This week the Beer Friends found a little rare beer from Founders Brewing out of Michigan. Old Curmudgeon Better Half features the Old Curmudgeon (Old Ale) aged in whiskey barrels then aged in maple syrup barrels to create a very complex brew. This is a similar (if not the exact same) process the now in-famous Breakfast Stout -> Kentucky Breakfast Stout (whiskey barrel aged) -> Canadian Breakfast Stout (whiskey THEN maple barrels). Both of these beers are delicious and when ever a Beer Friend finds CBS he puts out the BF signal (mostly just a text) and we all come running. However, CBS is so last year… Old Curmudgeon’s Better Half is the new black and we are all in. Check out our other Founders Reviews below the video – enjoy (we did!) Rare Beer! Beer is the new Black! Founders!
This week’s six pack of the week (SPotW) comes from Warrensville, Illinois and (like most sports fans) feel the need to take some shots at the Chicago sports community – we apologize in advance. Warrensville has Two Brothers Brewing which has produced some fantastic stuff for 15 years and is following the latest craft beer trend and putting their stuff in cans. We’ve had some stuff from Two Brothers before and it didn’t hit it out of the park, but we’ve never met a beer we wouldn’t drink so we’ll try them again…
Today we revisit a favorite brewery on the Colorado Brewery Tour 2010 – Left Hand Brewing. Left Hand is moving across the US with the much anticipated (for this Beer Friend at least) Milk Stout Nitro, so in the meantime we figured we’d feature a special release as the SPotW to tide us over. Fade to Black is a great series in which Left Hand brews a dark beer with a different twist each year. Volume 1 was a Stout that poured of licorice and with a 8.5 ABV was nothing to mess with. Volume 2 was a Smoked Baltic Porter with 7.8 ABV and a decent smoky taste, and finally Volume 3, a Pepper Porter at 7.2 ABV. The ABV is a good thing because if the pepper taste doesn’t slow you down, maybe the higher ABV will. Spicy! Series beers! Metallica!
Over the hump… 101. Feels good. Idle Hands in Alphabet City NYC does some great events – one happened a few weeks ago was one to remember. Empire Brewing came in and swept 3/4 Beer Friends away (1/4 of the Beer Friends couldn’t make it – otherwise they would’ve been batting a thousand). Two staples you can find of Empire Brewing are their Cream Ale and the IPA, but we became resourceful and got our hands on a growler of Strong Ale. The beer is delicious, the events are great and we’ll buy you a pint if you spot us there! Beer Events! 101! Drink Local!
“I’d like to thank my friends and family, those that supported me in low times, thank you Gigi, my little girls watching at home and most of all the academy, thank you!” It needs a little work, but we had barely any time to work on it (or about 100 weeks…) We made it. 100 reviews. 100 videos of a “bunch of boring dudes drinking beer on camera.” This week we return to one of our favorite breweries – Sixpoint from Redhook, Brooklyn. The Beer Friends have always been huge fans of Sixpoint and it was like Christmas when we could get their stuff in cans. We quickly ran out and reviewed our favorites, our new favorites, newer beers to Sixpoint, old standby’s, and their first seasonal. Now this Black IPA/Stout mix - Diesel comes along and confuses some people on it’s exact style and admittingly the Beer Friends were confused as well – until we went to the source and sought out the truth. Thanks to all the viewers out there who caught us for the first 100, and keep watching for the second 100!
This video takes us back to our roots in a different way, when apparently we couldn’t frame a shot… Imagine that Graham is talking when you hear his voice (because you don’t see him often) and check out this review from Sierra Nevada. Sierra Nevada made the news this week by announcing a East Coast Brewery Site so we decided to toss up a review of their new seasonal, Ruthless Rye. Ruthless joins the recent rye brews (Founders, Sixpoint) but with a interesting twist – watch to find out! Be sure to check out our ever growing collection of Sierra Nevada reviews – Torpedo – Southern Harvest – Ken and Fritz 30th
Instead of a cheesy clip show, Beer Friends decided to go way back and show our roots. This is a shorter video because, besides the fact that we don’t really know what we’re doing – and we didn’t give number ratings (we didn’t even yell Beer Friends!). As we journey closer to Beer Review 100, take a look back at our 2009 review of Sam Adams Winter Lager. Check out Sam Adams Latitude 48, Coastal Wheat reviews as we moved on and got a little bit better.
Another blast from the past this week as we drink and review Harpoon‘s Winter Warmer. Look how young and green we look! This was taken in 2009 and – as the video shows… we didn’t really know what we were doing. As we creep closer to 100 Reviews we’ll take a look back at our modest beginnings.
Happy New Year! With the Holiday season upon us we’ve been reviewing holidayales, but schedules have also been switched up. This we we travel way back to the vault and post a review of Dogfish Head‘s Burton Baton. Dogfish Head has been known for big favors and their ancient series (which we very much enjoy), along with some interesting light beers and works well with others. That’s quite the resume. This week we travel back to last summer… and tried Burton Baton, a English style ale mixed with a Imperial IPA to equal a nice 10% ABV. In the meantime we’ve been making list of New Years resolutions: drink good beer, hit good events, check out The Beer Friends daily, and… well… what else do you need? Beer! Friends! Resolutions!
In the spirit of competition, Beer Friends would like to invite everyone to our NFL season hashtag battles! Using hashtagbattle.com we will pit two breweries against each other when their NFL counterparts are facing off on the gridiron. Are you ready for some football? And drinking? And #hashtag battle?!?!?!
What’s a hashtag battle? When you’re drinking a beer of a brewery competing in the battle (#bearrepublic) vs (#breckenridge), throw a #hashtag of the brewery and tweet it (or setup your foursquare or untappd to push to tweet and include the #hashtag) and we’ll use hashtagbattle.com to declare a winner after the Monday Night football game on ESPN. We’re starting on Saturday morning so drink up – support your team, support your beer, drink local and hashtag battle!
Week Seventeen: Oakland Raiders (#BearRepublic) vs Denver Broncos (#Breckenridge) (more…)
Corporate Kerouac
Phil
Brad
Graham
Paul
