in the meantime, i just returned from a two weeks venture through saint louis and kansas city sipping and tasting beers with some of my favorite beer connoisseurs. i thought i'd begin my exhaustive life-long list by jotting down all the beers i tasted on this trip.
NOTE: PLEASE REMEMBER!!! the following list does not indicate entire bottles or pints consumed. 75% of these are shared bottles or 2-3 ounce tasters given, purchased, or stolen off the head of a friend's glass. no, my liver is not as advanced as this list may sound.
this list is chronological, and each beer is rated with a 1-5 rating: 1 being horse-urine; 5 being Zeus' urine. also, i've highlighted in bold and italics all the 5 ratings. here we go.
SAINT LOUIS TASTINGS:
Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale (3)
Schlafly Oatmeal Stout (2)
Schlafly Pale Ale (3)
Schlafly APA (3)
Founder's Red's Rye (5)
Southern Tier Mokah (3)
Rogue Yellow Snow IPA (5)
Avery Maharja (3)
Lagunitas Cappucino Stout (2)
Caldera IPA (3)
Schlafly Winter ESB (2)
Tin Mill Lager (1)
Lagunita's Brown Shugga (-2)
Founder's Porter (5)
Xingu Black Beer (3)
Bell's Porter (4)
Boulevard Bully Porter (3)
Southern Tier Porter (2)
Southern Tier Cuvee 2 (1)
O'Dell IPA (5)
New Belgium Wild Fall Ale (4)
Founder's Breakfast Stout (5)
Founder's Centennial IPA (2)
Arcadia Hop Rocket (1)
Lemp St. Louis (2)
O'Fallon 5 Day IPA (4)
O'Fallon Chocolate Cherry (-3)
KANSAS CITY TASTINGS:
Boulevard Nutcracker (1)
Boulevard Pale Ale (4)
Boulevard Pilsner (4)
Boulevard Single Wide IPA (5)
St. Peter's Golden Ale (1)
Abita Christmas (1)
Anchor Christmas 2008 (3)
Anchor Christmas 2009 (5)
Bell's Best Brown (2)
Big Sky Trout Slayer (3)
Shipyard Prelude (3)
Harpoon Winter Warmer (4)
Stone Ruination IPA (5)
Avery Old Jubilation (3)
Breckinridge Lucky U IPA (3)
Avery Czar Imperial Stout (5)
Grand Teton Au Naturale Organic Blonde Ale (4)
Boulder Mojo IPA (5)
Boulder Hazed and Infused (4)
Big Sky IPA (4)
Lost Coast Downtown Brown (2)
Lost Coast Great White (4)
Great Divide Hades Belgian Style Ale (3)
Avery Out Of Bounds Stout (4.5)
Founder's Double Trouble Imperial IPA (4.5)
Bell's Rye Stout (5)
O'Malley's Dropkick Ale (3)
Sam Adams Imperial Stout (4.5)
DALLAS TASTINGS:
Jesse Robertson's New Year's Pale Ale (3)
Rogue Chocolate Stout (4)
Miller Lite (5)
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (3)
i realize that there are several beers rated at a 5, which brings my palate's discriminatory tastes into question. i have two defenses for this: A) with such a limited time on the road, i tried to choose my beers wisely; B) i was sipping beers with the likes of only prescription, the baker, clint newlan, jason scott, and nathan jones. these men know beer dang near biblically. so when they say "drink this" i drink that. and most of the time i agree with them on what is good.
to top off this list, i will revisit all the beers i rated as 5 to list my top three finds on this trip. in no particular order:
1. Founder's Porter
2. Founder's Breakfast Stout
3. Rogue Yellow Snow IPA
these were each new beers to me, and each of these three beers defined, in some capacity, what i believe the perfect porter, the perfect oatmeal stout, and a really great IPA should taste like. these are top shelf beers, in my opinion, and i wish they held constant place in my ice box. unfortunately, distribution laws deter me from Founder's, but i'm stoked to find and distribute this Rogue Yellow Snow all over my quaint texas town.
by the way, i sipped my last Bell's Rye Stout while writing this post.
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Giving Jesse's New Year's Ale a 3 ruins your credibility. That stuff is a 2 at best. But hey, that's at least 12 points higher than Shiner Commemorator.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that we didn't have the opportunity for you to taste my line up while in KC.
ReplyDeletei just added two beers to the bottom of the Kansas City list:
ReplyDeleteO'Malley's Dropkick Ale (3)
Sam Adams Imperial Stout (4.5)
somehow i forgot both of these beers when i made my notes.
also, i just found a bottle of Founder's Cerise Cherry Fermented Ale under the driver's seat of the X-Terra. a forgotten gift from sir jason scott. i'm sipping it now. review to follow.
jesse- your first brew was not bad, just thin. i'm giving it a three on the knowledge that it was an extract compound and your first of many ales. had you been at this for awhile, and had you been mixing your own concoctions, i would have given you a 2 at best. keep at it. one day, God might let you brew beer in the back of your mouth.
I sipped Mojo for the first time last Saturday at the baker's house...I gave it a 5 also...you have validated my opinion, since I was 4 IPAs in at that point. Glad you liked the Yellow Snow. We had a growler of it Saturday night, and it was not quite as good as the first two times I had it in a bomber. Hope it doesn't dissapoint you down the road.
ReplyDeletei'm impressed with how many different kinds you were able to taste. I'm glad you got to sample some of the founder's stuff...most of what they have is good, but i am annoyed at the 4 bottle thing. Who do they think they are?
ReplyDeleteMore to come, but everyone should look up Three Floyds website to see all the new brews that either just came out or are coming out soon. IF any of them are like Alpha King, i just might get some stock!
Alpha King always reminds me of the joke "Sofa King"...maybe that's why I like it so much.
ReplyDeleteSofa King great!
ReplyDelete