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$5.49, for a big IPA (or small DIPA)? Eh, why not?

"OMG!!!1! It's Blue Moon! Gah! Gah!! How *dare* you drink this!! It's crafty, not craft!" To which I say, oh fuck the fuck off already.

Yeah, this is a Coors beer. So fucking what? If it sucks, it sucks. If it rocks, cool. This doesn't "rock", but is surely a decent drinker as far as IPAs go.

Basics:
Genoa is a very old port city in Liguria (that’s the northwestern “shoulder” of Italy that angles toward France, at the top of the “boot”). Its best days were around the same time as when Chris Columbus was sailing the ocean blue, and so the city is now, as one online travel pundit put it, “quaintly decayed”…, but in a good way. Make sense? Probably not.

I'm a bit remiss in posting this not-so-quickie review. So catching up before the new year is upon us.

One of several of beers given to me by my sister-in-law. Sue knows where to go and what to get for gifts. This was the only beer of the DIY mixed Belgian 4-pack that I had not had before.

Funky Microsoft Paint + inkjet printer label aside, this was not half bad. On the low side of the ABV scale, as far as Belgian Tripels go (6%ABV), but that's okay.

A dash of mustiness in the backend, which may just mean that this is not a fresh as it should be (esp. considering it's rather low fighting weight). But not a deal breaker.

The holidaze are less of a relaxing time of year to gather `round the yuletide spirit, and more of an endurance test, a marathon where slow-and-low wins the race.

While the rest of the gang is semi-passed out staring at {fill-in-the-blank bowl or NFL game}, I tend to relax with an adult beverage and my smart phone, and let the chaos flow around me.

Speaking of adult beverages....

Oy. Still feeling some pain this AM. Getting old = sucks.

To expand a bit on the my ticks a bit....

Not much of a review per se, but just a quick note: this is a very nice Barleywine. A bit lacking in carbonation, which is fine for the style, but perhaps a bit too still for some folks.

But they'd be missing out a great beer. I have to think that if this beer is this mature and tasty and appealing fresh (bottled only four weeks ago), then I can't even imagine what this would be like with some quiet time in the cellar.

Highly recommended.

//TB

This past weekend, I was mightily bored out of my mind. Fired up my browser, and did some searching on The World Wide Web. Long-story-short, found this place online in not-close-but-not-too-far Port Angeles, WA.

Ugh. What a disappointment.

Perhaps an old(er) bottle, perhaps not. Place I bought this at in Bremerton moves a lot of good beer, so I tend to think of this as being more-or-less fresh.

Musty. No nose, at all. Big burly bitterness in the middle, but an acrid overly-sharp finish. Not to "crystally", thankfully..., but still too heavy handed in the malt department. Overtly harsh and "heavy" tasting.

Just a quick note for a quick stopover in what (as best as I can tell from teh interwebz) is the best pub in Renton WA -- a town famous for Boeing, and little else.

Easy to find -- odd corner lot that looks like it might have gas station sometime in the last century.  Walk into the area that would normally be considered the "back room" -- pool table, boothes, tables, huge big-screen.

These guys put some serious cash towards marketing their stuff in their first year, including some rather heavy-handed shenanigans on Facebook to get their name out to folks long before they even had anything available to sell.

So today it finally came around to actually seeing their stuff on sale somewhere and giving it a honest try.

Was at this location just last Friday. Had *tons* of interesting beers on tap -- or rather, should I say, "on paper". When it came time for me and my bud Keith to order, pretty much everything interesting on the Specialty Beer Menu -- that had been printed two days prior -- was already out.

Hey, get your mind outta the gutter! I'm talking about a boxed variety pack from Dick's Brewing Company, of Centralia WA. What did you think this was about, eh?

I've had some of the Dick's beers before -- most notably the Best Bitter and IPA -- and had a generally positive view of the beers. But after this mixed 12'er? Hmm....

"Contains a minimum of eight varieties" Liar! I only had seven different beers here, with doubles of the Grand Cru, Danger, Winter, Pale Ale, and Golden.

Me and a buddy in town for a SQL conference hit this place last Friday. We had just left the meh-tastic shite-ness of the Six Arms (oh McMenamins, why do you always let me down?), so this place was bound to be an improvement in comparison.

Holy crap! It's canned beer so retro, you need a frickin' can opener!!

Um...., yeah. Seriously, that's the only thing worth mentioning here.

Want more? In tedious ECB fashion, no less? Well, ask and you shall receive!

Linkage:
http://www.facebook.com/ChurchkeyCanCo
http://www.churchkeycanco.com/

One of many places with that name -- this is not associated with any of the others, not even the one in semi-nearby Vancouver.

On the outskirts of town, along the waterfront. If you're coming into town from the South, you'll see a sign on the right in a light industrial park for the Port Townsend Brewing Co (nice taphouse if you have the time)..., and then only a little closer to town another sign on the right for the Pourhouse.

After a quick 24-hour trip to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada..., the following is submitted for your reading and/or pleasure.

By the time I got off the ferry and cleared customs, it was lunchtime. I had already done some research (thanks to XXL for the friend-of-a-friend info!), and decided to get out of the rain and hit Canoe Brewing first.

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Hi all:

I've been so busy that I've let my beer tickin' and site updatin' slip rather drastically. No fault of own, just my schedule always gets slammed around this time of year, work-wise. Contracts that expire on 30 September (end of Fiscal Year 2012) need to be used up, and contracts that go into effect at the start of FY13 need to get started. So that means I've...

Apparently Napa Smith's new omnipotent overlords want the Napa Smith brewers to shotgun all of the various beer styles, to see what works and what doesn't. A far cry from this outfits fairly humble beginnings with fairly humble beers.

Enter: their token Double / Imperial IPA entry. Oaked, no less.

I'm way out of practice, so forgive me if I don't blather and ramble on and on endlessly to discuss this beer in a barely sane manner.

I turned 42 this past weekend. No, not a milestone, and I'm not big on over-the-top birthday shenanigans. But MsECB wanted to go out, and what better excuse than a birthday celebration, eh?

[Dinner: yes, I know it's a chain, but The Palm? Fuck me, what a great steakhouse. Awesome from start to (a very full) finish.]

After-dinner drinks: finally got a chance to check out the Hillcrest Brewing Company.

Had this last night at one of the local bar & grill joints. Nothing about this was refreshing, sessionable, or "summery". Limp and rather musty.

Old bottle, perhaps? "Availability: March-July" Far be it that I order a Summer Ale in the Summer and expect to be in good shape, eh?

Crap.

//TB

Linkage: http://epicbrewing.com/our-beers/classic-series/item/2-spiral-jetty-ipa

This is indeed a rather "epic" IPA. Very nicely done. Pale gold in appearance, with citric hoppy nose, and a very nice piney/woodsy/orange-mandarin hoppy flavor profile. No specific hops are called out on the website, but I'm guessing this has at least a strong compliment of Cascades and Simcoes, maybe CTZ too.

Very much a West Coast IPA, through and through.

Linkage: http://greatbrewers.com/product/beach-brewing-hammerhead-ipa

Linkage: http://williamsburgalewerks.com/Beers-Ales/williamsburg-alewerks-red-marker-ale.aspx

Not a lot to say about this one. Only interesting beer on-tap at the local eatery/bar/grill/whatever.

Linkage: http://portcitybrewing.com/beer/monumental-ipa/

Linkage: http://schlafly.com/beers/styles/dry-hopped-apa/

Only my second ever beer from Schlafly, and the first non-eXtreme beer from them.

KingG at my local beer shop (Bine & Vine) was raving about this one -- and I'm pretty sure he respects me enough to not snow me simply to make a sale (this ran for $8, fwiw).

This doesn't suck, but once you get past the zippy lemon-lime aroma, it's just another mid-ABV-range IPA, nothing more. No onion soup vibe from the Summits, and the usual slightly-lemon+citric vibe you expect to find in modern-day Centennials.

"Gordon Biersch - Imperial Pilsner Brau" & "Lucky Hand Black Lager", for a quiet Tuesday evening. :)

Yikes. A shit label to match the shit name.

But you know what? So what, that's what's what. This is pretty decent DIPA.

Big bonus points for the huge hoppy aromatic kick to the nose. And this has enough resiny ill tempered bitterness to (mostly) help tamp down the slight caramel-ish aspects. Sorry LStaff, probably not in line with what you're hunting for (if you ever un-clinch your fingers around that one thin dime and actually purchased a 22oz bomber once and while, that is).