Pfeifferhorn Lager / Epic Brewing Company

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Pfeifferhorn Lager

Epic Brewing Company / Salt Lake City, UT

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First of all, let's get something straight.  The year of beer was last year, complete with a set of unbreakable rules (different beer every day, no Coors Light, etc.).  Any blog postings this year will be haphazard, at random, whatever and whenever I feel like it.  Get it? Got it. Good.

Now then, on to the beer.  In Utah, beer under 4% alcohol can be sold at grocery stores, and beer over 4% (heavy beer) must be sold at the state liquor store.  As a point of reference,  most of your macro-brews sold in other states are actually above 4% ABV: 

Budweiser = 5.0% abv

    MGD = 5.0% abv

      Miller Lite = 4.2% abv

        Coors Banquet = 5.0% abv

          Coors Light = 4.2% abv

But in Utah, all of these wonderful beers are 3.2% ABV.  Even some of the craft beers that will show up in this Beer Run are 4% or lower.

Epic Brewing is one of the newer craft breweries in Utah, but already has pretty wide distribution - you can get many of their beers here in Virginia.  The beers I've seen around here are usually from their "Exponential" series - big beers, imperials, saisons, sours.

The Pfeifferhorn Lager is  from Epic's Classic Series.  This was recommended to me by the lady working at the liquor store.  It's a very good lager (5.3% alcohol),  with a crisp, spicy finish - a bit more character than you'd generally expect from a lager.

Utah Beer Run: Big Cottonwood Amber Ale

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Surprise!  I'm back!

But just for a few days.  Miss me? You may be wondering how I've been surviving these last 6 months... or maybe not. 

Have I been keeping up, more or less, with the beer quest?  Not really.  Of course, I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting beers, but it hasn't been quite the obsession it was last year.  In fact, in May the crew that I normally go with to visit breweries took a different direction.  We spent a couple days and visited the six distilleries along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail from Louisville to Lexington.  Did you know there are more barrels of bourbon currently aging in Kentucky (4.7 million) than there are residents of Kentucky (4.3 million)?

But we did stumble upon the small Country Boy Brewing Company in Lexington - they currently only produce beer for sale at the brewery, either at their pub or in growlers to go.  Their Chipotle Porter definitely packed a kick!

How's that 50 pounds thing going? Unfortunately, about the same as last year...

So, why am I back?  If you recall, I threatened that I might come back for a Beer Run or two this year.  As I'm typing this, I'm on a plane back from a business trip / sales meeting in Provo, Utah, about an hour south of Salt Lake City.  Now, Utah isn't the first state that comes to mind when you think about craft beer.  Colorado, California, Pennsylvania, Oregon, maybe...but not Utah.

But I've got to think with the prominent Mormon population and rather strict alcohol laws, there was a lot of pent-up demand for good beer in the state.  So over the last 10 - 15 years, a handful of breweries have popped up, many producing award-winning, nationally distributed beers.  I was in charge of the beer run for a cookout at the sales meeting, so I managed to squirrel away a few bottles in my suitcase and I've put together a Utah Beer Run!

Big Cottonwood Amber Ale

Squatter's Pub / Utah Brewer's Cooperative

Salt Lake City, UT

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Squatter's started as a brewpub in downtown SLC in 1989, and now is one of the largest brewers in Utah, with distribution to about 10 states (Virginia is not one of them).

The Big Cottonwood Amber poured a cloudy amber into my glass, with very little head. It had a grainy, slightly sweet and enjoyable taste.  This medium-bodied ale clocked in at 5.7% ABV (more on that tomorrow).  Overall, a decent beer, but nothing too exceptional.

By the way, I did stop into Squatter's downtown pub on the Monday night I arrived, for dinner and a brew.  The place was packed at 9pm on a Monday - I guess there's not a whole lot else to do in SLC (if you're not a Mormon, that is).

Day 365, Dec 31 / Infinium Ale

Day 365 / December 31, 2011

Infinium Ale

Boston Beer Company, Boston MA

and Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan, Freising, Germany

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That’s all folks!

Well, that’s it!  365 different beers, every day this year.  Done!  I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t put the effort in the losing 50 pounds part of the challenge.  But hey, I’m happy with the accomplishment.

I bought a special beer to finish out the run.  I didn’t know quite what to expect, but the promise of the Samuel Adams Infinium Ale was inviting.  A special collaboration between Sam Adams and the world’s oldest brewery, Germany’s Weihenstephan, it was billed as a “champagne” beer, comes in a very attractive bottle, and cost $20 for a 750ml bottle.

While the mission of the two breweries was to create a beer with the quality and taste of fine champagne, they needed to do so in accordance with the German beer purity law, Reinheitsgebot, which says the beer can only be made from four ingredients:  hops, malt, water and yeast.

To learn about the two year collaboration to produce this beer, you can check out this great article from All About Beer, and watch the videos (here and here) on Sam Adam’s website.

The final fermentation actually takes place in the bottle.  And in this case, it was actually fermented by the makers of Great Western champagne in Hammondsport, NY.

This was a very unique and tasty beer.  It popped and was effervescent like champagne, and had a slightly sweet, crisp tartness like champagne.  I thoroughly enjoyed this beer, and I was glad I chose it to end the run.

So, the big question… will I have a beer today, January 1, 2012?  Maybe, maybe not.

Make sure you subscribe to the blog via email (top right) to see if I’m up to anything in 2012!

See ya!

Day 364, Dec 30 / Redbridge

Day 364 / December 30, 2011

Redbridge

Anheuser-Busch / St. Louis, MO

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Give me my gluten!

Well, I wish my penultimate beer on this quest was something better, but I’m afraid it’s not!

We took my in-laws to the Air & Space Museum out by Dulles airport this afternoon, and then we poked around Reston Town Center for a little while.  We popped into Clyde’s for dinner, and surprisingly we got a table for five right away.

The only beer on the menu that I hadn’t yet had this year was A-B’s Redbridge, a gluten-free amber beer made with sorghum instead of barley or wheat.  While I’m glad that those with Celiac Disease have a beer they can drink, I’m sorry that it’s a pretty crappy beer.  To me, the taste was a bit sour and foul.

See you tomorrow (or probably New Year’s Day) for the final beer of the year!

Day 363, Dec 29 / Never Summer Ale

Day 363 / December 29, 2011

Never Summer Ale

Boulder Beer Co. / Boulder, CO

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Happiness is a full cooler. 

I filled a cooler on the patio with beers and ice last Friday, and the ice is still frozen and beers are still cold (but not frozen)

One of the beers that was placed there last Friday by HHH was Boulder’s Never Summer winter seasonal.  This is a good, solid winter seasonal, hearty, dark and moderately hoppy

So, what is the future of 365 Beers and 50 Pounds?  Well, the website is free, so I’ve got no reason to take it down.  I will leave it available for other Googlers of beer.  (There’s a joke in there somewhere… Beer goggles / beer googles…)

If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to fill in your email address in the “Follow by Email” box at the top right of the page. 

My plan is to post here occasionally over the next year – not every day and not every beer.  (That reminds me of lyrics from an old Stray Cats song…”And the girl on my left … (bum bum bum)  is looking better every beer.”)

I may occasionally post on an exceptionally good (or bad) beer.  And you can expect to see a couple Beer Runs in 2012 – ones that I wanted to get to this year, but didn’t have time to this year.

And which page / beer do you think got the most hits this year?  You’d probably expect it to one that I posted near the beginning of the year.  But it was actually a beer that I posted at the beginning of this month.  The Samichlaus Classic Lager on December 6 got 240 page views – I guess a lot of other people got it this Christmas season and wanted to see if others thought it was a bad as they did!

Day 362, Dec 28 / Aecht Schenkerla Marzen Rauchbier

Day 362 / December 28, 2011

Aecht Schenkerla Marzen Rauchbier

Brauerei Heller-Trum / Schlenkerla / Bamberg, Germany

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The Smoking Squirrel

A couple friends were kind enough to take me out Wednesday night to celebrate my almost completed accomplishment of having a different beer every day in 2011. As one of them said,  “Hell, doing anything every day of a year is an accomplishment!”  I guess that’s true, except for the basic life functions – eating, sleeping, breathing, bathroom breaks…

At the beginning of last night, I had just four beers to go!  Actually, if I allowed myself to “drink ahead”, I would have been done last night, because I had 5 different beers last night.  For that matter, I probably would have been done some time in October, because I’m sure there’s at least 50 other unique beers I’ve had this year that I didn’t count as the beer o’ the day.

We met up at Smoke & Barrel, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC. S&B is located on the second floor of a retail rowhouse, long and narrow with tables in the front and the bar in the back.  They specialize in unique beers, barbecue and small batch bourbons, and we had some of each, thank you.

My first beer of the night (which only a four ounce sample size) was Verhaeghe Duchesse de Bourgogne (easy for you to say), a Flanders Red Ale from Belgium.  The bartender told (warned) me that it was a bit sour, and he was right!  There’s a whole bunch of sour beers (on purpose) out there that I now really have no inclination to try.

The official beer of the day was Aecht Schenkerla Marzen, a rauchbier (smoked beer)  from Bamberg, Germany.  And it was smokey!  It did complement the barbecue pretty well, but it was definitely a one and done beer for me.

Other beers for the evening, between Smoke & Barrel and the nearby Black Squirrel Tavern,  included an Oskar Blues Little Yella Pils, Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale and Short’s Brewery Bellaire Brown (first time I’ve seen that around here).

So thanks to my friends for a fun night out, and thanks to all of you have supported my quest this year, either though comments on the site or to me in person, donations of beer, or ribbing me about the 50 pounds!

Day 361, Dec 27 / Bourbon Barrell Porter

Day 361 / December 27, 2011

Bourbon Barrell Porter

Williamsburg AleWerks / Williamsburg, VA

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Limited Edition, Signed by the Author (or Brewmaster)

Good news, bad news day.

Good news:  I’m sipping on a limited edition Brewmaster’s Reserve Bourbon Barrell Porter from Williamsburg Alewerks.  My friends Kevin and Amy picked this bottle up on a recent visit to the land of Busch Gardens, Thomas Jefferson look-alikes and Pierce’s Pit BBQ.  Plus, the bottle signed by brewmaster Geoff Logan will look awesome in my recycle bin!

As if the beer isn’t strong and rich enough on its own, it is aged for two months in Virginia Gentlemen bourbon barrels.  This is definitely a sipping beer, and is better when allowed to warm up a little bit.

Now the bad news:  The HP laptop that I’ve written 95% of the blog posts on has decided to hibernate on me.  Hopefully, it’s only a temporary condition, but I have tried several resuscitation techniques already. I may have to call in the Geek Squad!

Day 360, Dec 26 / Boatswain H.L.V. Ale

Day 360 / December 26, 2011

Boatswain H.L.V. Ale

Rhinelander Brewing Co. / Monroe, WI

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We’re in the home stretch!

Holy crap, I’m almost done!  Counting today, just six more days to go.  Thank God (and Tim Tebow) that I didn’t get sick or otherwise indisposed this year, and had to miss a day of beer.  I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t live up to the second half of this blog… but in case you hadn’t noticed, check the title of the blog.  I changed it about 40 days ago and nobody noticed!

I want to thank my friends and readers that have supported this indulgence and occasionally donated beers to the cause.  Most of them were good to great.  Cass Beer from Korea… not so much.

For the final days, I will sample a few beers that I received as Christmas gifts, and then there’s a couple surprises and/or special beers to wrap it up.

My friends Jim and Chris brought me a beer on Christmas Eve Eve that I’d never seen before.  The Boatswain H.L.V. (Heavy Lift Vesel) Ale is made by the Rhinelander Brewing Company of Monroe, Wisconsin and appears to be only sold at Trader Joe’s stores.  Rhinelander is a recently resurrected brand, currently contract brewed by Minhas Craft Brewery (the former Joseph Huber Brewery) in Monroe, WI.

The Boatswain series (I'll give a free beer to the first person with the proper phonetic pronunciation of Boatswain) are specialty beers made in small batches.  The H.L.V. Ale is a dark brown ale, brewed with sweet, roasted malts.  It definitely benefits from a warm-up outside the fridge for 15-20 minutes – the flavors come through and the alcohol bite dies down.  Certainly a good sipping beer!