It's a new day.....

I had this "great idea" last year.... 99 beer countdown to college football season.  Turned out after about 8-10 days I wasn't keeping up with the posting, but I did keep up with the beer for about 20 days, at which point it looked like I had a lot of catching up to do.... plus I put on about 4-6 pounds in that time, and it was starting to feel more like a 99 day count down to diabetes... so I bagged it.

I hadn't planned on waiting this long to get something back up, but I might as well start up again. 

My wife is getting tired of looking at my little collection of beers on the mostly empty shelves and I totally get it. One thing I have been putting up from time to time that she does enjoy looking at though is tin tackers.  Tin tackers, for those who aren't aware of them, are those little tin product advertising signs.  I'm slowly starting a small collection of them, gathered from various micro breweries, to put up on the wall in the basement.  I've got a few out there, mostly from Oregon breweries at this point, and hope to pick up more in the future as I travel around.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll be posting more frequently in the future.

Aloha

  Steve

Deschutes Black Butte Porter...

This particular porter is one of the first porters I'd had. It's been around a long time.  I believe it was more or less one of Deschutes Brewery's flagship beers. Deschutes began as a family owned brewpub in Bend Oregon back in the late 80's I believe.  Since then they've added an absolutely ginormous brewing facility in Bend, an additional pub in Portland Oregon, and their website says they are opening a location in Roanoke Virginia.

This porter has a ABV of 5.2% and an IBU rating of 30. It pours very dark colored, and tastes of dark chocolate with a hint of coffee and a roasted type of aftertaste.  The chocolate is not as forward as some porters I've had, I'm thinking because some have a more milk chocolaty flavor compared to the dark chocolate flavor this one has.

91 more beers to go...

Believe it or not, this is not intended to be a beer blog...

I'm shooting for man cave/guy stuff/hobby and such, sure beer fits in there somewhere, but it won't be the primary focus over time.  My intent is largely to write about by basement.  How exciting! Not!

So, as I mentioned in my very first post, I've got this nice sized basement sitting under our house that is nowhere near fully utilized. It's basically three concrete walls dug into a hillside and one insulated standard wall which has a single standard door opening to our back yard.  It's billed as a daylight basement, but absolutely zero daylight makes it in as of yet.

The seller of this house had the nicest home woodshop I've ever seen in his basement. There are multiple 220 outlets for his multiple large woodworking tools he had, and he had it set up with a dust vacuum in an adjacent shed, and was lit by multiple 8 foot hardwired shop lights.  The room is about 15 by 60, has 20 some outlets in it, and a darned load bearing wall which I'd dearly love to eliminate about 5 feet into the room, which makes for a room mostly about 10 feet wide except at one end where the load bearing wall doesn't exist (no wall there on the floor above it.

More about the basement later... gotta go to work.

Okay, I just ran across a beer related food blog with a lot of delicious looking recipes...

I gotta link it.  The pictures alone are worthwhile in some cases...http://thebeeroness.com/

Two beers, two reviews... the 99 beer countdown to NCAA football continues...

Yesterday I ended my day with a bottle of Ahh...Freak Oat! Oatmeal Pale Ale by Silver Moon Brewery of Bend Oregon.  I hadn't had this pale ale before, but I have been to Silver Moon, which is on the north end (I think it's north) of downtown Bend.

This is a nice mellow pale ale, ABV of 5.2 and a IBU rating of 35.  It has some hops, and I felt I could taste a touch of oatmeal on the back end of a swallow.  It managed to hit a couple of my likes, as I do like me some hops from time to time and I also enjoy most of the oatmeal brews I've had over time.  I do think this is one of the first oatmeal pale ales I've had, it's more commonly seen in stout beers.

Tonight, I'm partaking of SUPERFUZZ Blood Orange Pale Ale by Elysian of Seattle.  I was introduced to Elysian on a trip to Seattle with BeeR CritiC, to visit our friend Weenieboy a couple years back. We did a trip to see him and do a little brewery hopping and Elysian was one of the stops.  I think they might have a few locations, this particular one was down by one of the stadiums and was huge, one of the bigger bars I recall being in over the years.

...And now for the story of Weenieboy... Weenieboy got his name by his propensity for falling asleep after 2 beers.  Well, Weenieboy is a government employee, and has managed to get himself promoted to the point that he gets to travel all over the country and visit bars everywhere... he should have a blog... and now... I'm the one who falls asleep after two beers, so I'm semi-officially retiring the name Weenieboy, so I don't have to take it for myself.  I need to come up for a new moniker for him I guess.

Well, SUPERFUZZ is a very nice pale ale with the addition of blood orange to give it a citrus spin.  It is not a fruity beer, which I appreciate, and has enough of a bite to appease the beer palate of most IPA drinkers I suspect... BeeR CritiC is a big fan of IPAs and enjoys SUPERFUZZ. SUPERFUZZ is a seasonal brew for Elysian, available April through July of this year from what I understand.  ABV of the beer is 6.2%  and the IBU rating is 45 according to Elysian. BeeR CritiC, my wife, and I all wait to take in a sample or two of this one every year.

Now that I've drank and reviewed these.... 92 BOTTLES OF BEER LEFT BEFORE COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!!!!

Countdown: 95 bottle of beers left until College Football Season....

And I'm taking care of one right now.  Today I'm having Big Bear Black Stout by Bear Republic Brewery down in Sonoma County, California.  Long story, but I think I've had this beer before.... I used to have a dive company in Kona Hawaii, and one of my customers and I were talking about Kona Brewing Company.  Among other things, he was involved in raising grapes down in northern California and while we were talking he said there was a real good brewery tucked in amongst all the wineries.  A year later he made a return trip to Kona, and some return diving with me, and brought me a "care package" of a few bottles from the brewery.  I know it was a "bear" related brewery, so this has got to be it.

This is the darkest beer I've reviewed so far in this blog.  I can put my fingers behind a fairly well lit 5/6 ounce glass of this beer and not see them through the beer. It has a deep malty/dark caramel type of flavor.  For some reason in my mind there's almost a hint of mild raisin like follow-up flavor that I do not find objectionable at all.  I'll have to read up and see if they do any cask aging of this one, sometimes that'll do that type of thing.

This beer has won multiple awards over the year and is highly rated on several beer rating sites.  ABV (alcohol by volume) is 8.1% and the IBU rating is a 66.

  Later.

BEER NUMBER 4: after this, 95 BEERS LEFT BEFORE COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON...

Today I'm a day late.  We had family in town yesterday and dropped them off at the airport today so I will try to not get further behind and review a beer.  Today's beer is Namaste White Belgian-Style Witbier.  This brew is put out by Dogfish Head Brewery, which I believe is in Delaware.  Can't say I've been there...

Namaste White is a "Belgian style White Ale brewed with dried organic orange flesh and peel, fresh-cut lemongrass, a bit of coriander, peppercorns and a healthy dose of good karma." It has 4.8% alcohol by volume and I think it's about 20 IBU according to one source.

This beer has a lot going on, it's light, has some bitterness, some spiciness and a bit of citrus flavor.  It's getting good reviews on sources such as beeradvocate.com and such.  I am no professional reviewer, I don't pretend to be one, I'm just doing this for kicks... and personally, this beer is not my cup of tea. I'm thinking it's the peppercorns that I don't care for, and I generally peppercorn flavor (in anything but beer it seems). I can understand that it would have appeal to certain tastes, but for me 5 ounces was enough, I'll see what my wife thinks about the rest... well, she had some, thought it was a bit "smokey and interesting", it's certainly different from what we've had generally.