Fancy Beer Night Round 1

I'm just going to start off by saying that Saturday was a great day for beer all around.  In Buffalo, Flying Bison hosted their annual chili cook-off and raised over $1,100 for Cornerstone Manor, a women and children shelter in Buffalo.  They had a lot of their beers to sample such as Blizzard Bock, their Barley wine, and an oatmeal pale ale, all of which were quite delicious.  They even had 6 packs of the 2009 vintage of barley wine for only $22, which I made sure I grabbed myself one.





Down in Austin, TX, Jester King Craft Brewery had their grand opening.  (Jay did a whole blog post about it that you can check out here.)  Then on top of all of that, a few of us got together and had a fancy beer night, where only beers over $10 a bottle were allowed.  (I did sneak in a couple of my homebrews.)



We didn't quite plan it, but it seemed like the featured brewery of the night was Ommegang.  We sampled the Witte, Biere de Mars, Adoration, and Chocolate Indulgence.  I would have to say that my favorite from this section was Biere de Mars, and not only because of the magical space dust.  It was extremely well balanced and the typical farmhouse/biere de mars tartness, and since I am in the middle of reading Farmhouse Ales right now, I was even more drawn to this beer.  There is not too much else I can say, other than go out and try it.

The next prominently featured brewery was Ithaca.  From them, we sampled two from their Excelsior line, White Gold and Le Bleu.  My favorite of the two here had to have been Le Bleu.  It was quite an interesting blueberry lambic which from the tartness of the blueberries and the bacteria made it taste as everyone said "a sour patch kid."  It definitely was not something that I would be able to drink a whole bottle myself, but one that would be best shared with a few other friends as we did that night.

We sampled at least ten beers that night and it probably wasn't the best idea since we had a general idea of an order to taste them in, but after a while, your taste buds would get tired all of the flavors started blending in.  One of those beers that blended in for me was Lucifer from the Belgian brewery Het Anker.  It followed Biere de Mars that night so it did not get a fair judgement from myself because of the lingering flavors, however I had the foresight to cap it off with a champagne saver that came with our Rabbit corkscrew set and tasted it last night.  It was delicious and was extremely characteristic of a Belgian Saison, light in color with excellent head, and slightly spicy, fruity and tarty.  I can only aim to achieve something like this when I attempt to brew by first Saison this summer.



On Deck: Sarsaparilla Ale (2/6)
Primary: Irish Red Ale
Secondary: Beef on Weck Ale
Carbonating: American Pale Ale
Drinking: Rye-rish Red Ale