I’m speechless. Not so much in an awe sense, but in a well…I dont know what to say.

I’ve always had a “sucks or awesome” relationship with Deschutes beers, and finally they have found one that is truly ordinary. In celebration of their 20th Anniversary, the Gramps and I popped open the Anniversary Wit to go with the “guys night out” Burgerville run. And it was … fine. Not awesome. Not Terrible. Just fine. I know, weird coming from me to not have an opinion, so I will instead do my best to describe it with one of the worlds most ubiquitous space wasters, the bulleted list.

4 ways to describe this beer:

• Ok I guess.
• Not as good as Mothership Wit (Damn you New Belgium)
• I hope its price goes down
• Have any Black Butte Porter? No.   Have any Buzzsaw Brown? No.   Blue Moon? I figured not.  … ok, I’ll guess Ill have the Wit then.

Ever had one of those beers where it feels like the flavor wraps around your teeth? Like its originating in your molars, wandering your bicuspids, then slowly slithering its way into that part of your pallete that makes you shudder. The kind where it’s a liquid, but you feel the urge to chew, and chew. HArd enough to kill whatever it was that was assaulting your mouth.

So goes Hibernation Ale by Great Divide. Someone in the brewery said, lets give it more flavor! And out came the funk dropper. The label says “Robust”. But what they really mean is “Really f*@$!ing Rubust”. Rubust like a sweaty sumo wrestler. And tasting the same too.

A couple of weekends ago, to celebrate my birthday I went on a brewery tour with some friends. We chartered a bus through sdbeerbus.com and they drove us to three different local breweries of our choosing. We chose Stone, Port/ Lost Abby, and Alesmith. We loaded up the bus at my friends house and made the 45 minute drive to Stone. To help pass the time, we brought along a keg of Ballast Point Calico Amber Ale. Their amber ale makes for a good way to start the day. Not too bitter, but with a full flavor.

This is the second time I’ve been to Stone’s brewery. I wrote about the brewery in my review of Stone’s Old Guardian Barley Wine. I tried a lot of the same beers this time. Pale ale, IPA, Arrogant Bastard, Smokey Porter. This time though, I liked them all a lot more. The hoppiness didn’t seem as over-powering. Also, The bartender made me a beer float for my birthday using vanilla ice cream and smokey porter. It was delicious. I might have to make that a birthday tradition.

Next up was Port Brewing/ Lost Abby. We tried Gift of the Magi, among other beers. It’s a seasonal beer flavored with Frankincense and Myrrh. It was good. Spicy and interesting, but good. We tried a few other beers while we were there and then moved on to Alesmith. We tried a couple of beers there, but I don’t really remember what they were called or much about how they tasted. I think that they were all really good. After three breweries, and a total of 12 five ounce tasters, plus a couple of pints on the bus, I was in no state to be making intelligent remarks on the taste of different beers. That’s the one problem with touring several breweries in one day. There is only so much beer you can taste in one day. I guess I’ll just have to do it again.

Fresh off my 2 week Salmonella rollercoaster, I’ve decided to post something again. I know, our 3 adoring readers have been waiting with baited breath. Wait no longer! For it’s Halloween time. And that can only mean the continued onslaught of that favorite FG pastime, drinking pumpkin beer.

This weeks entry comes from Elysian brewing. I had never heard of Elysian, but the local beer pusher pointed it out as I stared at The Wall, and said to me “It’s the best pumpkin beer ever made”. Really? Ok then. So I bought it, and hoping for something better than the sorry entry by Blue Moon, I chugged it down.

Sure enough, this one tasted pumpkin-y. A bit of nutmeg and coriander. All the hallmarks of the standard “pumpkin ale”. I’m not sure if I would call it “the best ever”, but it was drinkable and didn’t feel like a pumpkin to the face.

However, my impressions were immediately soiled when I read the label and discovered the following:

For those of you who can’t decipher my phone’s sucko camera, it says “Brewed for Elysian … by New Belgium Brewing”. Augh! New Belgium the brew harlot has struck again. Its like finding out that the Sierra Club has been funded by Chevron.

I can forgive Blue Moon for being distributed by Coors, but can I forgive this….

No.

null

I didn’t expect a whole lot from this beer initially, but I have to say I like it.   I spotted it on the shelf in the import area and noticed it had the same packaging style at the Guiness draft cans, decided that I had completed enough research into it as a beer selection (i.e. none), and grabbed it.  It’s sort of the beer equivalent of bar peanuts, being easy to drink along with a vague pub ambiance to it — pretty smooth, no overwhelming flavor, no complicated affectations to it.  I also like the Guinness-can-style carbonation (or is it nitrogenation? Someone explained it to me once, and I forgot), where the fizz comes from some mysterious mechanism in the bottom of the can when you crack it open, producing this tasty fine-grained foam that’s pretty close to a draught-poured Guinness. Boddington’s got precisely the same setup, down to even the height of the can. It makes you feel a little closer to a 300-year-old pub in Salisbury, than you normally would drinking Bud Light with the same carbonated feel as your kid’s Sprite. Oops, wait, this Bud Light I’m drinking is my kid’s Sprite! What they hey?  Where’s my beer?  Walt Junior, put that down now!

Whew — that was a close one. The little Liquors are only allowed to drink imports.  Here, try some of this Boddington’s in your sippy cup…  Anyway, back to these tall yellow quasi-Guinness-fizzers.  The taste is not spectacular, but is enough to stand on its own for good quaffing with some pub food (or your best homemade approximation, say for example bratwursts).  As with bar peanuts, you might not be instantly impressed with the flavor, but you’ll find yourself taking more sips, cracking open a new one, and before you know it, you’ve quaffed the whole four-pack.  Despite me setting up my beer selection criteria for this website to practically guarantee horrible beers, I’ve actually found a beer I’d drink again…

DAMN YOU SEASONAL BEERS!    Normally I don’t care for autumny seasonal ales, they tend to be a bit overly roasted for me.   But when the resident beer mistress (Wife) and I were beer shopping yesterday at Zupans, the Late Harvest Autumn Ale from Red Hook looked good, especially since it was only $6.99/6-pack.    This was the last one on the shelf, so either it had been cheap for a while or it was good.   I decided it was worth the risk and I didn’t feel like paying $8-$10 for a six pack of some other questionable offering.

Last night for dinner we made “Thai Coconut-Chili Clams” for dinner with some local bread we picked up at the Beaverton Farmer’s Market.   I was worried this beer was going to be one of those roasty, harsh, burnt tasting amber-y winter/cold weather beers, so I was sampling with some trepidation.   I was truly surprised with my first sip when it was only slightly roasty, yummily malty, and a tiny bit hoppy in a good way.    It went perfectly with the almost buttery, rich manilla clams.    This is just a good beer!

I couldn’t have been happier.   Even better is that I get to post more than one positive Frosty review in a row.  =)

I say “Damn you Seasonal Beers” because I know this stuff won’t be around long and I hate not being able to re-find stuff I enjoy swilling.    According to the info I could find online, it may already be out of production.   Sigh.   At least I’ve still got five more to swill before they’re all gone.

Cheers and swill on!