200th Beer tasted, 500th viewing of the blog

So, it was another Thursday in the CHC, (what those in the know call our humble little abode of Carriage House Commons). As you loyal readers know, Thursday generally means a BC4M meeting and multiple beers to be tasted. The founding fathers sans 10pm all gathered at Fred's for a night that was sure to go down in the record books. What record might we be referring to you dare ask? Well, a quick check of the official log book showed we were only 8 beers shy of 200 official beers having been reviewed. After consulting with the official accounting firm of the BC4M ( The Law offices of Humptycrank and Grundlemunch) to ensure our numbers were correct, we were off to the races. We still had some leftover beers from the Maggie Valley roadtrip, so we started off with Highland Brewing's 15th Anniversary Auld Asheville Vintage Ale (9.5%). Yea, we know, how in the hell do you start the night off with a alcohol bomb like that? Well we never proclaimed to be rocket surgeons, (although if you actually knew what our day jobs were, you would run for the hills). This had the typical sweet taste that many high alcohol beers have, but it was oh so smooth. What a great way to begin, this garnered a good +, which isn't an actual grade, but we really enjoyed this one, (but WAY too much writing on the bottle, we just want to drink the beer, not get a free English Lit tutorial at the same time). Next was French Broad Rye Hopper Ale (5.9%) which was a very smooth IPA, but not overly hoppy and it got a good. Another French Broad product, 13 Rebels ESB Ale (5.2%) was poured next. As one member observed, "this shit tastes like liquid crunch and munch", "are we drinking peanut brittle?" Never buy this stuff unless you get suckered in by the wicked cool name and label, but seriously, it SUCKS. Highland Brewing's St. Terese's Pale Ale (5.2%) was a golden ale that poured smooth and tasted good. This is the kind of beer you drink after cutting the grass or doing yardwork, we all stated we could drink this stuff all day long. We followed that with another from Highland Brewing, Kashmir IPA (5.6%). As most beer snobs know, IPA or India Pale Ale, are ales that were seriously hopped to provide a preservative to the beer so that they would be drinkable once they arrived in India from England. This beer was good, but would have only made it as far as Morocco before being skunked (NOT enough Hops). We moved on to Mother Earth Brewing's Sisters of the Moon (6.9%) which was another IPA which was described as "another greenpeace nugget of so-so". Nothing fancy, nothing special, but if you got nothing else to drink, it might (and we mean MIGHT) suffice. Asheville Brewing's Ninja Porter (5.25%) was offered next. (Who knew the mountains of western N.C. were filled with invisible japanese assassins. Maybe Ghost Mountain in the Sky is really a secret ninja training camp). For a porter, this one was pretty damn good, and it didn't have a heavy feel to it. A quick review of the night showed we had just rated beer number 199, and so a special beer was retrieved from the garage beer fridge (what, you don't have a fridge in the garage solely used for keeping extra beers cold?, Shame on you for saying your a beer nut). Paulaner Salvator DoppelBock (7.9%) was opened since we had been told by various reviews online that this beer was superior to the best doppelbock known to man, Celebrator. A thorough tasting revealed a sweeter than normal bock, and while it was good, it simply pales in comparison to Celebrator. We had made it, 200 beers reviewed, followed by a quick look online that showed we had over 500 hits on the blog page. We had arrived in the digital age, I mean, we even have several hot chicks following us on our blog. Beat that Drunken Polack, or "The Beer Friends". Not satisfied with stopping at beer #200, Jon Wilder produced some fresh new beers from Danish brewer Mikkeller. We tried 3 of their fine brews, Sauvin Single Hop IPA (6.9%) which was very good, Simcoe Single Hop IPA (6.9%) which also was good and the Nugget Single Hop IPA (6.9%) which got the coveted RFG! J. Wilder exclaimed, "Real damn good". Three out of the four assembled agreed, this was one real fucking good beer. We then watched as Johnny pulled out the first beer of its kind ever to be sold in Hampton Roads. The lads from wee Scotland, Brewdog, had finally seen to it to allow one of the former colonies of jolly old Great Britain to partake in their original high alcohol content beer. Tokyo* (18.2%) which was deemed in excess over the pond because it encouraged binge drinking, is self-described as an "intergalactic fantastic oak aged stout malt with cranberries and jasmine" Before they got famous with Tactical Nuclear Penguin (32%) and before they set the world record for ABV in a beer (41%) with Sink The Bismarck, they produced this little gem. And a gem it is, watch out people, this is like drinking bourbon, you gotta SIP this stuff. "Fire in the hole" is how to best describe this dark mynx, and it rated a solid GOOD. After we all had a chance to cleanse our alcohol saturated taste buds, we opened a bottle of Divine Rebel (12.1%), a collaboration beer from Mikkeller and Brewdog. Seriously, only 12% alcohol? This is like drinking a Miller Lite compared to the firewater we just guzzled. This is also one of those beers aged in Scottish Whiskey Casks, but it tasted as if they aged it in a cask of rotten maple syrup. At 13 bucks a bottle, these guys should be ashamed of themselves, this stuff didnt suck, but was a marginal so-so. We then moved on to Mother Earth Brewing's Dark Cloud (5.1%) a Munich-style dunkel (which is German for dark, hence the cute name that the ganja crew making this stuff calls it). Surprisingly, this turned out to be their best beer by far (we are generally partial to dark beers). A solid good, cheers to our tie-dyed sandal wearing beermaking brothers to the south. The night was still young to us, so we opened a bottle of Stone's Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale (7.2%). Despite the salutations on the bottle that said we weren't "worthy" to drink this and "its quite doubtful you have the taste and sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth", we said fuck them and poured a round for all hands, (they obviously printed the bottle without knowing that the BC4M existed, but they live on the left coast which voted 2 nimrods, Boxer and Feinstein to the U.S. Senate, so once again we say Fuck them. But even if they say stupid shit on the bottle, this is a damn good beer, remarkably smooth and drinkable, a beer you could drink all night (and then pass out drunk as a one-eyed hoot owl after). We then found yet another bottle from the eco-friendly hemp loving boys at Mother Earth Brewing with their Weeping Willow Wit (5.0%). Witbeir (or White beer) are those beers formally brewed without hops but instead use fruit flavorings (called gruit). Modern day metrosexuals drink this type of beer when they order a Blue Moon (made by Coors). We certainly don't enjoy drinking these beers since we don't use "product" in our hair and we change our own oil, but we do have to taste every beer we can get our paws on to fulfill our sacred quest. Thankfully, we only had to taste this garbage once. Running low on beers, we said, "hey,we haven't even rated old faithful", the beer that made St John's Gate in Dublin famous, yes thats right, Guinness (4.2%). No words needed, we all love this beer. Sure it has become the "en vogue" beer for beer lover wannabe's to drink in order to look "hip" and "trendy", and sure there are better dark beers out there, but just like your favorite cheeseburger, Guinness will never let you down. Third to last for the evening was North Coast Brewing's Acme California IPA (6.5%), which was another solid beer that would make for an enjoyable evening. Good all around, we would drink this one again. We then tried Belhaven's Twisted Thistle IPA (6.1%) which got a so-so. We then ended the night with Lagunitas The Hairy Eyeball (8.7%) which is one of the "maltiest" beers they make. We all said this was a good, and it has a cool name, but then again, this was beer number 20 of the night. Hell, at this point along our drunken path, we might even have rated Milwaukees Best a good...are you out of your freaking mind? We would never sully our reputations by doing that. Anyway, the meeting was adjourned, two milestones achieved. Next up is beer number 300 (we will crack open the Dogfish Head Raison d' Extra (the bigger bolder version of Raison d' Etre) that is being held in a top secret beer fridge nearby) and the 1000th website hit. Thanks to our loyal followers, keep commenting and let us know how we are doing.