SF Beer Week+

So, as I probably should have noted back in October, and as I’m sure you all deduced several months ago, The Thirsty Hopster is on hiatus.  Since taking a position at Firestone Walker (there it is, I’ve said it, though I think folks at the brewery were more worried about why I hadn’t mentioned them than what I might write about them), I’ve put the blog on indefinite hold.

I’d say that the basis of this decision to hold off on future blog posts was a combination of material and motivation.  On the material front, San Luis Obispo isn’t quite the beer mecca that San Francisco is.  We have our big local brewery, but that’s my workplace and I have enough foresight to guess that blogging about your employment is a dangerous game.  We have a couple brewpubs (Creekside and Downtown Brew), some liquor stores with beer (Sandy’s, Cork & Bottle, and my most recent discovery, Sidewalk Market), and a homebrew shop (Doc’s Cellar).  However, what we don’t have are the newest release or the special events with visiting brewers (usually, though the appearance of Tomme Arthur and Tonya Cornett at a recent beer dinner was a happy exception to the rule).  I guess my biggest gripe is that I read about all these great new, limited release beers put out by one brewery or another, and they all seem to go to San Francisco or Los Angeles, but no one wants to drive them 3 hours down/up the 101 to us.  I miss Dogfish Head.  I miss The Bruery.  I miss Elysian.  And the list goes on.

To get back to the motivation front, well, it’s simple really.  Writing this blog was an escape for me from a stultifying job.  Now, I try to beat the clock everyday to get more work into my mandatory eight-hours-no-overtime-allowed day.  When 4:30pm arrives, I’m usually disappointed I have to put down whatever I’m working on.  So, when I go home at the end of the day, that drive to engage in beer talk has deflated by the fact that I’ve just spent the last 8 hours talking about beer.  Now that I have a stake in a brewery, when I’m going to think about beer after hours, it’s probably going to be about how I’m going to improve the new brewery production-tracking database or how shipping/receiving could be streamlined.

All this though, was really a prelude to what brought me back to the blog tonight.  Tomorrow, I am headed into San Francisco for the beer event I have been looking forward to for the last 6 months: San Francisco Beer Week.  I had a hand in coordinating this event before I moved down here, and have been mourning the fact that I live prohibitively far from the Bay Area to attend all 10 days of events.  From what I’ve heard so far, from Chris & Merideth of The Beer Geek and Jen at WetYour Whistles, the events so far have been a great success. As I speak, I’m dying because I’m missing the home team’s dinner with Sean Paxton at The Peacock Lounge, which Matt B. just confirmed for me is “killer”.

However, I don’t have to miss all the fun.  I’m headed into town tomorrow afternoon and staying through very, very early on Monday morning.  My schedule is:

• Friday evening: Beer & Chocolate Dinner with Bruce Paton
• Saturday 11am onward: Toronado Barleywine Festival
• Saturday afternoon, once the Toronado crowds become intolerable: City Beer Store
• Saturday evening: Valentines dinner at Bar Crudo
• Sunday noon: Maybe Scandinavian beers at City Beer Store, if we have time before…
• Sunday 1pm: Beer Judge Certification Program training class
• Sunday afternoon/evening: Celebrator Anniversary Party (at which I’ll be pouring beer, for the second half of the evening)

Then, it’s up and at ‘em at 3am to drive back down to Paso Robles to start a fresh, new week.

So, I’ll keep you posted!  This doesn’t mean I’m coming back to blogging for good, but I am reconsidering it.

Oh, and PS, in the meantime I got a dog!  He’s frowny and farty and old man-ish, even though he’s only a year old, but I love him just the same.  Meet Hank, my hound-doggish mutt.

Seattle at last!

I’ve been totally delinquent about covering Seattle, and for no particular reason.  I wasn’t busy, I was just being lazy, and now I’ve got a weeks worth of beer to wrap up.  I’m going to try to keep things snappy though, because I’ve got moving boxes calling my name, waiting to be filled.

Here’s a quick summary, jump to whatever looks interesting to you:

• Monday 10/13: Hopvine & The Stumbling Monk
• Tuesday 10/14: Trivia at the Ballard Loft
• Wednesday 10/15: Porter & Pumpkin Tasting
• Thursday 10/16: Allagash Event at Uber
• Friday 10/17: Hales Ales & Maritime Pacific Brewing Co.
• Saturday 10/18: Great Pumpkin Beer Festival at Elysian
• Sunday 10/19: Snoqualmie Falls Brewing Co.

Monday 10/13: Hopvine & The Stumbling Monk

Our trip to Hopvine for dinner went exactly as Allie predicted: Great soup, great selection of local beer, very slow service.  I’m assuming those soups are back there in big kettles, so I’m not even sure what took so long.  All I know is my southwestern pumpkin soup was incredible, it was so rich but the spiciness cut through all of that, and paired perfectly with my Ninkasi Total Domination IPA.  The only beers I’ve had from Ninkasi have been variations on the IPA style (the other two being the Tricerahops Imperial IPA and the Mt. Hops Fresh Hop Ale), so I don’t know anything about the breadth of their brewing skill, but I can say that I like what they do with hops.

Afterwards, we scooted on over to The Stumbling Monk to meet up with Chris, The Beer Retard.  We’ve just barely missed him several times over at events we both attended (various WABL Fests), or when Chris came into town for the Slow Food Festival but I was away at my cousin’s wedding.  It was fun to finally meet up with this person with whom I had mutual friends and several email conversations back and forth.  Over the course of a Dick’s Imperial Stout and an Abbaye Des Rocs Grand Cru we discussed beer blogging and all the good Seattle beer events I was looking forward to this week, which only tortured Chris who was on his way to Texas for a while.

Tuesday 10/14: Trivia at the Ballard Loft

No real beer story here, especially as I was the driver, but as we were only one point away from winning trivia night.  Things we learned that night:

• An icosagon has 20 sides, not 11
• Henry VIII only beheaded 2 of his 6 wives
• Sarah Jessica Parker has been in a lot more stuff than we thought

Wednesday 10/15: Porter & Pumpkin Tasting

This started out as a simple porter tasting, to include 6 to 8 beers, and to be held in San Francisco.  As my life started to change, I realized I’d be moving, I drove round trip from Seattle to San Francisco, and visited Portland, it morphed into something else entirely.  It ended up as a Black & Orange, Porter & Pumpkin Tasting at my sister’s place in Seattle complete with 25 different beers from 5 different beer stores and a variety of pumpkin-y and other fall dishes baked by me and Melissa.

The porters we sampled:

1. Alaskan Smoked Porter
2. Anchor Porter
3. Avery New World Porter
4. Darwin Brewery Original Flag Porter
5. Deschutes Black Butte Porter
6. Deschutes Black Butte XX Porter
7. Dick’s Lava Rock Porter
8. Eel River Certified Organic Porter
9. Elysian Perseus Porter
10. Firestone Walker’s Reserve Porter
11. Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter
12. Fuller’s London Porter
13. Marin Brewing Company Point Reyes Porter
14. Oy Sinebrychoff Baltic Porter
15. Port Townsend Brown Porter
16. Rogue Mocha Porter
17. Samuel Smith Taddy Porter
18. Steelhead Scotch Porter
19. Stone Smoked Porter
20. Zywiec Baltic Porter

The pumpkin beers we samples:

1. Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale
2. Dogfish Head Punkin’ Ale
3. Michelob Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale
4. Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale
5. Southern Tier Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale

We pulled together this motley collection from:

• Belmont Station, Portland, OR
• BevMo, San Francisco, CA
• Bottleworks, Seattle, WA
• City Beer Store, San Francisco, CA
• Healthy Spirits, San Francisco, CA

The menu included, among other things I am probably forgetting:

• Pumpkin biscuits with cinnamon sugar
• Pumpkin quesadillas
• Garlic cheesy toast
• Mozzarella, tomato, basil sandwiches
• Turkey meatballs with cranberry dipping sauce
• Crab apple tart

We had a small group of 10 people total, so we didn’t make it through all the beers in the line up.  I don’t feel prepared to pick a favorite since this ended up being more of a third-debate-night party than a thoughtful tasting.  Luckily, we went through only a single bomber/750mL or two 12 oz-ers of the ones we did try, so now my sister’s fridge is full of enough porters to last her through an apocalypse, and maybe next time I go up there to visit we can actually go through them blind.

Thursday 10/16: Allagash Event at Uber

I had never been to Uber before, and it had been about 6 months since my last special Allagash tasting, so I could hardly hold back my excitement on Thursday night.  Uber was as tiny as Allie had made it sound, and since it was packed wall-to-wall with patrons, I’m especially glad they didn’t have their table-top fireplace lit up.  Surprisingly, despite the crowd, we got ourselves seats on the couach against the back wall pretty quickly after arriving.  We also got a chance to say hi to Rob Tod, who was on hand and a nice as ever, even though he had just flown in from Portland, ME, and it was getting late in his time zone.

For our first round, Allie called the Fluxus 08, the only beer I hadn’t yet had and the one I most wanted to try, so I got the Interlude, and Melissa got the Tripel.  I love the Interlude, but I have to say that I was nevertheless jealous.  The Fluxus really stole the show. It’s an Imperial Witbier and it’s incredible.  The bouquet alone made it worth it.  I could have sat there and just sniffed the glass all day.  It’s spiced with ginger, which comes through clearly but also plays nicely with the other spices.  I don’t think there’s actual sage in the spice blend, but after ginger, sage and clove were the strongest flavors I picked up.  It’s anything but boring and puts all those bland witbier makers out there right now to shame.

The only downside was that I, of course, left my credit card behind the bar at the end of the night, because I usually use cash and never keep an open tab.  I knew I was going to do this and even warned Allie as I handed over my plastic not to let me forget it.  Whoops!

Friday 10/17: Hales Ales & Maritime Pacific Brewing Co.

Allie’s lucky enough to work in a neighborhood where, either way she turns down the road after leaving work, she hits a microbrewery before she’s gone more than four blocks.  We decided to have things both ways, and meandered up and down her street to visit both Maritime Pacific and Hales’s Ales after work on Friday.

Maritime Pacific is in the middle of an industrial neighborhood, which Allie explained to me can give it a very locals-only feel sometimes.  The regulars at the bar, and the bartenders, assess everyone as they come in, and decide whether they’re local blue-collar folk, sometimes taking a while to take the orders of those who don’t look the part.  Funnily enough, Allie does work for a local, industrial manufacturing company – you just wouldn’t guess it from looking at her.  I’m taking her word on all this though, because this time our service was prompt and the patrons seemed friendly.  There was even a sweet older couple in the 80’s who were finishing up what I can only guess was their dinner as we arrived just after 4:00pm.  Though it got a little drafty near the front door, I really liked that the restaurant, excuse me, the “Jolly Roger Taproom”, had a bunch of different pirate flags strung around the place.

The tap wall had more handles than I would have guess for a local microbrewery.  When I asked the bartender about this, he explained that there weren’t really as many beers as there appeared to be, because their two flagship beers were each served four different ways.  I actually liked this concept even better.  It’s rare that you get to taste the same beer side-by-side with an alternate version, much less three alternate versions, of itself to see how its taste changes.  The Flagship Red Alt and Islander Pale Ale were each served:

• On a regular tap
• On nitro tap
• On cask
• On a regular tap dry hopped

Isn’t that awesome?  The other beers available were:

• Old Seattle Lager
• Portage Bay Pils
• Oktoberfest
• Clipper Gold Hefeweizen
• Salmon Bay ESB
• Imperial IPA
• Nightwatch Dark Amber
• Bosuit’s Black Porter

Our bartender made up a mixed taster tray for us containing a smattering of beers of different types from the overall selection.  My favorite of the bunch was the Nightwatch Dark Amber. It was refreshing, with Mt. Hood and Saaz hops keeping it out of the insipidly mild and malty territory that a lot of ambers seem to occupy, and with a background of toffee and light roast malt flavors.

The pints seemed pretty inexpensive to me at $3.75 for 16 oz, and they stay that price even after everyone else’s happy hour specials are over.  Last reason to visit Maritime Pacific: applewood-smoked beer battered onion rings with roasted jalapeno tartar sauce.  Yum!  And you get giant plate of them in each order.

After our samples and our rings, we headed on over to Hales Ales.  I really liked their space as a venue and wish we had somewhere like this around me.  When you walk in, the brewery is on your right behind floor to ceiling glass panels, so that you can see everything that is going on.  And on your left, pub is insulated from the drafty, chilly hallway by an interior wall.  Inside are plush, cozy leather arm chairs and sofas, a far cry from the brutal-looking concrete exterior.

They also had a ton of taps.  We got a full sampler, which included the eleven different beers available at the moment:

• Kolsch
• Nitro Cream Ale
• Nitro Cream Hale’s Special Bitter
• El Jefe Hefeweizen
• Red Menace Big Amber
• Hale’s Original APA
• Mongoose IPA
• Troll Porter
• Nitro Cream Stout
• Winter Wee Heavy
• Rudyard’s Rare Barleywine

My favorites were the El Jefe Hefeweizen, which had great Bavarian-style flavor, with lots of bubblegum in the aroma and bananas in the taste, and the Troll Porter, which was on the strong side at 7.0%.  It’s not as roasty as some of the others we tried on Wednesday, which is a shame, but it’s got some herbal hops to pull it through and keep it interesting.

The Elysian Great Pumpkin Beer Festival was the whole reason I was in Seattle in the first place, and is so unique, that it really deserves a post of its own.  So in the interests of getting the EGPBF photos I need from Melissa, and in finishing up my packing for my big move, I’m going to stop this post here.  But check back in for the EGPBF write up!  It’ll be up tomorrow most likely.

GABF Part 3: The best (and worst) of the fest!

Saturday at GABF is truly a marathon, and when we woke up the next day, any thoughts of heading out to Boulder were shot.  My liver was pleading with me to give it a break, and so I did.

The day, as mentioned in the title, had the biggest ups and downs of the whole festival.  On one hand, the whole Saturday evening session was a disaster, and would have been a total waste if it hadn’t given me the chance to meet up with my college roommate Rosie and her friend Josh.  On the other hand, Falling Rock on Saturday night was so much fun that I’m not sure it can be topped.  But before diving into all this, let me start at the beginning.

We didn’t have time on Saturday to bounce around to one or two local beer destinations before the actual GABF session, since Saturday is the only day with an afternoon session, and it’s a pretty important one at that.  The Saturday afternoon session is for American Homebrewers Association/Brewers Association members only, though in reality this means that it’s open to anyone willing to pay the extra $35 for a membership.  It is also the session in which the awards are announced, followed by a period in which all the festival goers scramble around trying to drink the award winning beers.

However, I did have one pre-session event to attend, and that was the second meeting of the Pink Boots Society.  This is a membership organization for female brewers that had its first meeting at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego, earlier this year.  As a blogger/”beer educator”, I’m eligible to join as a non-voting member, but this year, with my new brewing job and potential voting member status ahead of me, I felt like it was especially important for me to attend.  In the last meeting, members discussed and voted upon criteria for membership, “who” the pink boots are.  In this meeting, we discussed and voted upon goals of the organization, essentially “what” the pink boots are all about.  Teri Fahrendorf will soon have the official wording of these goals up at the Pink Boots site, but I took down the basic idea of each of the goals that the group decided upon:

• To encourage women to become beer drinkers
• To encourage women to become homebrewer
• To encourage women to become beer judges
• To encourage women to become brewing professionals
• To encourage women to advance their brewing careers and education
• To promote women in brewing to the media

One of the more exciting moments was meeting the two international female brewmasters who were present.  One was from a brewery in Japan, located near Tokyo Disney, which I swear she said was named Harvest Moon, though I can’t find it online, so I’m wondering if they don’t have an English language webpage.  The other was from Gordon Biersch Taiwan.  Who knew GB had made it to Taiwan!

I also got a chance to talk to the other women at my table, and to hear about their breweries, which was a lot of fun.  These included Lori Wince, at Weasel Boy Brewing in Zanesville, OH, and Barbara Gerovac at Red Car Brewing in Torrance, CA, right near my hometown!  On the beer education side, we had Cinzia Wallace and Sue Smith-Troy from Left Hand Brewing in Longmont, CO, who are the founders of the Ales for Females beer appreciation club, and my friend Nicole Erny from The Trappist in Oakland, CA, and me.

It sounds like there are a lot of good Pink Boots plans in the works, so I encourage other female brewing industry professionals or beer educators to check out one of the future meetings.  The tentative plan is to hold meetings twice each year, once at the Craft Brewers Convention and once at the Great American Beer Festival.

Our friend Brian Cooper, me, Melissa, and Allie at the Saturday night session

Once the meeting was over, I had to quickly scoot back to Convention Center to get in line for the afternoon session.  We got inside pretty quickly and then realized: we had already gone to just every booth we knew we wanted to visit.  What were we going to do now?  We decided it was time to try the exhaustive approach.  We may have had approximately 120 beers from about 70 breweries, but this meant we had about 1930 beers left to try and about 360 booths left to visit.  We had a lot of work ahead of us.  So, we decided to take the exhaustive approach, and to start in the Midwest, where we knew fewer of the breweries, and just go up and down the aisles trying at least one beer from each booth we hadn’t already visited.  This meant our afternoon was full of surprises, some good, some not-so-good.

One of the most shocking positive surprises for me is that I liked the Pit Bull Malt Liquor from Pig’s Eye Brewing.  I never would have tried this of my own free will, but as we swept by the Pig’s Eye booth, Allie got a taster of it and immediately made me try it.  Now, I’m not sure in what context I’m every going to need a 24 oz can of something that is 10.2% ABV (that might put me out for a week), but if I did, and if were a hot day on which an imperial stout/Belgian strong dark/old ale/barleywine would seem inappropriate, then I might reach for this.

Another surprise was the Two Brothers Cane & Ebel.  I guess I should have expected to like it, since it is a rye beer, and I’m partial to those, but it sounded so busy.  It’s an “India Red Rye” brewed with Simcoe and Summit hops and Thai palm sugar.  Whatever it was, it was delicious.

Other favorites were the intense barrel aged brews at Bull & Bush, particularly the Royal Oil and the 37^th Suitcase, and the Saison with roasted squash from Trinity Brewing Company.

It’s almost unbelievable how many beers we got through that afternoon, but since the three of us were taking only a few sips a piece from each one ounce pour, we were still feeling pretty good when 4:00 rolled around.  In the end, we tried 110 beers in the Saturday afternoon session and 210 beers from 143 breweries across all four sessions.  Our Saturday afternoon list and our full list appear at the end of this post.

As we were herded out into the icy rain between sessions, we knew we needed to eat, but weren’t sure where to go.  Our friend Alan suggested Ted’s, which does burgers and ribs, and specializes in bison meat.  This won out over a rival suggestion of sushi from Sean, which normally I would jump at, but with my belly full of beer and temperatures lower than I’d experienced since moving out to California, a plate full of piping hot meat sounded just right.  So, Allie, Melissa, Alan, Jay, Sean, and I hurried on over to Ted’s Montana Grill, looking sorry for the folks already shivering in line outside the Convention Center for the Saturday evening session.  I got a bison burger with cheddar, grilled onions and mushrooms, and avocado, and it was fantastic.  We stayed a little longer than we probably should have, but I wasn’t eager to head back.  I didn’t want to wait outside in the cold, I had drunk about as much beer as I could handle, and I wasn’t eager to see what kind of crowds would pack the Saturday night session, which is somewhat notorious for its fratboy atmosphere.

Turns out, I was right on the money with all three of my worries.  Even though the doors opened at 5:30 for the evening session, when I showed up at 6:10, there was not only still a line, but I had to go ¾ of the way around the building to get to the back of it.  I almost gave up and went home.  After waiting 40 minutes to get in, I realized what a zoo it was.  There must have been twice as many people as there were at the Saturday afternoon session, and at least one and a half times as many people as there were at the Thursday and Friday sessions.  I was hard to move, hard to talk, and hard to get beer.  The crowd was decidedly less geeky and more eager to drink to get drunk than at the previous sessions.  The number of cheers that went up over dropped glasses was enough to make someone lose his or her mind.  And though I’m sure large portions of the crowd didn’t notice, many of the good beers had run out, and even the t-shirt shop was running low.

The one bright spot in all of this was that my friends Rosie and Josh were there, and we got to take them around and play tour guide, since this was the only session for which they had been able to get tickets.  We tried to take them to the good booths so that they didn’t have to waste their time fighting the crowds for mediocre stuff.  Unfortunately, half the time ended up being wasted anyway since many of our favorites had kicked already.  With regrets to Rose & Josh, I bailed around 8:15, even though the session wouldn’t end until 10:00, like the others.  The crowd was making me anxious and I only had three or four tastes of beer anyway, since I didn’t feel like I could stomach any more beer on top of the mash of bison and beer my stomach was already dealing with.

After going home and changing (my clothes never got beer spilled on them until this last session full of people to whom balance had become a foreign concept), and resting a bit, it was off to Falling Rock.  We wavered and almost didn’t go, since we were full and it was an awfully cold and rainy walk over there, but we knew we didn’t want to miss it, and we were right.

When we got there, it was as packed as ever and I had to look all the tables up and down before I found one with a beer menu.  When I asked to borrow it, its owners were hesitant to let it go, informing me it was the only one in the house.  I had to look it over while standing at the end of their table, which made me feel like an intruder, but which got the job done.  I wanted to get something Belgian and special to share with our friends downstairs, particularly with Sean as a ‘Thank You’ for helping me meet the person who’s now my soon-to-be employer.  We got a bottle of Gouden Carolus D’Or, which promptly started foaming over and almost doused the nice people at the bar whose shoulders we had to reach over to pick it up.  While juggling of the bottle, the four glasses, the credit card, the wallet, the purse, all while trying not to get jostled out of my spot and not to spill on anyone, I almost lost it.  I hate crowds and do as much as I can to avoid them, and this was about to make me lose my mind.  Luckily, once we scurried downstairs, it was only half as bad.

We ended up running into the whole group from the brewery I’ll soon be joining.  While I was a bit nervous at first, thinking “What do you do when you run into your boss after having tasted 110 beers and are diving into an 11% ABV Belgian?”  This was never an issue I faced at my prior job, to say the least.  After deciding not to stress, the answer I went with was “Well, give him a glass of it, already.”  This also helped alleviate the me-carrying-too-many-things problem, and things just went uphill from there.  The whole crew was so friendly and funny that I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky I was, to be joining a place that had not only taken home some serious hardware in the competition, but who, as their lead brewer put it in a moment of enthusiasm that seems to be his default attitude in life, “If there were a competition on friendship, we’d win!”  He then picked up his boss, the brewmaster, in a big bear hug.  Though this sounds super-cheesy, but I have to say I believe he’s right, I probably laughed harder and longer that night than in the whole prior month combined.  I was worried at first with how I’d stand with the group, not having actually started my new job yet, but no only did they set me at ease, but Allie and Melissa felt completely included as well.  The brewmaster, who had hired me, not only remembered that I had a sister and where she had gone to college, but he had a whole story for her about how he had mentioned this to the brewery owners, one of whom had pulled his leg, going on and on about what a terrible school it was, only to end with, “Actually, I’m just kidding.  I went there too.”  We ended the night at the Cruise Room, which I feared was going to the thing that pushed us over the edge.  We had been drinking the New Belgium sour beers (La Folie for me) after the Gouden Carolus, and piling hard liquor on top of that sounded like a very bad idea.  Luckily, it took us a while to get settled in, and since their specialty at the Cruise Room is fresh pressed juices, they didn’t make the drinks too strong, so that the alcohol wouldn’t overwhelm the juice.  We had one each before we decided we needed to call it a night and head home.

In all, the whole week, but especially that last night, was an amazing experience.  We can’t wait to come back and do it again.  And the only things I’d change in retrospect are;

(1)   I wouldn’t go to the Saturday evening session at all

(2)   I’d get a car and drive out to the outlying breweries on Friday before the evening session.

So, until next year, here’s to Denver and GABF!

Our list of Saturday afternoon tastes:

Airdale	Homecoming Spiced Porter
Alpine	Irish Red
Piece	Dysfunctional Strong American Pale Ale
Pig’s Eye	Pit Bull Malt Liquor
Piece	Dark Bier
Jolly Pumpkin	Bam Noir Dark Farmhouse Ale
Sapient	Triple
Founder’s	Breakfast Stout
Thirsty Dog	Maibock
Thirsty Dog	12 Days of Christmas Spiced Ale
Titletown	Baltic Porter
Titletown	Johnny Blood Red
Thirsty Dog	Siberian Nights Imperial Stout
Turoni’s	Old Charter Bourbon Barrel Porter
Two Brothers	Cane & Ebel India Red Rye
Weasel Boy	Scottish
Lakefront	New Grist Sorghum & Rice Beer
Wasatch	Autumn Bock
Hopping Frog	Oatmeal Stout
The Herkimer Pub	Gose
Harrison’s	Butterscotch
Snake River Lander	Red Canyon Red
Grumpy Troll	Summer Stout
Grumpy Troll	Flander’s Ned Ale
Grumpy Troll	Amnesia Baltic Porter
Great Dane	Old Scratch Barleywine ‘99
Great Dane	Rambling Vine Wheat Wine
Great Dane	IPA
Flossmoor	Hoppy Little O Belgian IPA
Flossmoor	Collaborative Evila Dark Belgian
Smuggler’s Brewpub	Rocky Mountain Rye
Elevator Brewing	Burning Bush Smoked Maerzen
The Detroit Beer Co	Amber Dwarf
Dark Horse	Apple Ale (Cider with ale yeast)
Dark Horse	Pumpkin Spice Ale
Copper Canyon	“10″ Strong Ale
Copper Canyon	Deveil’s Peak IPA
Cold Spring	Honey Almond Weisse
Capital Brewing	Autumnal Fire Doppelbock
Central Waters	Kosmyk Charlie’s Y2K Catastrophe Ale (Barleywine)
Central Waters	Satin Stolstice Imperial Stout
Brugge	Black Ale
Brugge	Diamond Kings of Heaven
Boulevard	Saison
Boulevard	Saison Brett
Augusta	Spicy Blonde with lemongrass & ginger
Barley Island	Bourbon Barrel Stout
Big Rock Chophouse	Imperial Stout
Atwater	Vanilla Java Porter
Atwater	Voodoo Vater
Arcadia	CocoLoco Stout
Corner Brewery	Espresso Cove
Corner Brewery	Jackhammer Old Ale
Arbor Brewing	Milestone Porter
America’s Brewing Company	Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
America’s Brewing Company	Oompah Loompa Chocolate Beer
75th Street Brrewery	Five Point Palm Exploding Hop Technique Bourbon Barrel IPA
Dog Fish Head	World Wide Stout
Iron Hill	Saison du Hill
Iron Hill	Belgian IPA
Left Hand	Sawtooth ESB
Left Hand	Milk Stout
Left Hand	Rye
McClellan’s	Imperiale Ale Strong American Pale Ale
Mountain Sun	Stoked Oak Bourbon Barrel Oatmeal Stout
Pug Ryan	Scottish Ale
Pagoasa	Coconut Porter
Phantom Canyon	Oktoberfest
Pug Ryan	Pilsner
Pump House	Cherry Bomb Saison
Red Fish	Angry Monk Dubbel
Rocky Mountain	Brunette
Redstone	Blackberry Mead
New Belgium	Triple
New Belgium	Grand Cru
Rockyard	Redhawk Ale
San Luis Valley	Oatmeal Stout
Sandlot	Goat Rancher Bock
Silverton	Red Mountain Beer
Silverton	Barely Legal Barleywine
Silverton	Ice Pick IPA
Smuggler’s	Saison
Smuggler’s	Sky Hop IPA
Smuggler’s	10:13 Oatmeal Stout
Snake River	Dortmunder
Snake River	Custer’s Last Ale
Snake River	Zonker Stout
Snake River Lander	Berliner Weisse
Steamworks	Backside Stout
Suds Brothers	Robust Porter
Trinity	Saison with Roasted Squash
Trinity	Flo IPA
Twisted Pine	Espresso Stout
Twisted Pine	Oaked Whiskey Red
Uinta	King’s Peak Porter
Uinta	Cutthroat Pale Ale
Squatters	Altbier
Wasatch	Devastator Doppelbock
Wolf Rock	Stout
Bull & Bush	Royal Oil Whiskey Barrel English Barleywine
Bull & Bush	37th Suitcase Barrel Saison
Lang Creek	IPA
Kannah Creek	Pigasus Porter
Kannah Creek	Broken Oar IPA
Hoppers	Pilsner
Hoppers	Mild
Grand Teton	Bitch Creek ESB
Golden City	Honey Saison
Golden City	Gose
Odells	Porter

Out overall list of beers tasted:

BREWERY	BEER
23rd Street	Irish Red
75th Street Brrewery	Five Point Palm Exploding Hop Technique Bourbon Barrel IPA
Adirondack	Spiced Ale
Airdale	Homecoming Spiced Porter
Allagash	Curieux
Alpine	Irish Red
Alpine	Pure Hoppiness
America’s Brewing Company	Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
America’s Brewing Company	Oompah Loompa Chocolate Beer
Arbor Brewing	Milestone Porter
Arcadia	CocoLoco Stout
Atwater	Vanilla Java Porter
Atwater	Voodoo Vater
Augusta	Spicy Blonde with lemongrass & ginger
Avery	Ale to the Chief
Barley Brothers	Blueberry Vanilla Wheat
Barley Brothers	Double Espresso Stout
Barley Island	Bourbon Barrel Stout
Baron	Doppelbock
Barrio Brewery	Taylor Jayne’s Raspberry
Big Rock Chophouse	Imperial Stout
Blind Tiger	Oktoberfest
Blue Moon	Peanut Butter Ale
Blue Point	Hoptical Illusion
Bosco’s Ray’s	Honey Rye
Boulevard	Saison
Boulevard	Saison Brett
Bridgeport	Amber Ale
Bridgeport	Ebeneezer Ale
Bridgeport	Fresh Hop Ale
Brooklyn Brewery	Chocolate Stout
Brooklyn Brewery	Grand Cru
Brugge	Black Ale
Brugge	Diamond Kings of Heaven
Bull & Bush	37th Suitcase Barrel Saison
Bull & Bush	Royal Oil Whiskey Barrel English Barleywine
Cambridge Brewing Company	Arquebus Summer Barleywine
Cambridge Brewing Company	Cerise Cassee
Cambridge Brewing Company	Heather Ale
Capital Brewing	Autumnal Fire Doppelbock
Central Waters	Kosmyk Charlie’s Y2K Catastrophe Ale (Barleywine)
Central Waters	Satin Stolstice Imperial Stout
Chama	March Hare IPA
Chama	Sleeping Dog Oatmeal Stout
Chama	Smoke Beer
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Cherry Caudill
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Cilantro Lime
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Hawaiian Honey
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Peach Saison
Clipper City	Small Craft Warning Pilsner Bock
Cold Spring	Honey Almond Weisse
Copper Canyon	“10″ Strong Ale
Copper Canyon	Deveil’s Peak IPA
Corner Brewery	Espresso Cove
Corner Brewery	Jackhammer Old Ale
Cumberland Brewery	Mr. Banana Grabber Belgian IPA
Dark Horse	Apple Ale (Cider with ale yeast)
Dark Horse	Pumpkin Spice Ale
Dock Street	Baltic Maple
Dock Street	Bubbly Wit
Dock Street	Espresso Stout
Dock Street	Rye IPA
Dock Street	Sorghum
DOG Brewing	Black Dog
DOG Brewing	Blueberry
Dog Fish Head	World Wide Stout
Dogfish Head	120 Minute Imperial IPA
Dogfish Head	Red & White
Dogfish Head	Sahtea
Dogfish Head	Theobroma
Duck Rabbit	Wee Heavy
Elevator Brewing	Burning Bush Smoked Maerzen
Elysian	After The Supernova Imperial Stout
Fifty-Fifty Brewing	Dark Tripel
Firestone-Walker	Big Opal
Firestone-Walker	Parabola
Flossmoor	Collaborative Evila Dark Belgian
Flossmoor	Hoppy Little O Belgian IPA
Founder’s	Breakfast Stout
Fredericksburg	Honey Creme Ale
Golden City	Gose
Golden City	Honey Saison
Goose Island	Debbie’s Little Helper Imperial Red
Goose Island	Juliet (Rye in cabernet barrel)
Goose Island	Matilda
Grand Teton	Bitch Creek ESB
Grand Teton	Black Cauldron Imperial Stout
Great Dane	IPA
Great Dane	Old Scratch Barleywine ‘99
Great Dane	Rambling Vine Wheat Wine
Great Divide	Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
Great Divide	Hercules Double IPA
GreenFlash	Stout
Grumpy Troll	Amnesia Baltic Porter
Grumpy Troll	Flander’s Ned Ale
Grumpy Troll	Summer Stout
Hale’s Ales	Barleywine
Hale’s Ales	Coconut Porter
Hale’s Ales	Wee Heavy in Brandy Barrels
Harrison’s	Butterscotch
Hoppers	Mild
Hoppers	Pilsner
Hopping Frog	Double IPA
Hopworks Urban Brewery	Velvet ESB
Iron Hill	Belgian IPA
Iron Hill	Saison du Hill
Jolly Pumpkin	Bam Noir Dark Farmhouse Ale
Jolly Pumpkin	Luciernaga Saison
Jolly Pumpkin	Oro de Calabaza
Kannah Creek	Broken Oar IPA
Kannah Creek	Pigasus Porter
Lakefront	New Grist Sorghum & Rice Beer
Lang Creek	IPA
Lawson’s Finest Liquids	Maple Nipple (Maple Triple)
Left Hand	Milk Stout
Left Hand	Rye
Left Hand	Sawtooth ESB
Lost Abbey	Brandy Barrel Angel’s Share
Lost Abbey	Isabelle Proximus
Mammoth	365 IPA
Mammoth	Doppelbock
Mateveza	Yerba Mate Ale
Maui	Coconut Porter
Maui	Coconut Rum Porter
McClellan’s	Imperiale Ale Strong American Pale Ale
Minneapolis Town Hall	Eye of the Storm Strong American Honey Ale
Minneapolis Town Hall	Mango Mama
Minneapolis Town Hall	Russian Roulette Imperial Stout
Moon River	Honey Bock
Mountain Sun	Stoked Oak Bourbon Barrel Oatmeal Stout
New Belgium	Grand Cru
New Belgium	Triple
New Glarus	Belgian Red
New Glarus	Raspberry Tart
Nodding Head	Berliner Weisse
Nodding Head	Grog
Nodding Head	Phunk
Nodding Head	Saison
Odells	Porter
Pagoasa	Coconut Porter
Pelican Brewpub	Elemental Wet Hop Ale
Phantom Canyon	Oktoberfest
Piece	Dark Bier
Piece	Dysfunctional Strong American Pale Ale
Pig’s Eye	Pit Bull Malt Liquor
Pizza Port	Imperial Stout
Pug Ryan	Pilsner
Pug Ryan	Scottish Ale
Pump House	Cherry Bomb Saison
Ram Northgate	Wheat Gruit
Ram Puyallup	Mocha Stout
Red Fish	Angry Monk Dubbel
Redstone	Apricot Nectar Mead
Redstone	Blackberry Mead
Rocky Mountain	Brunette
Rockyard	Redhawk Ale
Rogue Track Town	100 Meter India Red Ale
Rogue Track Town	Oak Aged Imperial Red
Russian River	Temptation
Sacramento	Imperial Red
Sacramento	Old Pappy Wheatwine
Sacramento	Russian Imperial Stout
San Diego	Blueberry Wheat
San Luis Valley	Oatmeal Stout
Sandlot	Goat Rancher Bock
Sandlot	Rauchbier
Sapient	Triple
Schmaltz	Albino Python
Schmaltz	Coney Island Lager
Schmaltz	Jewbelation 12
Silver City	Imperial Stout
Silverton	Barely Legal Barleywine
Silverton	Ice Pick IPA
Silverton	Red Mountain Beer
Smuggler’s	10:13 Oatmeal Stout
Smuggler’s	Saison
Smuggler’s	Sky Hop IPA
Smuggler’s Brewpub	Rocky Mountain Rye
Snake River	Custer’s Last Ale
Snake River	Dortmunder
Snake River	Zonker Stout
Snake River Lander	Berliner Weisse
Snake River Lander	Red Canyon Red
Squatters	Altbier
Steamworks	Backside Stout
Stoudts	Smooth Hoperator
Suds Brothers	Robust Porter
Summit	Oktoberfest
Surly	Coffee Brown
Surly	Furious IPA
Sweetwater	IPA
Sweetwater	Spiced Blueberry
Terrapin	Oak Aged Rye Squared
The Bruery	Autumn Maple Belgian Brown
The Bruery	Saison Rue
The Detroit Beer Co	Amber Dwarf
The Herkimer Pub	Gose
The Mash Tun	Blackberry Oatmeal Ale
Thirsty Dog	12 Days of Christmas Spiced Ale
Thirsty Dog	Maibock
Thirsty Dog	Siberian Nights Imperial Stout
Three Floyds	Dreadnought IPA
Three Floyds	Milk Stout
Titletown	Baltic Porter
Titletown	Johnny Blood Red
Tommyknocker	Coco Porter
Tommyknocker	Maple Nut Brown
Tommyknocker	Oaked Butthead
Tommyknockers	Almond Creme Soda
Trinity	Flo IPA
Trinity	Saison with Roasted Squash
Triple Rock	North Oakland Imperial IPA
Troegs	Doppelbock
Turoni’s	Old Charter Bourbon Barrel Porter
Twisted Pine	Espresso Stout
Twisted Pine	Oaked Whiskey Red
Two Brothers	Cane & Ebel India Red Rye
Uinta	Cutthroat Pale Ale
Uinta	King’s Peak Porter
Upstream Brewery	ESB
Victory	Baltic Thunder
Walking Man	Scotch Ale
Wasatch	Autumn Bock
Wasatch	Devastator Doppelbock
Weasel Boy	Scottish
Weyerbach	Imperial Pumpkin
Wolf Rock	Stout

Thirsty Hopster Lifetime Beer Venue Map

I should be writing my final GABF post, but instead I got really caught up in this idea of making a map of all of the beer places we’ve visited.  So here it is: Map!

The page that the link above connects to should explain most of what little there is to know about the map, but I’ll add a couple notes here about where I hope to take it in the future:

(1) The maps doesn’t yet include every place we’ve ever been, since we haven’t been keeping track before now.  So far, we think we’ve done a pretty good job of capturing most of the breweries we’ve been to, but there are probably plenty of beer bar, beer restaurant, and beer store venues that we haven’t had the time to think of yet.

(2) In the future, I hope to add links inside the text boxes that come up when you click on one of the markers.  These will connect back to posts about the venue in question, to give you information about what we thought about it, instead of just whether we’ve been there.

So, enjoy!  And let me know if you have any feedback.  Thanks,

-JJ

GABF Part 2: We meet our organizational match, and drink a whole lotta beer

Well, GABF is over and all I know is that at the end of the night last night my face hurt from smiling so big for so long.  I remember saying at one point last night that this was the best beer day in my life ever.  But then I immediately realized that I think I’ve said this at least six times in the last six months.  And that, my friends, is the best part about being a craft beer fanatic: the good times keep coming and only seem to get better and better.

We got up Friday feeling bright and sunny, even if the weather wasn’t.  We had gone to bed immediately after the festival Thursday night, instead of heading back to Falling Rock (yet again) or elsewhere, and I think it was a good choice.  We might have missed some carousing, but then we were ready to hit the ground running in the AM, and we had plenty of places to visit, even if we didn’t have a car to take us to Boulder or the other further-flung Denver destinations.

First stop was Wynkoop Brewing Company, a brewpub in downtown Denver.  We ordered the sampler tray, which was huge.  Here’s the breakdown, with selective commentary on those about which we have the most to say:

• Wixa Weiss: This was an unfiltered Bavarian wheat beer that Wynkoop describes as “refreshing and effervescent with clove and banana aromas.”  We did appreciate the aromas and thought it got that Bavarian banana and cloveyness just right, but thought that it looked a little funny.  It was super-cloudy, even for an unfiltered wheat, and almost white in color, giving it a chalky appearance.  I’ve always thought that taste/smell/mouthfeel matter far, far more than looks, and I guess the GABF judges must too (or liked that chalky look more than we did), because the Wixa took home the gold for South German-Style Hefeweizen.
• Two Guns Pils: A Czech-style golden pilsner
• Light Rail Pale Ale: This was the beer that helped us discover Melissa’s love of diacetyl.  It’s described by Wynkoop as “similar to an English bitter, but with citrus [read: North American] hops, flaked oats for a silky texture, and caramel malt.”  Low levels of diacetyl are considered optional in this style, from a “judging based on adherence to style” perspective.  This one had a bit more than I expected and when Melissa said she liked it, I guessed this was what she liked about it.  We tested it that afternoon and I was right!  Whenever we got one that seemed particularly butterscotch-y, she liked it a lot.
• Patty’s Chile Beer: This is a golden ale with Anaheim chiles and dried ancho peppers.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t spicy at all.  I got no burn from it, just the smell and taste of green bell peppers, and maybe a little Anaheim flavor.  We had to give it back to our bartender because it smelled so strong that it was hard to taste the other beers even after we moved it off the table and tried to hide it on a nearby windowsill. 
• Railyard Ale: Their signature beer, an amber ale. 
• Obamanator Maibock: This was my favorite of the whole tray, and not just due to my political sympathies.  It’s a maibock dry hopped with citric American hops, and it shows.  The vienna malt gave it a burst of toffee, fruity flavor that I really enjoyed.
• Monkeyfist IPA: On cask
• St. Charles ESB: Either something went wrong with this beer, or they poured some of the chile beer in the glass by accident, but this had two pronounced bad flavors: (1) green pepper, just like in the chile beer, (2) tannic black tea flavor.  Not a favorite, though I had been looking forward to it.
• B3K Schwarzbier: This was my other favorite of the pack, and this time the GABF judges and I were right in sync, because they gave it a gold in the German-Style Schwarzbier category.  It had a clean, dry roasted flavor, but was still really refreshing at the same time.  I called dibs on this one and hoarded it. 
• Silverback Smoked Porter: Pretty smooth and low on carbonation for a non-cask beer.
• Sagebrush Stout: Oatmeal stout on nitro tap
• Cider: Made with granny smith, golden delicious, and red delicious apples.  I still don’t know how my ciders will taste post-fermentation, since they’re still going at it, but I do know that my pre-fermentation apple juice blend was a lot more aromatic than this.  Though apples in the Wynkoop cider do provide a good mix of sweet and sour flavors, they aren’t the ideal cider apples because none are particularly aromatic, and none are vary tannic. 

It’s worth noting that our server was very helpful and friendly.  He didn’t give us a hard time when we handed back the chile beer, he went to go find out whether they pressed their own apples when I got curious and asked, and he smilingly checked back in on us frequently.

Next, it was off to the Cheeky Monk, a Belgian beer bar and restaurant also walkable from our downtown hotel.  It has a dark interior, exposed brick interior that reminded me of both The Trappist (though without the Trappist’s coziness and impressive bottle collection) and LaTrappe (though more minimalist, most monastery-inspired than aspiring to actual monastery-likeness).  The food was pretty good, though I would have enjoyed one or two more beer battered shrimp on my plate.

Here we encountered a slight problem of portion size and ABV control.  We had made a rule for ourselves on the first day that we’d order half pints or taters where possible and avoid beers over 6% ABV before sundown to ensure that we didn’t get too overwhelmed and didn’t end up missing any of the fun promised by the evening GABF sessions.  However, there were few beers under 8% at Cheeky Monk and most of those were witbiers that were less interesting to me than the bigger beers.  So, I compromised and got an 8% Kwak instead of one of the 10% or 12% beers I had had my eye on (notably, the Scaldis).  Allie got a Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor and Melissa got a New Belgium 1554.  I was a little jealous of Allie’s beer when they came.  I knew I liked the Hopsinjoor and had recommended it to her, and it’s zingy lemon-pine flavors were definitely beating out the thickly sweet caramel and high carbonation of the Kwak for my affections.

I feel ridiculous drinking out of the Kwak glass

While we drank our beers and waited for our food, we got to talking about how impressed we were that Chris & Meredith from The Beer Geek have been to over 400 breweries, and about all the breweries visited by all the people who have won Beer Drinker of the Year.  We decided to catalog the breweries that Allie and I have been to and the result was pretty revealing.  On one hand, I’m proud that we’ve been to a combined 80 breweries, most of them together.  On the other hand, I’m surprised how few breweries I’ve been to outside of California.  We resolved to do a better job in the future, starting this Sunday (today) by renting a car and checking out Boulder.  This never ended up happening, for reasons of inertia, but I have resolved to create a Google Map of the places we’ve been, with flags for each place and links to the posts about them.  Look for it on the blog in the near future.

We regrouped in the hotel room for about an hour and then it was time to head back out into the arctic winter that has descended upon Denver and wait for round two of GABF.  While in line, we made a list of twenty booths we wanted to hit.  It turns out, we were so efficient Friday night that we hit those twenty, and more, in the first hour and 78 beers overall.

We weren’t intending to hit Dogfish Head first, we were going to go to Three Floyds, which we had intended to hit the first night.  However, as we walked by the crowd that surrounded DFH all weekend, and saw that they had just put on Red & White, we figured we had to stop to try it.  If there were an award for crowd favorite, or more accurately “biggest crowd”, it would have to go to either Dogfish Head or New Glarus.  Both were packed every time we passed in each session, though it’s hard to tell how their crowds truly stacked up numbers-wise since at Dogfish Head the prospective tasters were always mobbed around the booth like rabid concert-goers, while at New Glarus people formed an orderly line.  Hmmm… I wonder if this says anything about New Glarus vs. Dogfish Head drinkers.

While on the subject of lines, it’s worth noting that the bathroom management at GABF was superb!  Even though the ladies room always had a line, it moved so fast I practically had to jog to keep up with it.  And once inside, there were always open stalls at the back that people hadn’t even spotted yet, meaning that the line was entirely the fault, not of the venue, but of us slightly muddled beer tasters who couldn’t use what stalls there were efficiently.  They also, almost unbelievably, were clean and always stocked with paper towels.  In fact, I thought the whole festival was marked by very, very good administration.  The line to get in moved fast once the doors were open, and the system for taking tickets, checking IDs, and handing out wrist bands and glasses just plain worked.  Way to go, GABF organizers!

But back to the beer…  I have to say the if I were giving an award for best beer name, and there were many good ones, it would have to Cumberland Brew’s Belgian IPA: Mr. Banana Grabber.  It’s hilarious in its own right, but even better if you’re a fan of Arrested Development.

Our new friends, the super-dedicated beer drinkers

The highlight of the evening was definitely meeting the trio of attendees (Tim, Steven, and Kent) in cow-print hats who made us look like amateurs when it comes to organized and efficient tasting.  Those of you who have seen my sister’s spreadsheet and Google map of Washington state breweries or my own statistical analyses of festivals will know that we love ourselves a nice color-coded spreadsheet.  However, for whatever reason, we hadn’t thought to arm ourselves for GABF with any kind of organization or analysis besides putting check marks next to names of target breweries on the master brewery list, then writing these names next to the corresponding booth on our map.  These guys had taken things at least 3 steps further.  They had made a list of every single beer that had won an award at last year’s GABF or this year’s World Beer Cup, keeping track of whether it was gold, silver, or bronze.  They then cross-referenced this list with the booth numbers of each brewery on the 2008 GABF map, and sorted the list by booth location instead of alphabetically by brewery name.  This was smart since it allowed them to move through a block of booths systematically instead of darting around.  They boasted, well deservedly, that in the first night they had gone through all 180 award winning beers they had scheduled for Thursday, though they had actually drunk far fewer since many of those beers had not been brought to this festival.  I loved these guys!  They even gave us their copy of the their Thursday itinerary since this was Friday and they were done with it.

Us and the Lost Abbey crew

Matt Brynildson from Firestone Walker, Allie, Melissa, and Me

At the end of the night, we ducked behind the tables of some California brewers we knew and got to try some beers out of the tap, avoiding the long lines.  When we were being shooed out of there after the clock struck 10:00pm, we ran into Tomme Arthur and firmly established what had already become a tradition of sorts of always taking a photo with him.  This started when I met him at his brewery for the first time, and didn’t know my friends were taking sneak photos of me talking to him.  It was perpetuated when Allie and Melissa met him at Lost Abbey night at Brouwer’s in Seattle.  When Allie mentioned she was my sister, he remembered what had happened in San Diego and asked, “Don’t you want a photo?”  Of course they did.  This time, when we ran into him, I guess there was no question in anyone’s minds what we would do.  Though it seems a little silly at this point, considering I just found out he reads the blog close enough to ask if I had succeeded in buying a new car (yes, and oh my god that probably made me feel better than any compliment on the blog to date), if this keeps up, we’ll have a whole Album o’ Tomme before too long.  And who wouldn’t want that?  [Unfortunately, this photo wasn't on my camera, so I don't have a copy yet.]

Ok, I’m about to get on my plane, so I’m going to wrap this up.  I’ll have to cover Saturday in the next post.  But, here’s the exhaustive list of what we tasted Friday night.  Again, the bold ones were the ones I liked best.  There are more of them this time (20) since we tried more beers (78 total):

• Dogfish Head Red & White
• Three Floyds Dreadnought IPA
• Three Floyds Milk Stout
• Surly Furious IPA
• Surly Coffee Brown
• Summit Oktoberfest
• Victory Baltic Thunder
• Weyerbach Imperial Pumpkin
• Troegs Doppelbock
• Stoudts Smooth Hoperator
• Nodding Head Berliner Weisse
• Nodding Head Saison
• Nodding Head Grog
• Nodding Head Phunk
• Dock Street Bubbly Wit
• Dock Street Rye IPA
• Dock Street Espresso Stout
• Dock Street Baltic Maple
• Dock Street Sorghum
• Tommyknockers Almond Creme Soda
• Schmaltz Albino Python
• Schmaltz Jewbelation 12
• Schmaltz Coney Island Lager
• Bridgeport Ebeneezer Ale
• Bridgeport Fresh Hop Ale
• Bridgeport Amber Ale
• 23^rd Street Irish Red
• The Mash Tun Blackberry Oatmeal Ale
• Hopworks Urban Brewery Velvet ESB
• Hale’s Ales Barleywine
• Hale’s Ales Wee Heavy in Brandy Barrels
• Hale’s Coconut Porter
• Mammoth Doppelbock
• Firestone-Walker Parabola
• Firestone-Walker Big Opal
• Sacramento Old Pappy Wheatwine
• Sacramento Imperial Red
• Sacramento Russian Imperial Stout
• San Diego Blueberry Wheat
• Blue Point Hoptical Illusion
• Brooklyn Brewery Grand Cru
• Brooklyn Brewery Chocolate Stout
• Pelican Brewpub Elemental Wet Hop Ale
• Moon River Honey Bock
• Duck Rabbit Wee Heavy
• Cumberland Brewery Mr. Banana Grabber Belgian IPA
• Bosco’s Ray’s Honey Rye
• Barley Brothers Double Espresso Stout
• Barley Brothers Blueberry Vanilla Wheat
• Barrio Brewery Taylor Jayne’s Raspberry
• Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas Cilantro Lime
• Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas Cherry Caudill
• Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas Hawaiian Honey
• Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas Peach Saison
• Fredericksburg Honey Creme Ale
• Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
• Great Divide Hercules Double IPA
• Ram Puyallup Mocha Stout
• Ram Northgate Wheat Gruit
• Minneapolis Town Hall Eye of the Storm Strong American Honey Ale
• Minneapolis Town Hall Russian Roulette Imperial Stout
• Minneapolis Town Hall Mango Mama
• Pro-Am Triple Rock & Nate Smith North Oakland Imperial IPA
• Fifty-Fifty Brewing Dark Tripel
• Upstream Brewery ESB
• Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza
• Goose Island Matilda
• Sandlot Rauchbier
• Rogue Track Town Oak Aged Imperial Red
• Rogue Track Town 100 Meter India Red Ale
• Silver City Imperial Stout
• Walking Man Scotch Ale
• Chama Smoke Beer
• Chama March Hare IPA
• Chama Sleeping Dog Oatmeal Stout
• Blind Tiger Oktoberfest
• GreenFlash Stout
• Russian River Temptation