that which is new and rare...

HELLLLLOOOOO!!!

It's been over two weeks since my last blog.  (Sorry!  I was in NYC!  I drank DFH World Wide Stout on draft.  And Bear Republic.  And Del Borgo.  And Coniston's Bluebird Bitter.  And Founders Breakfast Stout.  And...you get the picture.)  I'm here for a tossed salad of an update - I'm still playing catch-up so I only got the time to talk about what's new and fun in the store -

This is noble rot.

DFH gluten-free?!?!  YEAH!

Dogfish Head - Namaste is back, but more importantly, we have two new DFH offerings.  Tweason'Ale is DFH's highly anticipated gluten-free beer which is extremely limited.  Barley is replaced with a sorghum base and strawberry and buckwheat honey are added.  Noble Rot, what sounds like a new extreme in beers (and in DFH lore), is just under 50% fermentable sugars coming from grapes, 4,500 gallons of must...botrytis infected viognier-must goes into the hot wort and botrytis infected pinot gris is added after fermentation for aromatics.  French saison yeast will be used; pilsner malt; wheat malt...so without trying it, sounds like the flavor of the wine will be very pronounced.  Video online looks like a clear, crisp beer.  (FYI, noble rot is when wine grapes are infected by botrytis and picked at a very certain point to which the infection creates a concentrated wine.  Some are picked grape by grape!)  Very exciting!

Theoretical?  Yeah.  Delicious?  Quite so.

Mikkeller - they/he is back, ladies and gents.  It's been months since we've carried beers by Mr. Mikkeller Borg and I'm proud to have brought in some of his most interesting offerings, including Draft Bear - an imperial pilsner that's listed as "malt liquor", his Three Floyd collaboration "BooGoop," both Beer Geek and Beer Hop Breakfast, and last but not last, 1,000 IBU's which is very limited and extremely delicious.  1,000 (theoretical) IBU's lead to an extremely hazy and powerfully hoppy beer, but extremely drinkable at just over 9% ABV.

Anchorage - we are lucky to carry Gabe(owner/brewer/sole employee)'s beers and we finally have some more in, i.e. "Tide and Its Taker's."   A beer spiked with Brettanomyces and aged in French oak Chardonnay barrels which doesn't touch stainless steel until bottling.

What is an imperial cream ale?!?!?!

And why does he have four legs?!?!

Last but not least - Clown Shoes Chocolate Sombrero and Slumbrew's My Better Half.  A chocolate stout with ancho chile and an imperial cream ale.  (?!?!?!?!)     

OK, time for bed.  PEACE!

-Evan G.

tidbits

Hi everybody!

Happy 2012!!!  Hope you all had a happy and safe new year's eve.

I'm enjoying a Founders Imperial Stout and finally getting a moment in front of the computer.  I've been slow to blog these past few days because, as many of you have witnessed, we've been a little busy at the Beverage Warehouse!  The holiday shopping crush was really intense and really fun.  Lots of people coming in from far and wide to clean out our shelves for their holiday gifts and parties.  New Year's day came, then it was right back to work.  (No rest for the weary!)  We reorganized the ENTIRE beer room over the course of a few days - no small feat when you have literally hundreds of beers to move!  The goal was to make the room more navigable and accessible - American bombers all together, cider/cider bombers/gluten-free having it's own prominent section, craft 4,6,12 packs all together, etc.  As always, ask me or any employee if you have trouble finding anything.  And please leave comments with your thoughts and suggestions.

As for the rest, just some notes about recent arrivals -

Founders Imperial Stout is here!  This is absolutely hands-down one of the great imperial stouts out there. Unlike imperial Russian stouts, this is big, boozy, and BITTER.  90 IBUs, 10%+ abv.  This can be aged but is 100% delicious right now.  That said, you may be wondering when Breakfast Stout/KBS arrives?  The answer is, you'll know when I know and KBS is always released by Founders mid-March! :)  That said, Lady Lager (aka my wife) did bring me back a Breakfast Stout from a recent business trip in Philly, so ha ha ha;)

It's been a flood of Sixpoint lately.  We now have Crisp and Diesel, their pilsner and stout, and we're giddy for the forthcoming Resin, their 12 oz canned double IPA that sounds like a hop monster.  Stay tuned for details.

Old Rasputin XIV has arrived in extremely limited quantity.  I've got my bottle stashed in the man cave gettin' all aged and pretty.

Green Flash's Rayon Vert (Belgian pale ale) and Double Stout also arrived.  (Ignore that Double Stout says black ale on the four-pack.  It's a friggin' stout and it's delicious.)

The Alchemist/Stone collaboration More Brown than Black touched down on Friday and the masses came a'buyin!  I had many a pint thanks to El Jefe (aka Jeff) and the crew at the Farmhouse and it was love at first sight.  It was...well...a dark Heady Topper, and who wouldn't love that??  Still a few cases left for latecomers.

Many of our MIA German breweries have made their triumphant debuts or returns.  Franziskaner, Julius Echter, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Lammsbrau, and Bitburger to name a few.

Dogfish Head's Ta Henke is arriving soon.  Another in the ancient ales series, this one with a yeast strain that they captured in Egypt.  Weird?  Yeah.  It's Dogfish.  That's what they do.  We're psyched.

Ass Kisser's new Vanilla Pale Ale is now available in four-packs.

I had the pleasure of sampling Slumbrew's IPA, straight outta Summerville, MA.  The IPA was a bitter bomb and will definitely appeal to the VT hop junkie.  IPA and their porter will be available in 22oz bombers.  Coming mid-to-late January.

Clown Shoes Vampire Slayer and the limited White Birch beers should be coming this week.

And last but not least, expect Sierra Nevada's Ruthless Rye very soon and Hoptimum soon thereafter.  Cans of Pale Ale and Torpedo will touch down (hopefully) in March.  You know how much I love Celebration so I'm definitely looking forward to Ruthless Rye.

I'm slowly slipping into a food coma thanks to Farmhouse Tap and Grill's fantastic Sunday night $5 mussel and sausage plate and Hill Farmstead's new Society & Solitude double IPA.  Before I go, big shout out for this week's Trapp Lodge event on Wednesday night which will have many Trapp beers on draft including Funky Dunky which I'm dying to try.  And seriously, the Sunday night deals are the best.  For $10 you can get a hefty plate of mussels and sausage and an amazing draft beer like Trapp Helles Lager.

Sayonara!

Evan G.