A rereview and then some.

Not terribly long ago I reviewed Bell's Hopslam, I was admittedly not a huge fan, doubly so considering the price. I also noted that I'd have to try it again in a different frame of mind and attempt a more objective review. My preconceived notion for what it was supposed to be is not without good reason. You see, it's called Hopslam and the label says,

"A biting, bitter, tongue bruiser of an ale. With a name like Hopslam, what did you expect?"

Plus the ABV is a fairly hefty 10%. So I've got it in my head that this is a monster IPA with 100+ IBUs, crushingly bitter hop flavors, and insane amounts of layered hop flavors. What I got instead was a fantastically smooth, 70-ish IBU IPA with amazing floral/citrus/pine aroma, a bit of bitterness, and a honey supported malt profile that is unique and wonderful.

For the record: I was wrong about this beer. It's wonderful, interesting, and worth the money. Not as a daily drinker of course, but an occasional treat to be sure.
New photo offered as proof:
Onward and upward.

New Glarus Raspberry Tart

Fun fact: I love interesting beers. Currently sours and/or wild fermented beers are holding my attention and are supplanting big IPAs as my favorite style. I retrieved this beer from Wisconsin over the xmas holidays. It is more lightly tart than actively sour, and doesn't have that distinct lactic fermented flavor I love. Regardless, it is a quality beverage more akin to raspberry wine than most beers, but it is carbonated and has other beer-y properties. New Glarus also makes an excellent cherry version that I've mentioned before, and despite largely preferring raspberries to cherries in nearly all foods, I think I actually like the cherry beer better. Not entirely sure why, perhaps it's more sour, or the cherry flavor plays better with the beer ingredients. Whatever the reason is, I'll have to try the cherry one again soon to really compare. And of course I'll write a little something about my thoughts.

In commuting/bike riding news, the BRR Ride is coming this Saturday. I'm 99% sure I'm going, it should be a good time. The Des Moines area is currently in the middle of another media hyped giant snow death storm pt 3 (or some such nonsense). Which means tomorrow's commute will be snowy and probably fun as hell (I'll try to remember pictures), and my once routine Tuesday night trivia will likely be a failed venture. Again. Stupid weather.

Another lapse ended and more beers consumed.

Yet again I allowed a week or so of no updates, but this time I had a pretty good reason. I was super busy last weekend, then Sun-Tuesday late night I was in Chicago. What was he doing in the windy city you may ask? Well, I was attending the Park Tool Tech Summit, a two day conference of sorts where factory tech people teach bike mechanics the ins and outs of their brands' mechanical bits. I learned quite a bit of stuff, and had a pretty good time. Half the fun of these events is comparing notes with other bike industry people from other parts of the country. Of course, much of this happens after the last class of the day, in the hotel bar, with plenty of beers to lubricate brains and tongues. Speaking of beers, I had some friends over Friday and we shared fancy beers from our stashes, as sharing a prized bottle and/or showing off a favorite beer is a great thing. Here's most of what I've been drinking. I'm sure I've missed a few here and there, and I generally don't photograph or review beers I've had or written about before, so yeah. Here goes nothing:

Big Sky's Ivan The Terrible Imperial Stout

One of my contributions to the beer snobbery/beer sharing party. It's a monster Imperial Stout and is aged in bourbon barrels. From the same series as that barley wine I had at new years, and every bit as good. The boozy flavor is there, but not super strong and it goes really well with the rest of the stout. General consensus was, "finish whatever beer you'd got and have some of this. right. now." Every one of us loved it. The bottle said limited, and there's supposedly only 3000 of these around, so if you come across it, buy it. I'm gonna make sure I grab more the next time I'm at a place that has it.

Duvel Tripel Hop

Contributed by Markk to our gathering, this is a fantastic beer. Smooth, wonderful, clearly Duvel, but with more hops. Including Amarillo hops (an American variety) is a bold step for such a traditional brewery and adding a fair amount of hops to a distinct and classic beer is a bit daring, but it totally works. Thanks, other Mark!

Ommegang Tripel Perfection

My counter to Markk's Duvel. Basically a classic tripel with a very slight spice addition. Subtle, excellent, Belgian in everything but birthplace, as Ommegang is in New York. The Duvel is clearly the better beer, but this is not without its own distinct charm.

Leine's Big Eddy

Markk's answer to my imperial stout. Pretty good. Obviously not a crazy big barrel aged creation, but it isn't pretending to be either. Solid big flavored stout with plenty of malty flavors mingling in a black as night sea of awesome.

That's definitely the highlights from the tasting. We had plenty of other beers, Rogue's Double Dead Guy, Boulevard's Harvest Dance Wheat Wine, Red Hook Eisbock, just to name a few. Now on to the things I drank in Chi-town.

3 Floyd's Alpha King

An excellent fruity, piney IPA. One of my favorites when I can get my hands on it, which isn't often because 3 Folyd's doesn't seem to have any inclination to expansion. So I can only get it when I'm closer to their Indiana home.

Arcadia's Hop Mouth

Pretty good double IPA from a brewery I haven't heard of. Nothing mind blowing, but a solid offering that's nearly as good as Sierra Nevada's Torpedo. This thing is dense with multiple hop aromas and flavors with a strong malt body supporting the bitterness of the hops.

Founder's Dirty Bastard

Scottish Ale. Good example of the style, mostly bready/biscuit malt flavors with some slight smokey touch and a hop profile that's there, but not a focal point.

Not a beer at all.

In addition to a surprisingly good micro/craft brew selection, the Westin has a pretty solid whisk(e)y list, of which I sampled Glenkinchie, a lowlands Scotch. Turns out it's really good. Smooth, floral without being fruity, earthy, with only a whisper of peat smoke.
Sure I had plenty of other drinks in Chicago, but again, these are the highlights. Upon my return I had a few beers to get over a terrible 6 hour drive in a crummy rental car.

Sam Adam's Chocolate Bock.

Not entirely sure what to make of this beer, it's not dark enough to be a chocolate stout, and it's not chocolatey enough to be a serious dessert type beer, ala Reindeer fuel. It's a lightly chocolate beer, that doesn't have a ton else going for it. It's a chocolate beer your mom might like. I wouldn't turn it down if somehow handed me a bottle, but it'd be far from my first choice if I had one.

Great Lakes' Eliot Ness

Prohibition enforcer turned into a solid amber ale. I like it. First thing I can remember having from Great Lakes and i enjoyed it quite a bit.

Well, that's what I've been up to and drinking for roughly the past week. Gonna try to post more often, but no promises.

Over a week absence explained PLUS MORE

For the last week or so, I've been a bit under the weather. Not totally, horribly sick mind you, but I've had some sinus congestion that moved into my throat, then back into my head, and is now finally pretty much gone. So for the first time in over a week, I feel like doing something other than sit around and watch tv. I've still been commuting, and having the occasional beer, but mostly, nothing's tasted good, food or beer wise, and I've been pretty "bleh" about life. Now I'm pretty much back to normal, so here goes nothing.

On the homebrewing front I'm waiting for my coffee stout to bottle condition, and I added my oak cubes to my porter. I soaked them in bourbon for a couple days, then added the whole thing my carboy.

You forgot one thing chief, I used a funnel.

You'll have to enlarge this to see it, but the cubes are floating in there. Check out the square dark spots in that cluster of bubbles. Oak cubes soaked in bourbon.

The weather here has been a bit rough. Commuting temps have been in the single digits and below, especially with the wind chill. There's been a little snow and ice too. Kinda crummy.

See?

Anyway, I've (of course) had a few new beers. Here they are:

Lucky Bucket IPA

Pretty standard IPA. Not particularly special, but not bad either. Not a ton to say about this thing other than if you're after an IPA and there isn't something fancier/more familiar/you wanna try something new, go for it.

Harpoon UFO

Not a terrible Hefeweizen. Not great either, it's got a solid and traditional flavor, and is mildly refreshing, and smoothly flavored, and a pretty good example of the style. That said, I've certainly had better, but this is probably super refreshing on a hot summer day, which I've been lacking a bit.

Bell's Hopslam

Highly touted, highly prized, and highly priced, this is the fanciest beer I've talked about in a while. At $18/six pack it isn't cheap, and if Beer Advocate is to be believed, this is one amazing beer. I'll say that it is very good, with a crazy grapefruit and pine nose, with a touch of honey, and it tastes just like it smells. The mouth feel is solid, but not as dense or as complex as other "big" IPAs. The honey is the big x factor in this thing, and supports a lighter, sweeter malt body, that works well with the fruity/piney hop flavors. This beer lacks most of the bitterness that even "average" IPAs have, and I'm not sure how I feel about this. That bitterness is a nice flavor and a standard, if not crucial, component to an IPA. In fact, I think I like the smell more than the rest of the beer. I'll have to do more research, but given the hefty price tag, I'm not sure I'm in love.

Tons of new beers and a snowy commute

No sense in wasting a lot of time and text with background info, been riding, been drinking. On with it.

Two Brother's Ebel's Weiss

A very nice weiss. Unfiltered and smooth drinking with plentiful malt sweetness, clove, vanilla, maybe a hint of honey, and a smooth finish typical of the style. One of the better weiss/white/wit/unfiltered wheat beers I've had that's made in this country. Not entirely right for the season, but whatever, good beer is good beer.

Ommegang Belgian Pale Ale

Ommegang is from Cooperstown, New York. Despite being located on the best side of the Atlantic, they make some very fine beers that are extremely old world in style, flavor, and approach. This pale ale is a bit different, in that it uses some new world hops, and has a bit more hop flavor than a traditional Belgian pale would. That is not to say they've gone full bore American style on it, oh no, it's light, subtle, a regular pale ale, not an IPA or extra pale or whatever other modifiers we can cram in front of it. I was very fond of this beer, with the pale malt sweetness balanced by the light earthy and citrusy hop character. The signature yeast give a few familiar notes, and a lingering finish that's quite nice. As you can see, the head is thick and laces very well. I tried to pour gently, but the beer had other ideas. The link above will inform you that this is not a full time offering, but is instead a test, and if the response is good enough, it could well find itself in year round/full time production.

New Glarus Spotted Cow

Hot damn do I love New Glarus. They're inventive, a bit quirky, and one of the best breweries in the country, and relatively close (mental note: plan a weekend visit/tour). I'm seriously proud to be from the midwest because of things like New Glarus. Sure Colorado and the whole west coast have quality microbrews up the wazoo, but few are as good as New Glarus. Spotted Cow is their incredible farmhouse ale. Somehow lighter, and more complex than most other similar ales, it must have something to do with the cask conditioning. If you've had it, you know. If you haven't: go try some. Sadly, that means you'll have to go to Wisconsin as they have no plans to expand.

Ale Asylum Hopalicious

A fine American pale ale from Madison, Wisconsin. As far as I can tell, they've only involved Cascade hops, which they add in eleven separate additions. With a single hop added at different times and in different ways, there's a layered flavor, that works better than you'd think, and with the hop being Cascade it's largely floral with some citrus, and a small amount of bitterness. If you want a mouth drying IPA, look elsewhere; this beer is all about a dense hop flavor in a surprisingly accessible package.

Photographing a heavy snow is tricky, especially with a cell phone.

We recently got quite a bit of snow, which made for a rather fun and enjoyable commute home. There was a light dusting for the ride in, and the snow never even thought of letting up all day. By the end of the day everything had a few inches (or more) on it, and the roads were terrible(for driving), the bike path was amazing.

Those streaks are falling snow caught in the flash. My tracks were 2-3 inches deep.

Seriously fun times. The snow makes everything a little more work, a little sketchy (though predictable), and riding in a snow storm is one of my favorite things to do. Honestly. All my gear worked flawlessly, and if anything I was slightly overdressed for the 20F or so. Until next time, keep drinking, and keep it rubber side down.

Beer, brewing, and a gear review

To absolutely no one's surprise, I've been drinking. And riding my bike despite sub zero wind chills, and brewing some beer too boot. I've been working through the last little bit of my previous home brewing efforts, the Surly beer I brought back from the Twin Cities, and odds and some of my standard "hey that's a good price on something I like" type beers. Something new was Magic Hat #9 Not Quite Pale Ale.


# 9 is roughly a regular pale ale crossed with a french farm ale. Very roughly. There's a bit of hop and citrus in there but it's a smooth inviting kinda thing, that is very mild and quite good. The flavor is hard to pin down, but interesting and pretty good. I could see drinking tons of this beer on hot summer days.

In my home brewing exploits, I've recently bottled a coffee stout, and I'm preparing to add bourbon soaked oak cubes to a porter to simulate bourbon barrel aging. Check it out:

Toasted oak cubes in some Gladware.

Eagle Rare Bourbon. Why cheap out? Plus, now I have most of a fancy bottle of bourbon.

Cubes soaking in booze.

In a couple days I'm going to dump the whole works into my carboy full of beer, then leave it for a couple weeks, then bottle. From the smell of the porter when I racked it to secondary, this thing should be great. *crosses fingers*

One last thing to write about, and that is my continuing commutes. As I wrote earlier, my gloves had become worn enough that they weren't as warm as I needed. I have found one helluva solution.

Bar Mitts

These things are great. They're like wearing a heavy pair of mittens over your heavy gloves/mittens. I've been able to use these with a light glove when the temps are in the 20s and the wind chill isn't too bad. Below that I've been wearing the Loius Garneau Typhoon lobster style mitten.

Warm, really really warm. Almost as warm as a heavy mitten but with almost the dexterity of a glove. These puppies would be plenty without the bars mitts down into the teens, but with the bars mitts, I've had no problems even when the windchill has been well below zero. I think the record this winter has been set at a -11F windchill, which was, of course, a headwind. The little reflective piping on the glove works great (as you can see) it sadly doesn't look that glowy in normal light, with the flash hitting it though it kinda looks like my hand belongs in the new Tron movie. My only complain with the glove is that the cuff isn't especially long. It's hard to get a jacket sleeve to tuck under it, and pushing it into a sleeve can be a trick too. The shorter liner + longer shell that my old Specialized gloves had was the right solution to the problem. With the bars mitts it is far from a big deal, but solo it could be.

Regular updates? miles and beers

In my attempt to keep updating this blog, I'm going to attempt to get on some sort of 2 or 3 or 4 times a week schedule. Not sure that's gonna work yet, but here's my second entry in the last couple days, so here goes nothin'.

As of yet my efforts to increase my fitness have been limited to doing some push ups and sit ups at home. The weather's been okay and riding outside wouldn't be too bad, but I've been busy getting caught up on stuff around the house that I neglected during the holidays. That said my outdoor mileage is not horrible. Total outdoor miles on the year sit at 28. I am still planning on taking some photos so I can track my progress and/or show off my terribly unsexy body. I'd wager cutting back on the booze and/or stopping all together would help me tone up, but then I'd go crazy, so it's a trade off. I'd rather eat and drink what I want (within reason) and just ride more/work out more than restrict myself. In that bent, here's some beers I had recently:

Apocalypse Cow from 3 Floyds. Quoth their website:

This complex double India pale ale has an intense citrus and floral hop aroma balanced by a velvety malt body which has been augmented with lactose milk sugar. With this different take on an IPA we have brewed an ale that is both pleasing to drink and, once again, “not normal.” Cheers! June release.

At 11% ABV and 100 IBUs, this is a serious IPA. The flavors are very much as described with a floral and dirty/dark citrus nose, and a thick, but smooth malt body. The milk sugar imparts a complexity and depth to the malt body that is very interesting, very unusual, and actually pretty good while drinking. The aftertaste however is not something I enjoyed at all. At first the tang and almost sour flavor is interesting and a nice addition to the intense citrusy hop flavors, but over time it builds to something that's coating and not that pleasant. If you like IPAs and unusual beers, give this a try, but I'd recommend sharing it. The 750ml is far too much of this to get through comfortably just because of the weird after taste. In all other respects the beer is outstanding.

Up next we have Heavy Handed IPA from Two Brothers.
Wet hopped, oak aged, six hop varieties involved, this thing should be all but custom made for a hop head who enjoys fancy IPA variations. I found it okay. Outstanding it was not, hoppy to be sure, and deep in hop flavor, but otherwise it was a beer that I feel like I've had a hundred times before. Not that is by an stretch of the imagination a poorly made beer, nor is there a flaw in the recipe; it is well made and a decent idea, I've just had it before. There was nothing about this beer that made it any different/special/interesting from other highly hopped IPAs. The oak aging was present but hardly noticeable under the piles of hops, and nothing else about it is terribly interesting. Perhaps I should find some of their regular IPA and try the two back to back, or maybe I should get other oaked IPAs so I can compare and contrast, but I probably wouldn't bother with this again, save for such situations.

Huge new year post

So yeah, been a while. With the previous couple weeks' holidays happening, me traveling a bit for such things, and general laziness, I haven't updated this thing in ages. Time to get caught back up.
First, I got myself a little xmas gift.
Look what came in the post! I wonder what's in there...
Two new, and redesigned tulip glasses from New Belgium! They're sturdier than the old style, and look great. Plus, while supplies last, they're $5.99. Get yours right here. I don't know if it's still happening, but I used the coupon code "free shipping" to get, you guessed it, free shipping. So for about $6, I got myself two pretty sweet beer glasses. You should too.
Those glasses aren't the only thing I've had from New Belgium:
Another pretty solid entry in their Lips of Faith series. This one is a "collabeeration" with Allagash, in which they've used hibiscus and endive. It sounds pretty weird, but it totally works. The floral notes are more subtle and less sweet than you'd expect, but they are very prominent. If you like lighter beers with complex floral notes and/or unusual beers in general, this one is certainly worth a shot.
That's not the only fancy beer I've been drinking recently though, in addition to some home brews, Surlys, and other standard bar beers, I've had a couple of recent stand outs.

Poppaskull from Three Floyd's and Dogfish Head in a collaborative effort to make a beer that will blow your damn mind. Holy cow is this thing great. Two of my favorite breweries joining forces to make a beer that kick ass. It combines their take on the Belgian golden ale with cardamom, then ages 35% of that in oak brandy barrels, which ends up being amazing. The way the cardamom and oaky brandy flavors mingle is nothing short of outstanding.
This next beer I ordered on a whim on New Year's Eve at El Bait Shop. The waitress cautioned me that it was a 750ml, and that it was $20. I said to bring it on, and I split it with a friend.
Big Sky's Olde Bluehair Barley Wine. That's exactly how it's listed in the menu. What isn't listed is that it's aged in bourbon barrels. The resulting beer is very boozy, with awesome bourbon flavors that have a fruity finish after a face assaulting barrage of barley and hops. I'm super glad I took the chance on this beer, despite the waitress's caution. She wasn't very knowledgeable anyway, which is weird for such an establishment, and she's likely the only poor server I've ever had there. But back to the beer, it rocks. Very similar to Boulevard's Bourbon Barrel Quad, save this is a barley wine vs. a quad, and this didn't involve cherries directly, though I can definitely taste a little hint of them in the aftertaste.

Other thoughts about life and the new year and all that jazz:

While self improvement shouldn't be a once a year thing, I've been eating like hell and not riding anything other than my commute for quite a while, and the holidays didn't help, so I'm going to try to get in better shape. In this vein I weighed myself and discovered, to my surprise, that I'm all of 182 pounds. Keep in mind I'm 6'4" and have a relatively thin build naturally. This is a "racing" weight for me, which means I've probably lost some muscle in the last few months, and I'm not eating as much of the terrible food as I thought I've been. I'll post some photos later so that I can try to force myself to not only ride more, but to do some work on the rest of me too, ie push ups, sit ups, etc.

2011 is likely going to be an eventful year for me, I'll turn 30 (about seven weeks is all that remains of my 20s), likely move (wife is finishing grad school), and with that move I'll have to get another job, and start a new life in a new town. Well, really continue my old life but damn near everything will be different. This is a bit intimidating, exciting, confusing, and (I hope) ultimately invigorating. So often I get stuck in a routine that I scarcely notice that things outside my routine are possible, and only a big change can shake me out of it, and get me on a better path. One thing's for sure though, I will still ride bikes, and I will still drink fancy beers.