beernesday

i love pairing art with craft in whatever way you want to take that statement so my heart started to swell when i saw that victory and dogfish head are having a night of art (paintings, sculpture etc.) and craft (beer) here's the beer wench with the details

just in time for ipa day, i drank a hoppy bitch! from trade route brewing  of pacific washington she's only 60 ibus according to the bottle and very nicely balanced but yes, she is a hoppy bitch! website says: This northwest IPA is bold and balanced, with a rich malty flavor and a strong hop presence. We use premium 2-Row, Crystal, Munich and Victory malts to create the perfect base for showcasing Yakima-grown Columbus hops. After one sip you’ll agree, this is one hoppy bitch of a beer. 6.3% ABV 80 IBU amanda and sarah brought this one back for me from washington because they love me and because they rock!!   i liked it its not a hop monster, so you could probably taste another beer after this one! its not going to make my top ten list but i would definitely and quite happily have this one again

and for your reading pleasure today, a guest post by ryan: Rebecca has asked me to guest post for a little while now and last Thursday at Yaletown I agreed to write about my most recent beer tasting this past July long weekend. Back in March I came back from Europe with beers from Germany, France and the UK and finally had some people over to give them a try. These were the consensus picks of the day: Germany Ok, probably not the best start to a beer blog post but we poured a Erdinger alcohol free lager that tasted surprisingly good. My colleague bought it for me while i was there as an example of what well made beer can taste like, amazing! It went perfect with the goat cheese and Masala Vista Doro my guests brought, mmm. The Victory Prima Pils in the photo is not a German beer but a gift from the Half Pints brewer that we had to have as it was going bad. I've never had such a hoppy Pilsner before! It would have been even better fresh. I digress... Next up was was a...

the wonderful, the darned good, the pretty good and the also-rans of hopscotch, according to moi firstly, the beers i've had before and love, so i had them again! efes dark efes pilsner rogue yellow snow red truck limited steam moylans double ipa steamwhistle pilsner the wonderful: odell brewing ipa - 7% with simcoe and amarillo hops, out of colorado - this one has won awards, and i can see why! caldera ipa - 6.1% with cascade hops, out of oregon great divide double ipa - 85 ibs out of denver, colorado stone's ruination ipa - 7.7%, 120 ibus - the stuff of legends i tell ya, legends! stone's self-righteous ale - 8.7% - malty hoppy and makes you believe you could session it... but at 8.7% i think you'd hate yourself later if you did! smuttynose ipa - their single ipa - delightful and deliciously hoppy smuttynose big a ipa - their double ipa - just as delightful and even more hoppy... i might actually like the single better though... ballast amber ale - p...

okay, this almost makes me wish i had television: dogfish head founder sam calagione has a tv show coming out on discovery channel in january he'll be travelling to breweries to meet the brewers and discuss regionality apparently he told beer advocate that he'll be visiting allagash, stone, victory, russion river, sierra nevada and epic in new zealand i also wanna see inside dogfish as they come up with new recipes... too bad downloading is illegal... beer advocate quotes calagione as saying "beer has always been my passion.  it is so much more than what you see in the glass.  i'm excited to share the diligence, daring and creativity that we pour into our work.  i'm confident that discovery and this show are going to turn a lot more people on to the work of the amazing craft brewers around the world.  i think that will be great for our whole community." (beer advocate issue #44)