Sandy...Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and...Worry More

Hi folks!

The winds have started to pick up so I figure I'd bang out a post before the lights go down.

Many of my friends and family are without power in NYC and the surrounding area.  The Facebook posts continue; flooding is everywhere; ConEd plant blew up...it's some scary stuff.

So, what to turn to?

BEER!

Tonight, I'm enjoying an old favorite - Hoppin' Frog's "B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher," an oatmeal imperial stout from Ohio.  Sadly, the Frog (as they're known at the warehouse) is not distributed in VT and this bottle was something of a gift, perfect for a night like tonight.

(For those who are Hoppin' Frog fans and want to see them in VT - please contact them directly and let them know!)

Got me thinking - what other big a$$ stouts are out there that I could quaff on a windy night like tonight?

How about...

Southern Tier Oat?  Much richer than the Frog, thick, rich, and licorice-y.

Alesmith Speedway Stout?  Buy two - one to drink and one to age.  A beast of a stout, hot as h-e-doublehockeystix, bitter hoppy and lots of coffee.

Stone Imperial Russian Stout?  (THAT'S RIGHT - WE STILL HAVE SOME!!!)  Just...the best.  Everything you want in a big stout.

North Coast Old Rasputin?  Sadly this has been unavailable from their distributor for weeks but when it's in, it's a must-get.  To me, the best year 'round imperial stout available.

Founders Imperial Stout?  2012 is coming out.  Meh.  We've got 2011 - aged a year to mellow out the alcohol and smooth out the rough edges.

Beer Here Kremlin Crude?  From Denmark, some serious smoke paired with roast and sweet flavors.

De Struise Black Albert?  13% ABV, 100 IBUs?!?!  Yeah...very rare, and now available at the Beverage Warehouse.

There's a few to mull about.  What are your favorite stouts????  Let us know on our Facebook page!

Cheers,
Evan

one beer wednesdays!!!

Hey everybody,

Hope everyone is enjoying the lovely fall weather!

Trying out a new series - One Beer Wednesdays!

...why One Beer Wednesdays?

Well, I closed the store on Wednesday nights so by the time I get home, only have time for...one beer!

And it's a fun way to spotlight something new with (hopefully) regularity!

Today's one beer is...

Fun note - the ABV on this label is for the cask version.  The bottle is 5%.

ADNAMS EXPLORER!

WHO? - Adnams Southwald, imported by the venerable Shelton Bros, is a brewery/distillery/hotel group based in Southwald on the eastern coast of England, about 2.5 hours northeast of London that brews a wide variety of beers with an international influence but squarely based in UK brewing tradition.  Fun factoid - Adnams has won multiple awards from their sustainable business practices! 

WHAT? - Explorer has been described as a blonde and a golden ale.  Personally, I think blondes have a bit more oomph and I'd place Explorer in this category.  Explorer is the result of the travels of the head brewer Fergus Fitzgerald in the United States and the US influence here are the two primary hops, Chinook and Columbus, but the beer still uses Pale and Cara malt for balance. 

YUM? - Yes!  As some of you may know, I'm quite the fan of the English beer and in Explorer, I may have found the perfect balance of English malt and American hop.  The nose is both sweet bready malt and spicy pungent hop flavor with a touch of bitter green herb and pith.  The taste mimics the nose, only more hop forward.  Bitter hop flavor and pith are balanced by a subtle malt sweetness. 

OVERALL - I couldn't be more pleased with this beer.  It retains its English identity while at the same time incorporating new world brewing techniques. 

So, make sure to stop by the Beverage Warehouse to pick up some Adnams Explorer and while you're at it, try their Bitter and Broadside!

Cheers!
e

the pumpkin post

what's up?  i'm a pumpkin.  i'm delicious.

Hidey hoooooooooo!!!!

It's been a while...

weeks...

months...

...my wife and I moved to a new house!

say hi to Milo!

...and we adopted a wonderful puppy!

And things at the warehouse are busy busy busy!  We've had some great tastings these past couple of months - most recently Lagunitas and Stone Brewing.  Coming soon - Sixpoint, rolling out their forthcoming Autumnation, a wet-hopped pumpkin/harvest beer in their fantastic 16oz cans, and Sierra Nevada!

Needless to say, I'm happy to finally sit down and have a chance to pick up where we left off:)

I don't know about you, but my favorite season is fall.  I love a crisp fall morning where the air is damp and the lawn is covered in orange leaves.  And I love...pumpkin beers!

Pumpkin beer - those who hate them, well, I never begrudge anyone's preference...but...what is fall without a pumpkin beer?  What's a better way to finish a fall evening than a hearty pumpkin ale?  So, to those who hate pumpkin beers, SORRY, and hopefully my future wet-hopped beer post will appeal!

First, the elephant in the room.  As many of you noticed, our shelves began filling up with pumpkin beers in the late summer going back to early August and, if memory serves me correctly, late July.  The FAQ - why?  Why are breweries releasing pumpkin beers when we haven't even finished with summer releases? 

why you wanna hate on me yo?

It's not a simple answer.  Just like brewing is not as simple as, "Hey, wanna make a pumpkin beer?"  Much has to do with you, the customer.  In a perfect world, a brewery would release a seasonal beer at the beginning of a season.  And customers would buy that beer down to the last bottle.  In reality, there is a very short selling window for pumpkin beers, and with so many breweries making pumpkin beers, the best way to ensure that their year's supply is sold through is to release it early.  Think about it - better to release it early and sell out before the end of the season than release it at the beginning of the season and have some leftover come time for winter releases, right?  Another question is - where do the breweries get their pumpkin if they're releasing in August?  Some of you may have seen a recent Twitter post by Sixpoint calling out early release pumpkin beers and questioning the sourcing of the pumpkin.  While I admire Sixpoint's dedication to freshness, breweries use everything from flash frozen pumpkins to squash (grown year round) to canned pumpkin, all of which IMHO are more than acceptable.  I greatly admire any brewery that can release a beer using that year's pumpkin harvest as it would be quite an undertaking.

So, in short, pumpkin beer will continue to be released early every year as more breweries vie for space in the consumer's fridge.  If you love a pumpkin beer and want to have it through the pumpkin season, order a case, lest it be gone the next time you stop into the warehouse:)

Here's a round up of some of the great pumpkin beers we have in the store -

Shipyard Pumpkinhead - without a doubt, the most popular of all the pumpkin beers, and newly canned!  Brewed since 2002, Pumpkinhead uses wheat malt and spices to make a very easy drinking beer.

Harpoon UFO Pumpkin - the most recent addition to the Harpoon's unfiltered series, this is a little sweet, a little earthy, and very smooth.

Wolaver's Pumpkin - another easy drinking pumpkin beer, mildly spiced with a beautiful hazy orange color from our friends at Otter Creek.  I believe they use local VT pumpkins but don't quote me on that.

Rock Art Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout - a pumpkin beer where the meat of the pumpkin is used for texture.  This is a bold and chewy stout where the predominant flavor is the piney herbal taste of local spruce.  A delicious example of a pumpkin beer that doesn't aim for pumpkin pie spice.

Dogfish Punkin - continues to be my go-to pumpkin beer.  Thick and rich with a gorgeous mixture of brown sugar and molasses and spice.  I've had many pumpkin beers but I'll always come back to Punkin.

Southern Tier Pumking - no pumpkin conversation is complete without Pumking.  A boozy punch of vanilla, caramel, and a subtle hop note at the end.  The benchmark of outrageous pumpkin beers.

Long Trail Pumpkin/Imperial Pumpkin - I'll confess to not yet trying LT's Pumpkin but I've thoroughly enjoyed their Imperial Pumpkin, the latest in the always excellent Brewmaster's Series.  Like Rock Art, this is more textural but with a bit more pumpkin spice, and deceptively drinkable despite an 8% abv.

Smuttynose Pumpkin - what separates Smutty's pumpkin is a more aggressive hopping which makes this excellent release punchier than the rest.

Sam Adams Fat Jack - released for the first time last year and now folded into the "Small Batch" 22oz series, Fat Jack is part Punkin, part Pumking.  Boozy and rich.

Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela (currently sold out but more coming soon) - kind of necessary to have a pumpkin beer when your brewery is called Jolly Pumpkin!  Subtle pumpkin, cacao, and spices mix with a slight tinge of sourness from JPAA's wild yeast and secondary oak fermentation.




These are only a few of the pumpkin beers that we currently carry.   Hopefully I'm not missing too many others.  Wachusett Imperial Pumpkin, Southhampton Pumpkin, Woodchuck Pumpkin Cider, Blue Point...probably a few I'm blanking on!

So there you have it.  Go out and try a pumpkin beer while you can and hopefully you'll find one you love!

Warmest,
e 

the session begins...

Hi all,

Today was a gorgeous, sunshine filled, 60 degree day and that means SPRING is just around the corner.  (Yes, I know it was a sad winter but seriously, spring will [hopefully] be awesome.)  And with spring around the corner comes lighter beers and easier drinking, i.e. session beers!

What's a session beer, you ask?  Jeff Baker aka El Jefe answers it with aplomb in his "Hops & Barley" column in the Burlington Free Press here:

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120217/COLUMNISTS10/120216030/Hops-Barley-Seeking-middle-ground-crafts-alcohol-content-

In a nutshell, a session beer is as advertised - beers that are low enough in alcohol that you can have multiple of in one session and not get schnokered.  I'm a big session guy and I like to function the next day.  So, to that end, thought I'd crank through three classics at the tail end of this beautiful day:

You're Not Worthy!

Stone Levitation - we all know Stone for their aggressive beers but Levitation is up there in the pantheon of their many excellent offerings.  At 4.4% abv, it's a true and proper session beer for a hop junky - low in alcohol, good bitterness and a slightly sweet malt bill befitting of an amber.

That hop cone looks like Audrey II.

*BRIEF NOTE - really, a session beer should be below 4%, but in this day of the DIPA, keeping it at 6% or below is good enough for me. 

Victory Headwaters Pale Ale - super light and floral, this has a clean bite, an easy breadiness owing to the German malts, and at 5.1% abv is both easy drinking and won't get ya wasted. 

Dogfish 60 Minutes - of the three DFH IPA's, 60 Min is the most citrusy and the one with the least punch at 6 % abv and my favorite. 

That fish sure loves hops.

All three are available year 'round at the Beverage Warehouse!

Until next time, be on the look out for more Sierra Hoptimum 4-packs, Dogfish 75 Minute 750ml and Saison du Buff 4-packs, and Stone/Bear Republic/Fat Head TBA (Texas Brown Ale)!  And please check out our new arrivals from our former rulers to the east, England - we have Old Speckled Hen's old ale "Old Crafty Hen," Fischer, Ruddles, Wexford and Abbot Ale pub cans, and Tetley's! 

-Evan G.