Totally forgot to mention Black Albert and It's Alive

Last night we had this funky beer (I mean literally funky, as it was a Flemish sour ale or possibly just a sour ale) called It's Alive. The beer was OK, but the name rocked. I would totally order it again, not for the beer but for the wine.

AND....... just remembered that she learned a little trivia - the Black Albert brewed by the Struisse Brewery of Belgium references her favorite Maine (the entire state) bar. Ebenezer's Kezker Pub in Lovell Maine. I totally remember our friend Chris (the owner) telling us about it but totally blanked (or Blacked - sorry could not stop the pun from coming out) on it. It was so cool to see. Chris is such a great guy and his bar rocks, if anyone ever reads this blog if they take anything away from it - please take the suggestion to visit the pub.

www.ebenezerpub.com

Belgium Beer Bar Novare Rez SUCKS - Beers good – staff sucks – bad cask!!!!

So lat night I went to Novare Res in Portland Maine. Their beer selection is ridiculous, they have hundreds of beers to choose from which is awesome. What is not so awesome is how difficult it is to actually get one of those beers. Our waitress who was not nice or bright was so annoyingly absent from the main seating section. If you were able to track her down and put your order in with her, well she didn't always bring you your beers. She forgot on 2-3 separate occasions to bring us our beers and was not really surprised when she did forget. Kind of like the character Lisa Kudrow played on the 90's sitcom Mad About You.

Another puzzling thing about my night last night was that this Belgium beer bar doesn't carry Chouffe. also one of their cask conditioned beers was bad. Our waitress showed her lack of beer knowledge (and I understand that not everyone needs to be a beer geek like me, but don't work in a crazy beer bar and act like you know so much about beer when you don't) when she was overly rude when we had to send back the beer. She said that is how it should be served. We know what cask beer is like, we travel the world for cask beer, we go hunting for cask beer, and let me tell you, that beer was flat. Anyone that knows anything about cask will agree that beer you server like that needs to be drank in a very short period of time. That is why we don't have as much of it here in the US. Cask sitting around for weeks (as their 40 was last PM) is not always good.

Dogfish Head Red and White - A drink for beer and wine folks to enjoy

Well I may not be as regimented as I originally hoped at blogging, but I do think it is always worth the wait. This Saturday I tried Dogfish Head’s Red and White. And boy was it delicious. OMG. When it was being described I thought, oh no it is a barley wine, but it is nothing of the sort. Red & White is made with Pinto Noir juice (so it has a smooth aftertaste) and aged in oak barrels. So the ingredients and process are skewed towards wine, but it is still a beer. FANTASTIC. I would recommend it to everyone – beer and wine drinkers alike.

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/occassional-rarities/red-white.htm

Passover is hard on beer lovers

This Passover has been unusually hard on this beer girl. Typically the time flies by and Passover is over before I know it. This year, not so much. As I sit on my couch on this cold and rainy day and we try and figure out what to do, I have to keep shooting down ideas because I can't drink any beer. I don't want to waste my $ or my time if I can only observe. So sad. BeerAdvocate has become a tease today. So what is a girl to do? IDK – anyone got any ideas? Let me know or I will end up wasting this entire Saturday.

New concept - sober blogging – NERAX deserves it!!!

Sorry again to my fan base (now possibly at 3??) for the latency of my blogging.

This past weekend I went to a NERAX the New England Real Ale Exhibition festival. For those of you not familiar with it, it is basically a cask-conditioned ale fair. Cask- conditioned ail is served flat and warm (on purpose), and can be considered by North Americans an acquired taste. For beer geeks, it allows us to taste the true flavor of the beer.

The NEREX fest in Somerville MA is one of the largest in the US, but it is still not that big. It is a total beer geek fest. The first time I attended one of these the Fullers ESB was so good, that I almost immediately scheduled a trip to England – just for beer. We decided to make vacation out of it and visit Hungary, but the #1 reason we went was beer. This was not the first, nor the last time a good beer has ignited a trip.

We attended the last day of the fair, so the beer selection was a bit limited. That is to be expected at this event. They still had a solid 30ish British and Americans on tap, so all was well.

My favorite for the night – the classic – Old Speckled Hen. Yum.

I doubled my fan base

So, tonight as I was hanging out in the work conference employee lounge I heard that there was another beer blogger at my company. My immediate thought is that I had to meet him. So I did. Although I found out he is not so much a beer blogger, as he is a beer lover. We were able to chat beer for a while. Although he could not name me his favorite IPA/Pale Ale (which I can totally understand as I put him on the spot) I though he/Kris was great. He did name his current favorite, Guinness on tap in Ireland.

His buddy (a customer of his) was a “hoot and a holler”, and has the BEST geographically located work place ever. He is within viewing distance of New Belgium, O’Dells, Budweiser, and Coors (I believe that is the 4th one). How great is that. If that was not enough, he goes to every major sporting event you can think of – but in the front row. It is so cool.
Anyway we had a great PM of drinking Yazoo. Their Pale Ale rocks. You can really taste the Cascade hops in the beer. Yum.

G2G and sleep a bit.

Yowza for Yazoo - Sly Rye Porter

I only have 5 minutes, but I wanted to blog quickly about the Yazoo Rye Porter I had last night. It was the first time I have had that combo of rye and porter. It was great. I want to try it at home! Good job Yazoo. Alhtough I have never heard of it before I would recomend it to everyone.
SBG

Finz Sucks - Portsmouth Rocks

OK, so I have not blogged in a week. Sorry. Quick recap. I had a quite week until Friday. Friday I went to a place called Finz in Salem MA. Yuck. Bad service, bad food, and bad beer. The beer selection was quite lame, but worst of all they had a waitstaff that knew nothing about beer. Finz had on tap the Harpoon St. Patrick’s day special beer ( I believe it is called Celtic) and I was told by the waitress that it was like an IPA. It was a red! That is not even the worst part about it. When I traded my crappy holiday red in for the standard Harpoon IPA you could tell that they NEVER CLEAN THEIR LINES. Ug. I realize that I am a beer snob, but hey if you are reading this, it is the name of my blog.

Thankfully on Saturday we went to Portsmouth NH. We started off at The Portsmouth Brewery, which I am only so-so about, but they had this amazing Flemish red. It was a terrific beer. I don’t think I would wait hours in line for this one like many people do for the Kate the Great beer (noted on Beer Advocate to be one of the world’s top 5 beers), but definitely worth a trip. We had a few other types all decent.

Next it was off to Fat Belly’s for a nice Red Hook ESB & Long Hammer IPA. Since we were only a mere 5 miles from the brewery itself, the beer was wonderfully fresh.
Third stop of the night was over to an Italian restaurant, where the staff was fantastic. We had great beers (can’t recall which ones, but I do recall a good selection), great food, great scotches, and threw dollar bills on the ceiling. I would go back Rosa’s in a minute.
Last stop of the night was…. Well I can’t recall the name, but I can recall that we had more Red Hook.

So all in all it was a good weekend. This week I am gearing up to taste some southern beers as I am off to Nashville TN on Friday. Not sure what I am going to fine, but it will be fun to try.

What to do?

As a sales manager it is my duty (in this case pleasure) to take the sales representatives who come to the office out to dinner. The rep in town this week happens to be a beer experimentalist – meaning she is willing to try new beers. Although really a wine enthusiast she is happy to willing to taste beers I recommend. It is great. However she is also a foodie. So deciding where to take her this evening is not going to be easy. Do I take her somewhere to try new beers, to somewhere where we can get a good meal, or somewhere close to the office? The answer to this is IDK. I am working on it now. Originally I had thought about going to The Publik House in Brookline (but that is too far) next I was thinking heading to Allston to Sunset Bar & Grill (but a local rep said that that was too far), next I was thinking about going somewhere close to my house (as it is also close to work), but none of those seem right. IDK what to do. Suggestions anyone?

Stone Ruination - Blackberry Mead - Aged Beers

The other night I went out and had a Stone Ruination IPA & Stone Levitation Ale Contrary to the names they is not that scary. Like most Stone beers ( www.stonebrew.com) the flavors were strong but not obscene. I have found that aging Stone beers only improves the taste.
I realize that there are some people out there that do not believe in aging a beer, but let me tell you from personal experience that aging a beer can make it better.
About 3+ years ago my husband and I made a blackberry mead. It was fantastic after the normal gestation period (roughly 1 year), however year 2 and 3 have only made it so much better. The only complaint I have about that mead is that we are running out.

So my blog note for today. Aged beer can been great.