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!