So...
I sent some beers to Colorado. I thought it was a pretty good list. Some Maine Beer Co stuff, a few recent Dogfish Head releases, some solid Pennsylvanian seasonals like Troegs Nugget Nectar and Mad Elf. I felt pretty good about it. They were all packed up nice and snug in a box and went on their way. @pppantalones got the box. Nothing broke. And he returned the favor. Rather fashionably I might add. I don't want to ruin all of the surprises, but it's probably Colorado's Finest. There is so many, that this is going to be the CBE's first foray into investigative journalism. It may take months to talk about all of these beers. Or at least a week.
So...
This is what happened next, along with interspersed commentary on the beers that went from the Keystone State to the Centennial State. Part 1 of 16 or 7 maybe...
The first beer I opened from the box was Oskar Blues' Death By Coconut. I'm not the most prolific beer drinker of all time, but just the same, it's not easy to send a dude like me 13 beers that he's never had
before. It may be impossible. It probably is impossible. Go ahead try. I dare you. However, when the one beer you do send that
doubles up is this one, it's not all bad. I love this beer, because it reminds me of
everyone's favorite Halloween candy... Almond Joy. If you don't like Almond Joys, then stop reading
this and go jump off a bridge. This was also
a good shipping test. When I packed up all
the stuff I shipped, I was hoping it was going to taste as close to what I
thought it tasted like in Pennsylvania when it got to Colorado. Through trucks and cold and hot and whatever. So I was happy to see with pretty much the same packing material, that this is on point to what I remember it being
when I pulled a four pack at Whole Foods, ie liquid Almond Joy. So I feel good, and not just because I started off with Halloween Candy, but because it was good, and there was a Bunch of Monkeys on the bottom of the can. I interpret it to be a Wizard of Oz joke, but it's probably not.
Maine Beer Co - MoAs the great notorious b.i.g. once famously said 'mo money mo pale ale'. Never have truer words been paraphrased. It's so fucking good. It's the Acadia national park of beers. It's the other Portland of hops. It's the Bangor of sexual euphemisms. Do I really need to come up with more analogies? Are you that dumb? Drink this beer now and often. If we did a CBE with only one beer, this would be it. No doubt. Goodnight. Thank you meeting you.
Maine Beer Co - LunchDid you not read my review of 'mo'?So I started off the shipment on the right foot, and the Lunch and Mo went over swimmingly. Crowd pleasing is a specialty. Maine Beer Co is about as awesome as they come on the East Coast, and their hop forward pales and IPAs are delicious. Interestingly enough, I found a common thread with a brewer on the opposite coast. Which is why the next beer out of the CO Package was Alpine Duet. It is very reminiscent of the Maine Beer Co hop forward beers. Some of that has to be the bottle conditioning, and the fruit pop from whatever junk settles to the bottom of the bottle. They are both crusted with a film. Maine Beer Co tells to you to pour carefully and leave the sediment behind. Alpine either doesn't care what you do, or doesn't want to include directions anywhere on how they think you should pour the bottle. I poured the first glass without, and then poured the dregs into the last quarter. They made it a little softer. I preferred it without, but it’s definitely good either way. Alpine beers are becoming a little easier to find in Philadelphia. Probably because they were acquired by Green Flash in 2014. That’s fine with me as long as I get more of their beer. I’ve had Nelson and Hoppy Birthday. This one really blew me out of the water. The website is ok. Well designed, not a ton of great information or additional stuff. I did find that the Alpine label depicts the Alpine Community Church, and if you have the correct size envelopes and a few dollars, you can send them a self-addressed stamped envelope to get one or two. They have some good write ups of their beers. This is all the had to say about Duet though… A West Coast IPA Our original single IPA made with Simcoe and Amarillo hops “in harmony.” 1.065 OG 7%ABV.
The cap says Tree Hugger. It's funny.
When I went to GABF a few years ago, I tried to go to every
brewery in the city. You can ask @G_o_o_d_y. I was walking around with a binder, filled with a map and a list of events and places that I wanted to go to. Like Pokemon, but for grown sophisticated rational adult men. You might think hitting all of the bars and breweries in that binder would be pretty much
impossible, but I tried anyway. You can ask @jg49hg. I made that dude walk like 10 miles every day, and pose for Instagram Photos like this and this. (That first one is actually just a callback that I'm desperately trying to generate "likes" for.) It was an endurance test for the ages. One of the places on the "must list" was The Source, a kind of hybrid farmers
market/restaurant/artisanal space, and were lucky enough to get there on a day
when Crooked Stave was having a bottle release.
L’Brett d’Or. We tried a handful
of the beers they had on tap, one of them being St. Bretta Summer, and I’ve never looked at sour
beers the same again. And did @pppantalones ever do me a solid. The Hop Savant Falconer's Flight is just one of the Crooked Stave Beers in the box. In it’s most simple form, it’s a soured IPA,
but it really is so much more. There are a ton of layers from the tart to the hoppy and everything in between. Its soft but stark, and probably more importantly,
it’s different. Completely different
than everything. And it, along with Crooked Stave's other beers, set a bar for
Brett beers that I haven’t been able to find a local comparable too (however
Shawnee Craft Frambozenbier was pretty awesome.) I couldn’t find anything on their website
about Hop Savant, let alone this Falconer’s Flight version. That’s a shame, but the beer is still
amazing. I threw the dregs in at the
end, and it really softened it up and rounded it out. Gave it a lot more citrus character. Lemon rind.
Really love this one.
Here's another segment of @pppantalones says -
Troegs - Nugget NectarOverlooked by assholes elbowing each other out of the way to get a Pliny or Heady or Hopslam, but don't overlook the redhead packed with as many hops as humanly possible. Respected. Loved. Revered. Missed. As good as I remembered. Troegs raises the bar again. And again. every year.
I was wondering what to drink next. I’m cycling through the cans that now line my refrigerator,
and this Station 26 brew says “DRINK ME NOW” right on it. Proof:
It seemed silly to argue. Holy balls was this surprising. It’s a single hopped (Chinook) IPA. Canned a few months ago, so I had tempered
expectations, and having never heard of Station 26, aforementioned expectations
had already been tempered. Full
apologies. It’s hop hard candy with a punch.
This is unreal. Very orangy, with a Tropicana finish. Tastes like I want more. Moreso, their website is pretty awesome. I don’t know who coded the original scrolling
website. Maybe it was Squarespace, (*whispers code replyall*), maybe
it was some blogger program. Either way, it
looks great for articles as well as websites.
I’m looking through this website, while I’m sipping on this beer, and I can’t
imagine that the Juicy Banger IPA or Breliner Weisse can be easy to get based
on how this one tastes. They’re in a
former firehouse, have food trucks, and… be right back, I’m moving to NoDo
Denver...
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