This weekend is an epic marathon of beer events.  This afternoon I am heading to Chicago where my dad and I will be going to Dugan’s to see our favorite bartender Dorothy and will most likely enjoy some Schlitz.  With luck our Friend Bob will join us at some point this evening as well.  There is talk about making a stop at the Elmhurst Public House and maybe even Lunar Brewing.  Consider tonight to be the warm-up lap.

Tomorrow we head to the brewing Mecca of Milwaukee for the Riverwest Pub Crawl.  $10 nets you a T-shirt commemorating the event and the rest of the day is filled with over 15 bars with $1 draughts!  If I had to guess, we will probably cap the night off with a quick stop at The Bomb Shelter for some retro goodness.

The final leg of this odyssey is Sunday in Chilton, WI.  The 18th annual Chilton Microbrewers Beer Fest featuring over 30 Wisconsin breweries, most of which you haven’t heard of.  I have been to about 1/3 or so of the 17 past fests and they are legitimately about the best I have been to.  $25 for a 12oz commemorative mug and unlimited sampling of dozens of great beers.  Topped off by the largest grill I have ever seen constantly churning out beer brats and steak sandwiches for exceptionally reasonable prices. 

I brought up a question last week regarding the threat New Belgium’s relatively inexpensive bombers might pose to Brugge Brewings similar offerings.  Well this past weekend I did some blind taste testings to try and put some perspective on how the products actually stack up versus each other in terms of taste and price.  Specifically we tasted the Brugge White vs. New Belgium Mothership Wit and for fun threw in a bottle of Celis White on Friday night.  Saturday afternoon we tasted Brugge Black vs. New Belgium 1554 in a battle of the Belgian black ales.

I poured glasses of each of the wit beers in a side room and mentally marked which was which in my head before presenting them to my dad to sample.  After blind tasting each of the beers, he found the Mothership Wit to be the most enjoyable followed by the Celis White and lastly Brugge White.  Before revealing which was which, I posed a simple question to him.  Would he be willing to pay $7.99 for a large bottle of any of the beers he sampled?  Short answer… No.  He then repeated the blind pours for me to try.  After examining the beers by appearance alone, I felt confident that I could tell which was which without even tasting.  But this wasn’t about appearance only.  In the end, I was somewhat surprised to find the Brugge White to be in my mind far superior to the New Belgium Mothership Wit.  I think I would have gone so far to say that it was my favorite just barely over the Celis White, and then a distant third being the Mothership Wit.  But again, considering the price question, $7.99 just isn’t a real acceptable price for a bottle of wit beer.  For roughly the same price I can buy a six pack of Celis White which is very close in every discernible category.

Saturday we did the tastings with the Belgian Blacks.  We had my son’s birthday party starting soon so I made the executive decision to forego the blind aspect of the tastings and just poured glasses of each.  My dad again picked the New Belgium 1554 over the Brugge Brewing offering.  I on the other hand found the Brugge Black to be a definitive winner for my palate.  To me the aroma had the hints of Belgian funk present, just a touch of sour and sweet.  The 1554 smelled vaguely of chocolate and if I had not know what I was being handed, I think I would have said it was a light porter.  Flavor of the Brugge Black again exhibited the characteristics that you would expect from a Belgian style ale with a pleasant tart finish.  Going to the price question as to whether either was worthy of the price they are sold at, I felt the Brugge was worthy of it’s $7.99 price and the 1554 priced fairly as well.

So after all this, what was learned?  For me, I will stick with the Celis White for the price and drink the Brugge White while out and about around town.  The Mothership Wit is decent at $3.49, but I found it kind of bland and probably best as a lawnmower beer.  The black ales though were both worthy of their respective prices.  I don’t really think Brugge Brewing has too much to fear about losing the discerning drinking.  The problem comes when you can find the New Belgium easily at the grocery store at cheap prices. 

The summer blockbuster movie season is upon us officially.  Starting this past Friday with the opening on X-Men Origins: Wolverine and continuing this Friday with the opening of the Star Trek reboot film.  But this post isn’t about those franchises.  It’s about giant robots waging war across out planet.  Specifically Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen and Terminator: Salvation.  Both look incredible to me and will earn my hard earned money.  Check out trailers for both below:

And lest we forget another classic making a comeback this summer, I present the latest trailer for the live action G.I. Joe movie coming in August.  G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra

It’s going to be a fun summer at the movies I think. 

Two weeks ago Indiana was finally graced with offerings from New Belgium Brewing.  Specifically Fat Tire, Mothership Wit, and 1554.  New Belgium has a fairly rabid fanbase compared to other craft breweries and this was a very well hyped entry into the Indiana market.  The question is, what effect will this have on some of the other beers already available here?

More to the point, I find it interesting that 2/3’s of the New Belgium lineup available here has a direct competitor from Brugge Brewing.  Namely the Mothership Wit vs. Brugge White and 1554 vs. Brugge Black.  In recent times the idea to drink locally brewed beers has become a popular meme and catch phrase.  And Brugge beers are definitely brewed locally compared to New Belgium.  But here becomes the problem.  If the products are close enough in style and in quality, yet one is literally 1/2 the price of the other, who doesn’t reach for the cheaper alternative even if it isn’t the local flavor?

I haven’t tried a direct side by side comparison of these beers, but have had all four in recent enough time that I feel comfortable saying they are very close to each other.  I can buy a 22oz bomber of any of the New Belgium beers for $3.49 at the local Marsh grocery store.  The Brugge beers on the other hand run $6.99 to $7.99 at the liquor store.  There is the point to be made that the Brugge beers are in a slightly larger bottle (750mL, or a bit over 3oz more for those that don’t know their conversions), but in the grand scheme, you see the dilemma.   The New Belgium beers that we all wanted available in state could very easily eat away much of the market share that the bottled varieties of Brugge have built up.  Maybe the bottle sales are only a small percentage of what makes Brugge successful.  I certainly get the impression that the draught sales are more what the beer is aiming for, and I do see taps of Brugge beers at a number of watering holes.  Unfortunately for those of us who don’t get out bar hopping all that often, the bottles look like a bad deal when compared to New Belgium’s offerings.

I think it will be interesting to see how things are in about 6 months once the hype of New Belgium finally arriving has died down.

It is a sad thing to report the demise of one of Naptown’s finest beer stops.  Sadly, Saturday was supposedly the final day of business for The Hop Shop.  Anyone that was on their email list probably had an inkling that this was the case as the Inventory Reduction sale kept getting better and better.  So Friday night I made it in and loaded up on a ton of great beer, most of which I had never tried before, for a whopping 40% off.  Hopefully many of my readers made it in there as well to not only get a good deal, but to help Courtney move the remainder of his inventory. 

I personally considered the Hop Shop to be 1/3 of the Tri-force of beer in Indianapolis.  The other 2 in the coveted spots being Kahn’s and Parti-Pak.  This brings up an interesting question.  Does the closure of one of the finer boutique beer stores have any impact on the selection available in the area?  Many of the beers that were stocked at The Hop Shop were not really available except at maybe Parti-Pak and Kahn’s.  With one less outlet to move some of those products, do we face the potential that some of them stop coming to Indiana at all?  I would specifically be talking about some of the more obscure Belgian styles and other miscellaneous imports that you just don’t see at the plethora of liquor stores around town.  Hopefully this is not the case.

With all that said, I want to thank Courtney for running a great shop and for helping the cause of good beer around Naptown.  I wish you the best in whatever comes next my friend!

Finally available in Central Indiana and just in time to subvert the release of Flat Tire from New Belgium!  Should be in stores any day now and worthy of your hard earned greenbacks.  Quite possibly the best macro-style lager in the country now, and I say that with an eye on beers such as Yuengling Lager I may add.

*Hopefully someone got the Lebowski reference.  Lebowskifest is right around the corner after all.

Let's catch up shall we? This past weekend my dad came in to town to celebrate my birthday a bit early. So Friday we drank a couple Manhattans along with some Ballantine Ale. Threw in a few other odds and ends, such as Wabash Valley Gangster Pale Ale and some Southampton Double White Ale. But the real star was the bottle of Ballantine Burton Ale my dad purchased on Ebay.

For those that have never heard of it, Ballantine Burton Ale was a special beer brewed and then aged for years in oak casks before being bottled and then personally given to friends and associates of the Ballantine Brewery. So the bottle my dad bought was labeled as being brewed in 1946 and bottled in 1960 for a Mrs. Catherine Boggianio. You read that right.. we drank a beer brewed 63 years ago. How was it? Amazing sums it up nicely. Very very oaky, which I would guess 14 years sitting in an oak cask will do. And overall a fairly light bodied but dry finish. I will get a full post up on this later.

Saturday we went out on the town and started at the Broad Ripple Brewpub sampling their Pale Bock which was excellent. Moved on the Brugge Brasserie and had a Black and a Tripple de Ripple. Both fairly good but the stop was a disappointment.*  From there we went on to Chumley's where I had a Stone Arrogant Bastard and followed that up with a Boddington's (all on draught). Next stop, the Alley Cat for some can PBRs and the unexpected fortune of winning $200 for a pull-tab lotto ticket. So from there to celebrate, we crossed over to the Union Jack Pub and had some Johnny Walker Blue label at $17 a shot which was great to try, but to expensive to ever repeat. Had a beer there too but as one may guess, my memory at this point starts getting hazy. Left there and went to Connor's Pub for some more lagers, PBR if I remember. And finally wound up at the Red Key Tavern for a couple final PBR long necks. A long day of bar hopping and a bit of over doing it for sure, but fun nonetheless.

*Curious why Brugge never has anything other then the 3 beers they brew in Terre Haute available at the brewpub?  There was more selection BEFORE they owned a full scale brewery then after it seems.  Disappointing as the one-off brews were usually the ones that made me really want to walk in the door.

Spent a good chunk of my day talking about Manhattans with a co-worker and of course had to do something about it when I got home.  So a little pre-dinner cocktail has now turned into happy hourS with an Elijah Craig 12 year old Manhattan and a Bulleit Boutbon along with a couple well placed Ballantine Ales… in appropriate glassware which I just got this week from an eBay auction.  A good evening to be sure!

The Ballantine glass is really that effin awesome!

As I might have mentioned, I drank two Manhattans... and that got me to thinking:

Haven’t done a review in quite some time but that does not at all imply that I haven’t been sampling some great beers in that time.  Last night we ate at Rock Bottom at College Park and on the way home I ran in to Trader Joe’s to check out the beer selection I have heard about there.  Catching my eye was an entire line of beers bearing the Trader Joe’s name.  Apparently most of these beers are contract brewed by Gordon Biersch for Trader Joe’s.  Having a lineup that pretty much covered every conceivable style and a price of $5.59 for a six-pack, a reached for the Bavarian Hefeweizen.  The back label specifically talks about bubblegum, banana, and clove flavors imparted by the yeast indicating to me that this should be a true to style hefeweizen.

So tonight I am finally getting a chance to check it out.  Wondering will this be a hidden gem at an amazing price or just a dud that will be forgotten as soon as the last bottle gets finished off.  First impressions from the pour are promising as it comes out a bright hazy golden orange color with a stark white head.  So far so good.  I definitely can’t see through this just as I would expect from a true hefeweizen.  But does it pass the smell test?

A big whiff reveals some cloves and a hint of banana.  Not really much there that I would call ‘bubble gum’, but all in all a pretty close approximation of what I would call a true to style hefeweizen.  When it comes to wheat beers I can be somewhat of a snob dismissing almost completely out of hand the American Wheat category completely.  Why emulate a style if you are going to sanitize the best part out, namely the fruity esters produced by the yeast?  Anyway, back on track, the Trader Joe’s is so far hitting on all cylinders on a path to being a good hefeweizen.

The most important part of any beer is the taste.  And Trader Joe’s Bavarian Hefeweizen delivers in spades.  Full flavors that any fan of hefeweizen will instantly enjoy.  A soft banana flavor followed closely by muted clove spice that combines with a bit of a citrus twang on the tongue.  All enveloped within a pillowy soft mouthfeel and this beer is a total winner at the price.  If this is any indication how good the rest of the Trader Joe’s brand of beers is, I will be making very regular trips to there for beer instead of the local liquor store.

So does this compare to or even better some of the heavyweights brewed in Germany?  I would say the compete on the same playing field quite nicely but a in the end a Weihenstephaner or Hacker-Pschorr is going to be better.  The question then really boils down to whether or not those beers are $3 or more per six-pack better?  And for me personally, I can’t really say I would want to pay that extra for what is a fairly small improvement.  Trader Joe’s Bavarian Hefeweizen will be a staple of my summer, possibly replacing the annual brewing of a batch of hefeweizen for the season.  Totally recommend it!

How did I miss the news that a new brewing company was about to open in Indianapolis?  I noticed a blurb about it on IndianaBeer this evening and figured I would make a mention of it here as well.  Sounds like we may be seeing some beer flowing from Sun King Brewing as early as June.  The website mentions that they are setting up a 15bbl system.  Well I don’t have a great sense of how large that really is, but watching the video of them unloading the equipment, I am really excited to see how large a space they have and how big the setup appears to be.  Hurry up guys!  I’m getting thirsty!