanger Ale (4.8%). This shit was horrible. Apparently brewed by Rogue, using that patented waste water they brew with. It was like a bad glass of orange juice, rated a sucks, and got poured back to whence it came from. Karl Strauss' Parrot in a Palm Tree Porter (8.5%) was one of the best porters we've tasted. Smooth and quite drinkable, it rated a really good. The perfect anecdote to the last disaster of a beer. Klein Duimpje Imperial Russian Stout (8.5%) is brewed in the Netherlands. They are close enough to Russia that they should know what this style should taste like. Instead, their beer rated only a so/so. Rodenbach (5.2%), an oak barrel aged sour from Belgium, was another winner. It's sour without being over-the-top, and pleased even the non-sour lovers. It was a really good. Karl Strauss' 22nd Anniversary Vanilla Imperial Stout (9%) was another great beer. A hint of chocolate and vanilla, this was a damn good beer, rating a really good. Harpoon's Barrel Series Island Creek Oyster Stout (5.5%) was a good beer, but adding oysters to beer kind of creeps us out. It rated a good. Amager Bryghus Imperial Stout (10%) had the plain label you'd expect to see on 7-11 brand beer, but it was damn tasty, rating a really good. Then it was on the Great Divide's Grand Cru (11%) a Belgian Dark Ale. It rated a good with no description...fuck you people, we'd had 17 beers by this point and were barely able to speak coherently! Last beer of the night came from Howe Sound Brewing Co., Diamond Head Oatmeal Stout (5%) finished the night. This was a light stout but a good session stout that, if we had 15 more, would drink all night. And just like one of D-Rails many sexual encounters, it was over in the blink on an eye. Happy Easter everyone!