Beer of the Week

So it's been ages since I've posted anything and I've got no excuses, but alas I have a new format idea. Short and sweet lines about things I like. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you Russian River Brewing Company's, Damnation Ale. A Belgian style strong ale that's as smooth as a saison. Go on out and grab a bottle or two now, it's really good!

Cheers!
G

What I've been drinking lately

Recently turning 40, I have been given lots of wonderful gifts and thankfully a good amount of great beers. Seeing how this also is the 30th anniversary of Sierra Nevada Brewery and just over 20 years for North Coast Brewing Company, I thought I would pay respect to two of my favorite breweries in the world.

First off I have to say that I have tried the this beer three times already and I'm contemplating buying a case if I can get my hands on one. What is it you ask, none other than the first of the four anniversary collaboration beers from Sierra Nevada Brewery, the Fritz (Maytag of Anchor Steam) and Ken (Grossman of Sierra Nevada of course) Pioneers Stout! I have not tried the draft version yet, but the 20 or so ounce cork topped bottle has been enjoyed on several occasions. This malty, sweet and slightly hoppy concoction should not be part of any drinking "session" by any means but rather enjoyed in a proper beer glass with a few friends who appreciate quality crafted beer. At 9.2% alcohol, this beer will get you feeling warm in no time and goes well with smoked or grilled meats or by itself of course. This being the first of the four collaborations, you shouldn't hesitate if you get a chance to try this, you won't be sorry.

http://www.sierra30.com/#/fritz-and-ken-s-ale

Next we head a bit further up the State of California to North Coast Brewing Company. For my above mentioned Birthday, I was give a bottle of the 20th Anniversary Ale. This pale and lightly hopped Belgian style ale came in at a whopping 12.5% alcohol, but was well balanced enough that I thought that the amount of alcohol didn't overpower the complexities of flavors. The balance of flavors are probably partly due in part to the aging in oak barrels which has a tendency to mellow out some harsh flavors and subdue the alcohol taste. This brew I'm afraid may be harder to come by though, as the production was limited and may be available only at their brewery, but if you happen to visit the beautiful Northern California coast town of Fort Bragg then you are in for a treat. For more info on either of these beers please visit their websites and as always, keep supporting local and craft breweries!

http://www.northcoastbrewing.com/beer-Twentieth-Anniversary-Ale.htm


Cheers,
G

An Ode to the American Style Lager

I lived in Germany(West Germany at the time) for 14 years. Many of those years were in my teens and I ventured out and had quite a few German beers that at the time I took for granted because for me, they were just what was available to drink. As a matter of fact it was not until I graduated from high school and decided to just work and stay with my parents that I discovered what American beer was. As I worked at a small shop on an American Military base many of the troops requested that I save them cases of Budweiser for when they got back from training. I of course thought that this was odd because we had soo much good German beer that was soo much better than this, but hey they were in the field for weeks at a time and if saving them Bud would make them happy then I was all for it.

Fast forward 15 years and I have now been living in the US for a while and though I have had many good beers, nothing had come close to what I had in Germany and of course I was broke. At this point I discovered the beauty of the American Lager. I had of course up until this point had plenty of great quality American ales which I still love and drink to this day, but my budget could not afford those brews all of the time. I started with Budweiser which to me is too carbonated and honestly tastes like crap. Next was MGD which I thought was awful. Then came Coors Original which I thought was pretty darn refreshing, but that was until I discovered Miller High Life! The beer which comes in a clear bottle (not the greatest for beer preservation) really hits the spot, especially on a hot day and at the Rite Aid you can almost always get a six pack for less than $7! I also am fond of Pabst Blue Ribbon, especially if it's in a long neck bottle! Both are easy drinking session style beers that won't set you back a ton of change and on a nice hot day will keep you nice and cool.

Do i still love imported and American craft beers? Hell yes, but honestly at times I just really want a Miller High Life or Pabst to quench my thirst and that's just how I feel.

http://www.millerhighlife.com

http://www.pabstblueribbon.com/Default.aspx

P.S. as a bonus Pabst support music on NPR!

Cheers,
G

Reflections of a past month of mayhem

So I have to apologize about not getting any post out in the past month, truth is I was busy, lazy and frankly just not as prolific as my partner. So in honor of my absence, here is what's happened drink wise for me this past month.

I guess I'll start with Sacramento's first Beer Week. I am happy that this town is starting to realize its' potential with what can happen when we put our minds to it, now if we can get some smaller version of Austin's South by Southwest and let taco truck run rampant, we'd be just fine.

http://sacramentobeerweek.com

I was fortunate enough to start off with the Mulvaney's Beer Paired dinner on the Tuesday. I won't go too far into it but rather link this one to my significant others' page but I will say there can't be much wrong with paying $50 for all you can eat and drink with such great food and beer.

http://www.undercovercaterer.com/2010/02/sac-beer-week-at-mulvaneys

The next night I was happy to see that my neighborhood cider maker extraordinaire, Two Rivers Cider hosted an open house! How could I pass up on free cider? Well I ended up drinking too much cider, but was still make it work the next morning and function somehow. There were at least eight ciders on tap and couple of other special bottles that were available all for free and I tried most of them. Two River makes great products and you should check them out if you have not had a chance to do so yet, thanks for the open house TRC!

http://cider.iamjp.com

The third and last event for Beer Week was a cask conditioned ale event at Rubicon Brewery in which they supplied along with several other norcal breweries a chance for us to try beer without any added bubbles. The beer is only naturally carbonated and pours via gravity, which for me makes it easier to drink. I hate over carbonated beers(Budweiser)yuck!

http://www.rubiconbrewing.com

My next adventure was the annual pig roast at Mulvaney's. They were gracious enough to invite us over for roasted pig, lamb, sides, cheese and copious amounts of Guinness! I love this place and want say thanks for the hospitality, you guys are truly the best!

http://www.mulvaneysbl.com

I stayed in for St. Patrick's Day or as I call it, Amateur Night! I did have a few pints of Murphy's Irish Stout before I had to head to the airport for my red eye flight to Austin, Texas!

I arrived at my friends house in Austin around 9:45am, just in time for a few beers and some tacos to start that day! I went there to attend the aforementioned SXSW for four days of pure music, beer and taco bliss with some of my best in life and a few new ones as well! In those days i drank plenty of Lone Star which is a great session beer (see my previous post), Shiner Bock (yum) and for the first time Pearl beer! All of these beers went down nicely with tacos and music and treated me just fine. Of course there were other beers consumed on this trip, but you guys know about all of them and this is an homage to some Texas brews. I saw soo many great shows, got a pick from Rick Neisen, a photo with Ian McLagen(see below) and even got my first chance to play at gig there! I love Austin and will be back may more times!


http://www.lonestarbeer.com/Default.aspx

http://www.pearlbeer.com/Home.aspx

http://www.shiner.com/


Finally this last weekend I went with seven other friends up to Reno for Clay's bachelor party. Now I don't really gamble too much, but if I do I usually play the cheaper games to get free booze which I consider a win! This time though I was lucky enough to get nine ears of corn on the Hee Haw penny slot machine and walk away with a cool $130 bucks! As for what I had to drink, there were Coronas, Greyhounds, Bourbon.....you get the picture. There were a few cool new places I went to in Reno though and the links will follow this for your own exploration.

http://www.olebridgepub.com

http://www.imperialbarandlounge.com

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-nugget-reno (Go to Awful Awful's)

Once again thanks for bugging me to write more and I'll try and be more active.

Cheers,
G.

I love the Trappist!

So last year my friend Ally told that there was a special event going on at a bar in in Oakland that I have been wanting to check out. The event turned out to be a "Guido Night" I kid you not at the Trappist in Oakland, Ca. Turns out they got a special keg of a Belgian brew that bore my Name and seeing how it was on my freaking Birthday I just had to go. I convinced my friends Clay and Fred to take the train to Oakland for the day to celebrate me and they happily obliged!

We took the Amtrak to Jack London Square which is about a ten minute walk from the Trappist and many other great places in that part of Oakland. While on the train we enjoyed a few adult beverages and played scrabble and in no time we arrived at our station.


Our first stop though was a great Italian Market called G.B. Ratto's. We got a couple of sandwiches and stared at the meat counter like it was a candy store! The food was great and it'll be a must visit anytime I'm that area. Below are a few pics of our food and the store!




After nourishing ourselves it was on the the Trappist! We waited outside of the place waiting for it to open and grab some prime bar seats. I recommend getting there early as well due to the small size of the place and the easier access to the brews! They have a beer catalog that must be two inches thick and a chalkboard that updates the latest finds!




There were 140 freaking beers in this tiny place and so at that point we decided to ask our friendly bartender to suggest some for us. Each one was amazing yet very different ranging from the lighter Belgian white ales to Local ales and onward to darker beers too. Each glass gets a little water bath before the pouring to cleanse whatever may have drifted into them.



This was all before trying the "Guido" beer! Alas we made our way into the private tasting area to have a taste of my namesakes brew and I'll just say it, it sucked! All of the other brews up until then were fantastic, but this beer tasted like raisins and honey, two things I never want in my beer! So we opted to go back to try a few others at the main bar which were all delicious and before you knew it, it was time to head back and catch the train back to Sacramento


This was one of the best Birthdays that I have ever had and I highly recommend that if you are in the Downtown Oakland area you give these place a try.

Cheers,
G

http://www.thetrappist.com/

I really like Rye Whiskey!

I'm your odd American guy that enjoys a fine rye from time to time. Usually my Canadian friends are synonymous with drinking this fine brew, but seeing that I was born in upstate New York I guess it's close enough that in some odd way I grew to like the tasty beverage myself.

In most bars, rye is a bottle near that back of or not so subtlety placed out of sight but recently rye whiskey has gained some popularity. Most of this popularity is due to the resurgence of good old fashioned cocktails, many of them containing rye. Most bars stock Old Overholt and Jim Beam Rye (which is pretty darn good for the price I might add) but of late because of the above stated resurgence of the art of cocktail making, other rye's are coming to the forefront.

One of the oldest if not the oldest rye in America is Sazarac. This rye which is made from the same family of distillers that produces Buffalo Trace Bourbon (yum) is a great example of what a rye should taste like. For info on about this rye and what is tastes like follow the following link.
http://www.greatbourbon.com/sazeracrye.aspx

This rye by the way is also a key ingredient with one of the oldest cocktails in America, The Sazarac Cocktail.
http://www.sazerac.com/cocktail.aspx

Recently I have also tried Michter's Rye at the Shady Lady Saloon (Sacramento, CA) and it was great! If you are looking for a place to explore the art of cocktail making with a great selection of spirits then I would highly recommend you take a trip over there because they know what they are doing and most importantly they know how to produce a mighty fine cocktail.
http://www.shadyladybar.com/

Our friends at Jim Beam also produce I higher end model of rye named, Ri which I love too.

I've saved the best for last though and it comes from a not so usual source, Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco, California. In 1993 Anchor started a distillery to compliment their fine brews. In addition to producing two types of whiskey and a great gin, they also produce the finest rye whiskey that I have tasted to date, Old Potrero Straight Rye Whiskey! Below is a link to their fine products and I'd recommend watching the video to get an idea of how the distillery came to fruition.
http://www.anchorbrewing.com/about_us/anchordistilling.htm

Cheers,
G

Anyone up for a hike?

I have always wanted to visit Kentucky for many reasons, but I have to admit that being able to tour the Bourbon trail has to be at the top of this list. I have a fondness for this distilled spirit and I am always on the look out for new ones such as Buffalo Trace which I tried for the first time last July in Dallas, Texas. I liked it so much that when I got home I went to BevMo to get a bottle and was pleasantly surprised that it was only $22! Then after doing more research I found that the same distillery produces some of my other favorites like Eagle Rare and Sazerac Rye! Even more import was discovery of the Bourbon Trail hence giving me the inspiration for this blog. I look forward to someday visiting the State of Kentucky to see the Derby, eat Hot Browns and of course trek the trail.

Cheers,
G

http://www.buffalotrace.com/home2.html