Octopus Overlords

Day 7:

Day 8:

Day 9:

We made cranberry margaritas tonight for a Christmas party tonight and they were a huge hit. Nothing special, just cranberry juice, tequila, some simple syrup and a bit of orange/lime juice. Made a HUGE pitcher and it was gone by the end of the night.

Seppe got me the 2022 Beer Advent Calendar from Costco as an early Christmas present a few weeks ago and we dug into it yesterday during a game day at my place.

24 imported German beers from small craft breweries makes for a great tasting event. So far every one that we’ve tried has been a hit. Two big thumbs up on this one. If you see it, grab it.

I was at my local bottle shop yesterday and thought I'd help them get rid of some beers I don't ever want to see again. So I had:

Keylime Pie, Around the Bend Beer Co. Too fucking sour, even for a sour.

Cinnamon Vixen, Around the Bend Beer Co. Pistachio flavor overpowering, cinnamon undetectable.

French Toast Bastard, Founder's Brewery. Taste like maple syrup with a head on it. Nearly put me into a diabetic coma.

Chocolate Babka pastry stout by Campanology Brewing. $4/bomber for a 10% ABV beer at Trader Joe's isn't bad. The beer...well, I bought it as an ingredient for my chili, but need to finish off the bottle. Very chocolaty, but not terribly sweet.

I had some Fistmas on tap yesterday at Anchor Bar. It was more flavorful than I recall from years of pounding cans.

I greatly enjoyed a peanut butter porter from Night Shift that made a brief appearance in stores. Been drinking a fair amount of porter lately, with the onset of cold winter nights. Collective Arts makes a good one called Stranger than Fiction that might be national.

Yeah, I think I've had that one. ANd you mean National as in Canada, right? Cause I'm not aware of them being available Stateside.

Beef Trip'd TIPA by Hop Butcher for the World, Chicago. Simcoe is one of my least favorite hops, the topical flavors come from grapefruit with a hint of papaya (which I find pungent). There's the undercurrent of dirt I find in almost all DDH or TDH beers (although this isn't characterized as such). 10.5% ABV is okay I suppose. It doesn't have the body I expect in a triple, but the flavor profile is such that it doesn't matter that much.

Rumpy wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 2:29 pm Yeah, I think I've had that one. ANd you mean National as in Canada, right? Cause I'm not aware of them being available Stateside.

I think they have national distribution in the US. I see their Ransack the Universe IPA throughout New England, at least.

I guess that would make sense. They are rather popular here. In fact, now that you mention it, I thought I remembered an announcement that they had partnered with an American brewery to make their beer more available. Do you get their numbered releases?

We've had a lot of Collective Arts beer available in CT for a few years now. A store near my house regularly has several CA beers available at any given time...Ransack the Universe, Mash Up the Jam, Life In the Clouds, and we do get most of the numbered IPA releases. I was keeping up with those for a while before I decided that I needed to cut back my beer consumption at home. They make some seriously good beer.

Yeah, they really do. I think my favourite is Ransack the Universe. But they keep changing things up, so they always have something interesting. Another great brewery, which I'm not sure if you get down there, is Flying Monkeys.

Those are a couple of NW classics.

Now part of the AB InBev collective.

Oi.

September 30, 2020

After announcing the acquisition in November 2019, it is now official that Anheuser-Busch (A-B) is the owner of Widmer Brothers Brewing and its parent company, Craft Brew Alliance (CBA).

April 13, 2016

AB’s Craft Beer Shopping Spree
...
Elysian Brewing Jan. 2015

LawBeefaroni wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 11:27 pm

I'll never forget the dude that yelled out Freebird! -- at a midnight movie showing of Pink Floyd In Pompeii. I always wondered what he was on.

Ive always liked Killians red but as I posted I had to get shiner bock last trip . Well I got killians again today cause I couldn't find shiner bock....and damn I think I like shiner bock more now. Figures as I think shiner is $2 more. Miss the days of a 6 pack being $4 and a case $8

Really enjoying this Christmas Sour, Seasick Crocodile.

Allegedly the smokiest in this three bottle series for Highland Park, though I'm probably not the best judge of subtle flavors. It's weird because I'm actually not picking up any smoke at all, but perhaps for people that don't drinking burning tires, they can better pick up on it. Slight sweetness and enjoyable overall. It's a NAS bottling, because that's how we do things now. I'd finished the Valknut bottling a few months ago and I think I might actually enjoy this one a bit more. I'd recommend either (quite frankly) if you're up for something new and like Highland Park.

Bottle numero dos ...and beef brisket

Btw, you have access to Lake of the Woods, am I right? It's another Canadian brewery that has expanded into the U.S. They have two breweries/Brewpubs in Canada, and one in Minnesota. They along with Collective Arts seem to be one of the few Canadian breweries making their way into the U.S. Usually, it's the other way around.

Looks like Channel Marker is available through Total Wine for shipping

You guys and your kiddy bright colored cans Id expect cans like that to have kool aid in them.