long time no blogging and two crus from New Belgium, plus gin news

Ah July in Iowa, heat and humidity are ramping up, the rainy damp trails of June are fading, and a little ride called RAGBRAI looms large on the horizon. This means that I've been even busier than normal at the shop, attempting to mountain bike more, and drinking more. Of course I've been twitterizing many of my drink choices, but a couple I wanted to go more into here. New Belgium's awesome Lips of Faith series is their more experimental line up, which 99% of the time knocks it out of the park. The two beers I'm about to talk about are no exception. First up: Grand Cru.

A pretty good example of the style, fruity, estery, kinda sweet but with a bite to balance it out as to not be cloying on the palette. I quite enjoyed it. Maybe not quite as awesome as some actual Belgian Cru style abbey ales but still a nice entry in that style. Next up: Super Cru

This beer really knocked my socks off. Reportedly it starts as a Fat Tire but with 2x the malt and 2x the hops, then they add Asian pear juice, and a Saison yeast. It's vaguely familiar but entirely new at the same time. The pear notes are subtle and present throughout, but most prominent in the finish and aftertaste, but it totally works. I'd like to try this without the pear, to see what a super fat tire might taste like with that estery saison yeast and a ton of extra malt and hops. I think it could work great.

As any astute reader of this blog will note(and I'm sure you're one), I love gin. Martinis and gin and tonics are some of my favorite non-beer beverages. Sadly, one of my favorite, if not my favorite, gins is not going to be imported any long: Quintessential has reportedly been purchased and the new owners don't want to jump through the hoops to import to the USA any longer. I'd link to an article but 30 seconds of googling has failed me. Anyway, I've been searching for a replacement. So far, Plymouth is the leader. There is talk of a blind taste test with Q vs Plymouth, but as of yet, my friends and I haven't put it together, but expect much tweeting and blogging about such an event.

Until next time, keep it rubber side down, and don't drink and drink, you might spill your beverage.