Elfin Drinking

No real excitement tonight, but another beer from the list with dinner.  Houblon Chouffe, a Belgian beer with a funny little elf on the cute bottle (see below).  

Houblon Chouffe (Rating = 3.0)
Nothing too special about this one to be honest.  Just a lighter beer, but with some hoppiness and a bit of a bitter aftertaste.  Next.

Beers down: 22
Beers to go: 979

Here is the updated spreadsheet.

Crazy Saturday Night

Had a chance to knock off a few more tonight.  Special thanks to one of Beth's friends (Stacey), who joined us this afternoon (into night)  - allowing me to tick a few more off the list.  Good mix of beers here.

La Trappe Dubbel (Rating = 4.0)
Thanks to the Dutch monks brewing this beer, we can now enjoy this around the world.  Tastes a lot like a Belgium beer, but with Dutch influences.  Nice beer, sweet finish.  Very nice.

Zywiec Porter (Rating = 2.5)
So, I've been to Poland a couple of different times.  I have been lucky enough to be in both Warsaw and Krakow.  In both places, I sampled a few beers.  Zywiec was one of them - nothing special, but ok.  Poland needs something to hang their hat on, right?  This porter was simply not good.  Had the right measurements and set up, but just not good.  It was ok going down, but the finish was bad.  No other word for it - too bitter, just a bad beer.   Sorry folks, no need to hop a flight to Poland for this one.

Boont Amber Ale (Rating = 3.5)
An American brew, hailing from California, this is a nice little beer.  Strong brown color, nice fruity taste - nice beer.  Not something that knocks your socks off, but something not to shabby nonetheless.

Beers down: 21
Beers to go: 980

Here is the updated spreadsheet.

Ze Germans Make Good Beer

This is not exactly a news flash, but the Germans do make some nice beers.  I was in the Frankfurt area for work this week and did get the chance to have a couple of different beers.  The trip was mostly meetings and workshops at a remote location north west of Frankfurt airport, but it was still a chance to get a few beers checked off the list.

Veltins (Rating = 3.5)
OK, so the first one was not my favorite, but it still was ok.  This was the first one I had in the hotel bar.  It was a simple pilsner, but did have some spices to it.  Was a little too hoppy for a lighter beer for me.  

Maisel's Weisse (Rating = 4.5)
This one was on tap in the hotel bar and served in an awesomely funky glass (note the big hefty glass with the wavy angle to it).  I did enjoy watching the US soccer team take on Germany in this World Cup match while drinking a few of these.  The game was kind of a dud, but this beer was really, really nice.  It was a weiss beer, but had some body to it.  It wasn't just fruity.  There were some nice spices and was quite delicious.  

After the game, we had dinner and then ended up back in this bar, where I did enjoy another few of these.  Very good stuff.  I might have stolen one of these very glasses.  Happy to report that the glass did survive the flight home (thank you Lufthansa).  Good beer, good memory.

Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse (Rating = 4.0)
I finished my trip off with a couple of these in the Lufthansa lounge.  Yet another good summer weiss beer, this was is simple, but yummy.  Smooth, tasty, good stuff.  Maybe some hints of banana?

Beers down: 18
Beers to go: 983

Here is the updated spreadsheet.

Garden of Who's?

Hoegaarden (Rating = 4.0)
I had this (again) a few weeks ago and forgot to post about it.  Pronounced Who-gard-en, this, to me, is a perfect hot summer beer.  I have a few memories of this one from some good old days.  The first time I had it was while I was in The Netherlands, hanging out with some colleagues and watching the some World Cup soccer 8 years ago.  The weather was warm, the fans were crazy and this beer went down like water.  Big fan.  And still a fan of the Dutch team (go Orange).  Yes, I am aware that it is Belgium and not Dutch, but the Dutch aren't the ones known for their beer-making.  I've seen it in a bunch more places over the years, including a food/wine festival we went to Chicago a few years ago.  Again, a perfect summer beer - it was hot that weekend in Chicago.  While the food was mostly small plates, the beers were full size (complete with Hoegaarden pint glasses).  So, we now have a nice set of four pint glasses to drink this in.

Good stuff.

Beers down: 15
Beers to go: 986

Ommegang - Abbey Ale, Sierra Kellerweis, and

Three beers to update on tonight (for the record, watching Old School for like the 137th time - Frank the Tank is describing his nice little Saturday at this very moment).

Ommegang Abbey Ale (Rating = 4)
I've actually had this one before.  The brewery is based in Cooperstown and is owned by Duvel.  We went there a few years back with a friend of mine - a nice little weekend with the brewery visit, a visit to the Baseball HOF and a great dinner.  The beers here were really great.  Since then, we've seen Ommegang starting to appear all over.  They had a beer and food pairing a while back at the local liquor store out here (shout out to Julio's in Westborough) and now they actually have six packs in the store, in addition to the large format bottles that are cool.

This is a solid entry from Ommegang - tasty, with some heft to it (8.5% alcohol).  It's dark, but not a porter - pretty good stuff.

Fuller's ESB (Rating = 4.0)
Another brew that stirs up some of my old London days for school and work.  This just screams "traditional london beer".  It's got some hops, a little bitter, but has some fruity flavor as well.  Very easy drinking beer.  Apparently it was originally brewed as a winter beer, but is now a regular beer for all seasons.  Classic British beer - worth checking out.

Sierra Nevada Kellerweis Hefeweizen (Rating = 3.5)
I had this one last week, but forgot to post about it.  I like Sierra Nevada's standard entry.  This one was a bit of a summer version - it had the interesting smell and subtle taste of banana.  Not bad, but again, won't be knocking down doors to get it again.

Beers down: 14
Beers to go: 987

Here is the updated spreadsheet.

Forgot one!

Cascade Kriek Ale (Rating = 2)
This was one other one that came as a gift and we enjoyed it at my recent party.  This had high potential, but the beer soaked cherry flavor just tasted wrong.

Not good.  Blech.

Cross a few entries off the list!

Yes, I have now tried a handful of the 1,001 brews.  I have now settled on a format and what type of info to capture for each beer.  I won't bore everyone (anyone?) with the details, but you can see the full spreadsheet here.  I will do a better job giving a quick overview with each beer that I've tried.

In the meantime, here are the few beers that I've tried over the past couple of weeks (mostly thanks to a gift from my good friend Harvey).  NOTE: my rating scale is completely subjective, from 1-5 (5 being best):

Fuller's London Pride (Rating = 4)
Definitely had this in the old days in London, but it's been a while.  Really a good drinking beer.

Old Peculier (Rating = 4.5)
My favorite of this batch so far.  Great name, great taste.  It is dark-ish, but still fairly light.  Really tasty.  Worth finding more of Old Peculiar (also Harvey's new nickname).

Ayinger Celebrator (Rating = 3.5)
It had a cool little horsey charm around the bottle.  That was probably the highlight.  It was dark, was ok.  I might try it again, but would push down an old lady to get one (unless I was really thirsty).

EKU 28 (Rating 4)
This bad boy was potent.  11% alcohol kind of gave me a strong shove.  It was good, but I can only imagine having a drinking session on this one.

Weihenstephaner Vitus (Rating = 4)
A solid wheat beer entry from Germany.  I know they do some solid varieties (I think I might have actually had this once before on a trip to Germany).  Great summer beer with a little spice.  I'd have it again (notice the trend here?).

This from a recent Germany trip, I had the "small" beer while my colleague opted for a coffee (for the record, this wasn't an espresso, but it was one giant beer) in the airport lounge.  Needless to say, I slept well on that flight.

Murphy's Irish Stout (Rating = 3.5)
I used to be a big fan of Murphy's back in my younger days.  I thought it had a slightly sweeter taste than Guiness.  But after revisiting it, I think I will stick with old reliable.  Love the draught cans though.

Allagash Tripel Reserve (Rating = 4.5)
I love the big bottles.  And this was a nice surprise.  I do normally like Allagash generally, but this was even better than their normal Allagash White.  Nicely balanced fruit and really smooth.  When you can get a solid 2 beers from a bottle, that is living (Old English-style perhaps?).

Victory Golden Monkey (Rating = 4)
Victory Prima Pils (Rating = 3.5)
Victory Hop Devil (Rating = 3)
I found a nice treat at Julio's Liquors in Westborough a few weeks ago. They had a nice variety pack from Victory - which I had noticed rated 3 beers on this list.  No real surprises here - wasn't a huge fan of the hoppy one, the pilsner was fine (nothing special) and the summer-y one was light and tasty (I think I did have it on a warmer night).

That will do it for this update for now, more to come.