Beers in fridge not yet consumed and absence explained.

I have been so freaking busy at work the last couple weeks, what with RAGBRAI coming up. If you don't know, Ragbrai is the oldest and biggest cross state ride in the nation, and is effectively a rolling party where drinking cheap beer, listening to terrible cover bands, and riding 450-ish miles in one week all come together in a glorious symphony of awesome. My wife (and friend) are back, minor problems, but overall a good time, and I've house guests preparing for said ride, and yeah, everyone is getting stuff fixed and buying more stuff, so we're busy as all hell. Also my little sister got married this past weekend so I was out of town for 3 days for that.

Now for the fun part: beer.
I have a bottle of Dark Lord. Three Floyd's Brewing makes an amazing Russian Imperial Stout called Dark Lord. I got to sample some from a bottle a friend brought explicitly for such a tasting. I had to trade some fancy stuff from my own stash for it. It is extremely limited release and can only be purchased at the brewery and only while supplies last, which is usually one day every year. He paid $120 for four bottles on Chicago craigslist. I'll do a full write up once I crack my own bottle, but briefly, it is super complex, smooth, dark, with vanilla, coffee, chocolate, and about a thousand other flavors. Seriously amazing.


La Folie from New Belgium has finally filtered through the vast wasteland of Nebraska and made it to the less expansive wasteland of Iowa. I'm pretty thrilled. I've tasted it on a brewery tour (the 2008 version) , and it is a killer example of a sour beer. Here's an article from the NY Times about sour beers and what they offer and how they're a unique style. Again, a full write up is pending.


This is the beer I actually drank tonight. It's a homebrew double IPA I brewed, and this was my "test bottle." It's the first I tried of this batch, and it probably needs a bit more time to mature. It is plenty hoppy, but not carbonated enough, and the mouthfeel is a bit off. Not sure what is exactly the matter, perhaps a bit more time to carbonate would fix it. Regardless, it's okay to drink and that's the most important thing.