Now your asking what all these things are what do they have to do with BEER! More on that in the following post. All of these things I have encountered in this last week.

Today I blog from my garage. I am babysitting my laundry because my washer overflows. Not fun when you see water covering your entire garage floor and your possessions.

Last Tuesday, I was attending a home brew meeting with The Society of Barley Engineers at Stone Brewing Co. It just happened to also be keep the glass night for Coronado Brewing‘s Idiot IPA. Here are my tasting notes:

Aroma: light aromatic hops

Appearance: big, two finger white head; orange color, very filtered; heavy lacing coats the glass as you drink.

Taste: moderate bittering hops; chewy on the tongue and generally very enjoyable; light hop after taste that is pure hop heaven.

Overall: I enjoyed this one a lot! If your a mild to moderate hop-head, then I recommend you get your hands on this one.

Last night I saw a twit from @bluntsage about a collaboration brew [with Bend Brewing] called Hot Rocks. I was intruiged so I headed on down to The Lost Abbey to see what this was all about. I present to you my tasting notes:

Aroma: malts and slight esters

Appearance: dark red with a two finger head. Off white head. Little to no lacing.

Taste: malty with slight hops.

Mouthfeel: grainy and smooth; slight lingering grain after taste.

Overall: It was a nice sidestep from my hop-head endulgences. I liked it a lot. Enough to purchase a second pint even. I can see this as being a nice brew that gets people more interested in higher octain and better quality brews. This was only a 6%’er. But don’t let that deter nor scare you. I imagine this is a limited brew, so head down to The Lost Abbey and say hi to Molly and Sage.

Now that I have covered Hot Rocks and the Idoit IPA, I get onto what was a pleasant surprise in the beer event world: Hopocalypse 2009 at Churchills Pub. Here is the listing of brews that they had on tap:

• Russian River Pliny the Younger
• Russian River Pliny the Elder
• Anderson Valley 20th Anniversary Double IPA
• Moylan’s Harvest IPA
• Port Brewing Hight Tide IPA
• Port Brewing 2nd Anniversary
• Alpine Nelson IPA
• Deschutes Hop Henge Double IPA
• Stone 11th Anniversary Black IPA
• Stone Cali-Belgique Belgian IPA
• Bear Republic Racer X

And on cask they had:

• Stone Ruination Double IPA
• Ballast Point Dorado Double IPA

Now where to start with a list this grand? I started out with an Alpine Nelson as recommended by fellow Barley Engineer. Here are my short notes on the Alpine Nelson:

Aroma: Mild hoppiness

Taste: Esters and hops [who'd-a-guessed right?]

Mouthfeel: Slight grainy aftertaste.

Overall: Not an over the top hop blast, but very enjoyable and recommended.

My focus was directed to the cask list. A short, interesting list. Now I have had my fare share of Stone Ruination in the past, but never on cask. How could I pass up this wonderful opportunity? Short answer: I did. I went for the Ballast Point Dorado Double IPA.

Appearance: Nice white head; a filtered, amber orange; heavy lacing.

Aroma: Sour, non-hoppy aroma. That threw my off. I thought Iwas in possession of a double IPA here.

Taste: Wow [I know "wow" is not a taste, but that's what my notes say]; smooth; 6% and hides it nicely; smooth hoppy, malty, estery taste [is that enough words that end in "y"?].

Mouthfeel: The heavy lacing gave me a hint at what I was in for with the aftertaste: a nice lingering hop taste. A hop-head’s dream.

Overall: Very enjoyable and super delicious! Very smooth. Drinkability built right in. If I can sum it up into one sentence: This Double IPA is not effein’ around!

Oh and get down to Churchills ASAP, I hear they still have quite a few of the above list on tap.

Well that’s all I have for now. I gotta get back to this laundry. I had one overflow already. Uggh!

Tags: Barley Engineers, cask, Churchills, Coronado, Hot Rock, Idiot IPA, the lost abbey

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Beer Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.