We head into our fourth and final region in round 1. This region highlights the region that The Beer Friends reside. We have done a lot of New York breweries here due to the abundant availability here in NYC. We also thought they matched up with some of the great California brews that we have done. Voting will end on Friday, Round 2 to start early next week.
Make sure you cast your vote in the East,Midwest, and West region. If you need some help deciding you can click on the links to each video for our “expert” opinion. If you’d like to tell us why one of these beers should win over the other you can tweet us @thebeerfriends, it won’t help that beer win any but we’ll enjoy it.
For those of “The Beer Friend Nation” that is in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, we wish you safety and health in the days ahead, hopefully our stupid little blog can provide a few laughs in the process.
Today we review a brewery affected by Sandy, Sixpoint Craft Ales. We’ve review everything we could get our hands on from Sixpoint, whether from Growlers, Cans or Live Blogs – and today we expand the can reviews with Brownstone, a true Brooklyn beer. Brownstone is a Brown Ale named for the famous Brownstone’s that line many Brooklyn streets. Sixpoint Craft Ale’s website calls it their “fortress” which I can only assume (and believe I heard somewhere) that this is their first brew… and if it is they knew what they were doing from the beginning.
To help and donate to relief efforts of Hurricane Sandy please visit the Red Cross website.
This weeks SPotW is part of the seasonal series from Sixpoint Craft Ales in Redhook, Brooklyn. It’s no secret that the Beer Friends love Sixpoint and love what they are doing with their cans. The art, the size (tallboys) and the quality is a great look in to a craft brewery growing and improving their brand daily. In honor of the recent Olympics – SPOILER ALERT: This is a Bavarian style wheat beer with Belgian roots – guess who’s gonna hate it? Sixpoint! Nanokegs! Sun God!
In the Beer Friends constant effort to drink everything Sixpoint produces – we occasionally video tape ourselves doing it. This week we tried the very sought after Resin, a Double IPA that was just announced as a year round brew from Sixpoint. Sixpoint has always been known for doing killer stuff on draft and last year they started selling their stuff in Nanokegs. This turned back the clock for the Beer Friends and every new can or design was like diving into a new pack of baseball cards. Be sure to check out our other Sixpoint reviews below the video. Sixpoint! Double/Imperial! #Nanokegs!
It takes a community to build a house but only one man to live blog a fantastic beer event. Or does it? The guys at the Gate have kept six kegs in the deepest dankest part of their basement and tonight this one Beer Friend is drinking his share.
Here’s the lineup, each one keg aged four years:
J.W. Lees Manchester Star
Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock
Hitachi no Nest Celebration Ale
Sprecher Bourbon Barrel Scotch
Abbaye Des Rocs Grand Cru
Allagash Curieux
Graham’s First – Sprecher Bourbon Barrel Scotch Ale
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!
Every year, like clockwork, right around this time a question comes up: What does one do the week after NYC Craft Beer Week? It’s a tough question. Craft Beer Week was incredible, as always, with the Beer Friends hitting up at least one event every day. What do we do now that there isn’t quite the dozen or so beer events to choose from every day? Well, we’re going to help you answer that question. There is life after NYC Craft Beer Week. Here it is:
Tuesday, September 27 – Fermented Craft Beer Crawl @ The East Village, Manhattan:
This has been a busy summer for the Beer Friends. We’ve been through an earthquake, two regional brewery tours (Southern California, Boston/Massachusetts), three of us relocated within the boroughs and finally, to top it all off, a hurricane-the first to hit New York in like 300 years (give or take a few decades). And none of it could stop us. This tumultuous summer has come to a close, we’ll miss the sun and relaxation – but we’re already gearing up for the fantastic craft beer season that autumn brings us. Let’s start off the fall correctly.
Tuesday, September 6 – Tuesday Night Tastings: Farmhouse Ales @ Bierkraft, Brooklyn:
We are officially approaching the dog days of August, but it seems like we’ve been there for a couple of weeks already. The rest of the world characterizes the “dog days” as those times in August where the days stretch on for endless hours and are filled with heat and humidity that requires 24/7 air conditioning. Well, after experiencing 2+ weeks of these oppressively hot/humid days and it only now has become the month of August, we are a bit tired of the weather. We’re going to need some help getting through whatever August has to throw at us. And we have the solution: Craft beer.
Actually there’s more than that in this week’s post. In fact, if you keep reading there is a surprise that will make you very, very hoppy, uh, I mean, happy that you did.
Tuesday, August 2nd – Smuttynose Tap Takeover @ Rattle n’ Hum, Manhattan:
No Smutty, No Beer. Know Smutty, Know Beer. They don’t need to say a word more, it’s literally as simple as that. New Hampshire’s premier brewery will be hitting up Rattle n’ Hum and owning their tap’s this Tuesday night. They have an (more…)
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