I like my Christmas music about snow, presents, Santa, and fictional claymation characters. I like my CBE with IPA's. So as long as another rendition of "Silent Night" doesn't come on Pandora while I'm typing this, we're all going to be very happy. The following is a CBE that features 3 first time members, no @Mitch295_ @pppantalones or @G_o_o_d_y, a couple Christmas Ales, a magically nitrogenated bottle, a lot of IPAs, several links to Brewery websites, a potential translation of whatever is written on the Corsendonk site, and an All-Time First: after 9 sanctioned CBE events, a total of 81 beers, we have our first duplicate (which was totally on purpose.) I think we did pretty good, especially because at one point I didn't think we were going to get this done at all, let alone get back to 8 selections. Let's get this Holiday/Hoppy #CBE9 started.
Close your eyes. Never mind, too tough to read that way. Imagine your eyes are closed, and let me take you back in time. A simpler time. It's October 28th 2010, and Volume 1 Issue 1 of the CBE newsletter had just gone to press. To paint the newsletter picture, at the time I thought we were a bit hop heavy on selections. We had 4 IPAs. I chuckle at that now. This one fell into the middle of the IPA selections that were commented on in that newsletter. The other one I refer to is Lagunitas Maximus. You'll also notice I was about 85% less funny...
Halfway through the IPA scroll, we come along another beer that I’ve had in the past, and really loved. @pppantalones’ Bear Republic Racer 5. @pppantalones and @Mitch295_ wanted a CA, bare knuckle, IPA brawl. They picked two of the best, and wanted us to choose what was better head to head. I’ll let the Bear Republic Website put up their argument for Racer 5… This hoppy American IPA is a full bodied beer brewed American pale and crystalmalts, and heavily hopped with Chinook, Cascade, Columbus and Centennial. There's a trophy in every glass.
· 2009 Great American Beer Festival® American-Style Strong Pale Ale GOLD
· 2009 Colorado State Fair Best of Show
· 2006 Great American Beer Festival® American-Style Strong Pale Ale SILVER
· 2005 Great American Beer Festival® American-Style Strong Pale Ale SILVER· 1999 Great American Beer Festival® India Pale Ale – GOLD
Now although I can’t argue with those awards, I will say that I copied that directly from the website, and the Queens English it is certainly not. I don’t understand why this brewery can’t hire someone to review their descriptions and make corrections to them so they make sense (knowing full well there has to be multiple spelling/grammar errors in my newsletter.) Also, the website had a black background so when I stole the description, I had to learn how to change the color of the font on my Mac. I guess what I’m saying is, advantage @Mitch295_, but I’m looking forward to the actual battle of CA IPAs.
@stavypapa has taken us back to the well. And since I didn't even have to go to the Bear Republic Website (except to get that hyperlink,) I can enjoy this one much more.
