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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