Sunday, May 22, 2011

That's what friends are for!

Thanks Ben, Andrea, and Jake for delivering the 2 year Chi-town, bday road trip haul! We shared a New Belgium Lips of Faith beer that was decent (not my style), knocked out my Alpine Pure Hoppiness, very good as expected and a Two Brothers Prairie Path Ale (very solid brewery out of Warrenville, IL). He also dropped off, for a fair donation: 6er of Bell's Two Hearted,  Founders Porter***(another solid outing from Founders!!), and Three Floyd's Pride & Joy Pale Ale***, very nice session beer!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Beer Tasting #2

                                      
Beer Tasting #2
In attendance: Myself, Megan, Dave, Scott, the Basalay family and two of Dave's friends (Aaron and??) We really had a good time. I had planned the tasting to start at 4:30 and had planned on grilling and drinking some session beers around 6:30. Dave is a BA as well, so we had some goodies that we have traded for. So I required the remaining guests to bring a 'BIG' bottle or brew that Dave and I could decide to keep for future trades, ourselves or share with the tasting. Also required a 6 pack or so of a good 'session' beer to enjoy with the food and a side dish.  We had quite the spread of beer and a good amount of foo. We decided to keep it simple with hot dogs and brats. Today, the focus was on drinking and tasting. The list is to long to name them all, but some highlights include KBS!!!, Boulevard Imperial Stout, Three Floyds Arctic Panzer, Clown Shoes Eagle Claw Fist, Troegs Nuggett Nectar, Firestone Union Jack, Hopworks IPA, Russian River Consecration, Ballast Sculpin IPA, Great Divide Espresso Aged Yeti Imperial Stout and plenty of other beer including Surly, Bell's, Founders, Dogfish Head, Goose Island, Southern Tier, etc......
So much fun, everyone seem to really enjoy the relaxing festivities. When I saw that the weather was going to be so nice a week out, I thought it was perfect timing. Hard to believe I ran a marathon a week ago, it was almost 85 degrees today!! The last people finally left around 11:30. Thanks to Dave and his hobby of label collecting he took home a very large bag of empty bottles, which really helped our cleaning some the next day! Looking forward to having another tasting in the future.

3 Haul Week



Very goood week, which is a good thing with my tasting party this weekend.
Package #1 from Tim in Minnesota helped me with my Surly fix. 4x Surly Furious and 2x Coffee Bender, Ballast Point Sea Monster and a Alpine Pure Hoppiness***.
#2 Eric (first time trader) in Chicago helped me land a 2010 Three Floyds Dark Lord, less than a week from it's highly anticipated release. Everything he got was on my wants: Clown Shoes Hoppy Feet ***and Eagle Claw Fist***1/2, Bell's Expidition and a Two Brothers Cane and Ebel***.
#3 Will (first time trader) 6x Troegs Troegenator **1/2and Clown Shoes Hoppy Feet 1.5
Had to do it. Traded the Dark Lord for Surly Darkness. I just love Surly and these are both big time beers, had to throw in some extras as well, but so did the person I traded with!!