... and a Hoppy New Beer!

To my readers: sorry about the lapse in posts.  I was on holiday back in California, and didn't have much time to review, although I did try a massive amount of new beer.  The highlights:
1. Made a trip to the Bruery in Placentia with Matt.  The amount of national attention that place receives is well-deserved; their beer exhibits a style of craftsmanship that is nearly unparalleled up here in BC.  They brew mostly Belgians, with their most famous being Black Tuesday Imperial Stout, which is currently ranked somewhere in the top 10 on www.beeradvocate.com .  I tried a number of beers, and had a damn good time doing it.  My favorites were:
    -Hottenroth Berliner Weisse: Tart, citrusy, and low on alcohol (3.1%), this beer is a good introduction to real sour beer (it's brewed with lactobacillus, a strain of bacteria, and brettanomyces, a wild yeast).  In fact, it was my introduction; the first sip was abrasive, but it finished out smooth.
    -Rugbrod: dark and spicy rye beer.  Nice bready flavour, very hearty, and probably the most drinkable beer I tried.
    -White Oak: One of the best Belgians I've ever tried.  A mixture of half barleywine and half Belgian Golden Strong, it exhibited beautiful toasty coconut, toffee, and vanilla flavours.  I picked up a champagne bottle of this to take home at about $15.  Well worth your money.

I also made a trip with my parents to Bootleggers, their new favorite brewery/tasting room.  Much like The Bruery, it sits in a nondescript industrial park in what seems to be the wrong side of town (or as wrong as you can get for Orange County).  Bootleggers is a two-room operation, supposedly put together by a few friends as a weekend gig.  The great thing about it is the cost of tasting their beer: free.  That's right, you can go to Bootlegger's and get fairly drunk of small tasters of their beer (just make sure to buy something, don't be a douchebag).  Their beers show a huge amount of ambition, but a lack of development and technical skill.  A few of the beers showed promise, like their locally-famous Golden Chaos Belgian strong.  I also enjoyed the dark nut brown, which had an incredible alcohol content (so incredible, in fact, that I can't quite remember what it was).  Some of their brew, however, may have overstepped the boundaries a bit, like their Black Phoenix chipotle coffee stout.  I drank the whole 4oz taster, but could not have stomached that much spice in a larger glass.  Make sure you save that one until last, and don't feel bad about not finishing the glass.

Probably my favorite beer from this vacation was Consecration Ale from Russian River Brewing Co.  A brown sour ale with 4 types of wild yeast and bacteria, the complex flavours and mellowness of this ale made me consider picking up a few bottles, until I balked at the $20 price tag.  Sour with a hint of black currants on the front end, but with an oaky tobacco flavour on the back.  They also make a number of other sour ales, so I'll probably do a review of one of those in the future.  Thanks to Evan for sharing the bottle.

And, on a final note, I'd like to share my current excitement about homebrewing.  My brother and his girlfriend bought me a Mr. Beer homebrewing kit for Christmas.  While I love the kit (i'm currently fermenting a ginger Pale Ale), I'm already thinking about buying a full 5-gallon kit.  The local grocery sells a pretty nice one for just $50, and considering that I saved about $250 on books this semester, I think I deserve to give myself a present.

Also, Matt, Evan and Fred have started homebrewing themselves.  I brought a bottle of Fred's Spearmint Pale back to Vancouver to condition, and I'll probably be drinking it in about a month.  Don't worry, Fred, I won't review it here.

Here's to a Merry Christmas and a Hoppy New Beer.