At the store I work at, we have at least one customer who flat-out refuses to drink beer produced by the Stone Brewing company, simply because of the pretension. I mean really, they brew a beer named Arrogant Bastard, and don’t even put the name of the brewery on the label - at least not for the current 22oz bottles.

Even if they are pretty damn pretentious about it, Stone has good reason to be proud of their beers.

Case in point: Vertical Epic.

Its easy for breweries to push the limits of extreme beer; more malts, more hops, more more more. But finding where you can be extreme and keep the flavors not only drinkable but highly enjoyable - that’s the real challenge. Oh, and if you can do something really new and interesting with it… maybe you have a reason to be a little stuck-up about it.

Number seven in an eleven-beer series, Vertical Epic ‘08 is possibly one of the most interesting beers I’ve had in a while. Apparently inspired by a Belgian brewer, Vertical Epic is a Belgian-type triple that’s hopped to IPA levels with American hops. Its sounds kind of odd, but intriguing, and I heard nothing but good things from some co-workers about it.

Tonight I sat out on the roof outside my bedroom window in my new house, and cracked open a bottle.
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I’ve alwas been a huge fan of LEGOs, but the extent and skill of some of the custom builders out there constantly blows me away. With all the movie/comic tie-in’s that LEGO has been doing lately, both in their video games and product line it wouldn’t surprise me if they did a series of Watchmen LEGO sets, but Chris Doyle beat them to the punch. He went and created a LEGO version of Archimedes, Nite Owl’s ship from Watchmen, and it’s amazing. The exterior is right on, but more impressive are the details on the interior. You can check it out here:

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/lego/owlship/index.html

So I’ve been hearing good things through the Oade’s grapevine about this one.

Blondes are not usually my type (in more ways than one), but I’m really glad I gave this a shot.

First thing I noticed was the color. Its clear, light, and almost hazeless. Not what I usually expect from a microbrew. There is a really interesting malt aroma that could be called citrusy.

Very little hop bitterness to it. I really like the malt aftertaste that in leaves in my mouth.

For under $2, I can’t complain about this. A nice, light summery beer. I’ll buy it again. Not stunning, but you could drink it all day.

6/10

So like I mentioned yesterday, on a friend’s recommendation I picked up some beer from Abita Brewing yesterday.

Tonight I’m trying the Turbodog.

To start off, it poured way darker than I initially expected, but with a description on the bottle like this one, I probably shouldn’t be too surprised.

“Abita’s Turbodog is a dark brown ale brewed with a combination of pale, crystal and chocolate malts, dry-hopped with the finest Willamette hops, and fermented using a unique German ale yeast.”

The go on to mention toffee, and chocolate again.
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So I had a goal today - to make a mixed six pack from the liquor store with nothing but beers that were $1.89 or less. Not too hard, but seeing as a lot of what I like is over $3 for a 12oz bottle, or only comes in big bombers for like, $5+, it was a fun little challenge to find decent stuff for those kinds of prices.

I grabbed to bottles of beer from Abita Brewing first, since a friend mentioned them recently. She’d had them on her honeymoon in New Orleans, and was trying to find some in the area. Yup, only one liquor store carries it.

Anyhow, the next thing I grabbed was the Lift Bridge Brown Ale from Keweenaw Brewing. They’ve had them in stock for a little bit now, and its kind of odd to see craft brews in a can.
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