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Another new feature of the Beer Search Party in 2010 is the monthly beer suggestions. I will give you three beers to try. From lighter profile to darker. I will archive them on the “Join the Search Party” page
Here are January’s top picks…
Sean’s Select Selections January 2010
I haven’t had a Redhook beer in eons. Mostly because only LongHammer IPA makes it way this far south. But I will be on the look out for this seasonal offering.
Fall/Winter 2009 Limited Release: Treblehook Barley Wine
Treblehook is vigorously hopped and patiently aged with aromatic malt and spicy hop notes. Smooth and complex, this beer is carefully brewed by hand with sublte caramel, toffee and chocolate notes
Style: Barley Wine
ABV: 10.1%
Malts: Pale, Caramel, Special Aromatic, Flaked Barley, Black, Melenodin
Hops: Cascade, Palisades, Chinook, Simcoe
Bitterness Units: 52 IBU
Original Gravity: 22
Brewed Since: 2007
Shelf Life: 365 days
Awards: Gold Medal 2008 Great American Beer Festival, Silver Medal 2009 Great American Beer Festival
Cellaring: Can be cellared for up to 3 years
…is now ONE month away!
Hopefully, I will be able to join in on the festivities. Either way, I will let you know which events you had better attend.
Check out Beer America.TV for their round-up of the year that was 2009.
If you don’t already subscribe to their videos, you really should. They do a good job of keeping it short and sweet and to the point.
So, I knocked off two more states! I was at F.O. 2 in Culver City and I had Dogfish Head’s Chicory Stout followed by Sea Serpent from Ballast Point. Two similar beers whose dominant flavors really are strong. I recommend them both.
Also, you can create your own challenge with this pdf…50Beers 50States
..or follow my progress on this sheet.
bsp 50Beers 50States
I could not wait and had this Colorado beer before 2010 started. But here is the review….
Here is the first video review of the new year! But! It is not the first beer in the 50 States – 50 Beers in 2010 goal that I have set for myself. This was one of the many fabulous beers I enjoyed over the holidays.
1 beer down and 49 to go! The journey is underway. I received this bottle of Local # 2 about the same time as I got my 33 Beers rating book and I decided that each time I review a beer from a new state this year I would include a pdf of the rating and my notes.
This was a really nice beer but it didn’t blow my socks off. I was hoping for more orange and spices in it and to me it was a little thin. The alcohol catches up to you and I had a nice glow by the time the Rose Bowl was into the 4th quarter but it didn’t wow me like Local # 1 did. Now that may be because I had # 1 at the brewery in Brooklyn.
33 Beers! Not nearly enough. All joking aside this is a great tool for the beer geek in your life. It has a flavor wheel, sections to fill out for easy remembering and
it’s made with 100% recycled papers sourced in the Pacific Northwest. Interior pages are 100% post-consumer recycled content and covers are 85% post-consumer recycled content and 15% recycled content. The booklets are printed using US-grown soy-based inks in sunny Portland, Oregon.
This year, I will be embarking upon a typical blog conceit.
The timed challenge.
My challenge will probably not be made into a book or a movie with Meryl Streep. I will endeavor to review at least one new (to me) beer that was brewed in each of the 50 states in the union.
Just to the left, in the sidebar, will be a box score, so to speak, of how far I have traveled. I will also update which states I “got” that week. I will not be able to accomplish this on my own. Only so much beer flows into Southern California. I will need help from anyone out there in craft beer land to get me beer brewed in Wyoming or South Dakota or even Kentucky. You will get my eternal gratitude and a big thank you on one of the blog posts if you help me out.
Let’s get 2010 started!