Firestone Walker Double Barrel Ale.

A bit lighter than a copper ale, low carb, low head though it foams easily with a little swirling. Smell is a little lager-y. Taste has a twinge of American macro mixed in with very mild hopping, mostly malt up front. I guess that's the English way of doing pales. I think it's pretty lame. I don't even find many American pale ales I like, and this is more disappointing than any of those. Even as an amber ale, I wouldn't have much to say about it. Firestone Walker, who won best mid-size at World Beer Cup 2010, colour me not impressed. (Did you see what I did there?)

Thirsty Bear and 21st Amendment.

I went to the Museum of Modern Art in SF for the afternoon. It was lame. Thirsty Bear is right next door and that was great. The food is tapas style and expensive so I didn't get anything since I was planning on eating at 21st Amendment anyway. In-house draft lift was nice, and I got a flight, though one was tapped out, which I forget. She ended up giving two of the same thing. Left column to right column, bottom up:

• Farmhouse: banana, malt, apple, full without the wheat.
• Howard St. IPA: more like a fizzy copper
• Meyer ESB: slightly sweet malt, hopped enough, smooth mouthfeel, nitro'd, good ESB with a butter nose. Tried to get a growler, but alas, it is nitro'd.
• Valencia Wheat: mild, slight citrus, plain
• Black Bear: Black lager, cascadian IPA sans hops, chocolate dirt, charcoal.
• Kozlov Stout: yeasty, ashy porter. creamy head, nitro-y but not body, coffee nose.
• Brown Bear: looks like a copper but tastes like a mild brown, no nut.
• Golden Vanilla: nondescript ale with a lot of vanilla which is overpowering everything else.

I really liked the Meyer but wasn't in a position to bring home a growler nor was it very feasible. They do keep seasonals and a cask so maybe later on. Dinner was at 21st Amendment. A market dish with a great cut of fish, halibut but I forgot, and some glazed vegetables and an asparagus potato mash. I had an oyster stout and the Hop Crisis. Both were good but relatively tame. No significant notes or impressions.

Widmer X-114 IPA.

The nice thing about having so many craft breweries in the region is that even chain groceries will have a decent selection. Widmer is available back home, but I never got into it as there wasn't much variety and I had other beers I wanted to try. Since I'm over here, I figured I should try it out. BA also says that this is retired, but I can find it in most stores.

Color is a lighter, more traditional toasted straw color for IPA. Palate is correspondingly fresh and lighter on the malts than a lot of IPAs I've been having. Nose is a thin, hard hop aroma. The hop taste is really good though. Initial impression is big and floral and juicy without being bitter, almost sweet, with a hint of apricot. A mild bitter comes in with the finish. A really nice sessionable beer that has a different showcase of hops than the typical IBU bombs.

Grand Teton Sweetgrass American Pale Ale.

Finally took a look at the beer section at the Whole Foods here. While not as impressive as the one in Chicago, the emphasis on regional beers is nice. I'll have to direct myself to get beers that don't have distribution back home. This beer won gold at 2009 GABF.

Pours a nice dark copper color, head is a thin and smooth cap with nice consistency. Smell immediately gives a nice floral, taste is floral, sweet, almost fruity. A very vibrant pale ale that smacks of an IPA soul. So is it bad at being a pale and not quite an IPA? It's a little less malty and hoppy than Dale's, a little more lager-y. Dale's is a great pale ale and definitely not an IPA. Grand Teton is a good pale ale. Unfiltered, 60 IBU, 15.0 Plato, 6%ABV.

Yebisu, All Malt.

Had dinner at a nearby ramen shop which was serving this, "All Malt". Mild head but no retention, malty lager. Boring but went ok with my meal. It's no Kirin, and that pretty much sums it up.

Full Sail IPA.

This is available back home but since I haven't had it yet and I didn't see anything new in the store I wanted to try, I picked it up. Poured very fizzy. Bitter without any of the resin-y goodness, no sweet, malt, grass, floral, nothing. In fact, it finishes pretty pilsner-y. Not a fan.

Addendum: I bought a 12-pack of Bear Republic Racer 5 the other day. I had a Full Sail followed by a Bear Republic. At that moment, that Racer was the best IPA I had ever had. Full Sail is that off. The one I'm having tonight tastes like soap. Still three more to go.

Soju Sampler.

Had dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Food was ok, but QPR was not great. They did have a nice selection of sake though, but I went for the soju sampler instead. Three pours, from left to right: sweet potato, barley, rice.

• Sweet potato is starchy, finishes with a hint of sweetness.
• Barley is the most like vodka, finishes like barley tea.
• Rice is like a super filtered sake-vodka, very little taste on the palate in the middle.

Would like to try some sakes, if I ever go back. I'll probably get better QPR on some sweet Chinese liquors at the Asian corner liquor store.

Yemen Moka.

First French press coffee at home. Bought this yesterday from a coffee shop down the street, goes for $15/#. I'm not able to pick up too many distinct flavors during, but it finishes with a dirty, earthy taste with some hints of chocolate to give it that resulting moniker. The chocolate is more noticeable in the nose. Body is medium and very smooth and clean. Finishes a little tannin-y. A great cup of coffee.

Apparently, I didn't take a picture. It looks like coffee. Thanks for stopping by.

Just kidding, I found it.

Russian River IPA.

Cracked into the growler I had brought back from a couple weeks ago (or was it just one?). Still fresh and finely carbed. Having had RR IPA, Blind Pig, and Pliny the Elder, I think they're all great. But man, they're nothing to obsess over. They're standard west coast American IPAs: super-hopped, super-bitter, strong nose. And that's great every once in a while, but I would not want to drink this all night and maybe not even with a dinner. These are to the point of being unbalanced.

Green Flash West Coast IPA.

Again, from the corner store. I am certain I have had this before, but I couldn't find it in my archives. Maybe I've only had it at a bar. Even crazier, I don't have any Green Flash posts, apparently. In any case, it is a classic west coast-style American IPA.

I can get a sharp hop aroma, even out of the bottle. Figures at 95 IBU. Taste and mouthfeel are both full, maybe a bit on the fluffier, airy side. Thick, consistent hop bitter from start to finish, with a long linger. A nice high-IBU beer.

New Belgium Ranger IPA.

Picked this up from the liquor store down the block. I haven't seen New Belgium in a long time so I had to pick up some when I saw it.

A good strong bitter, hard and tinny, but is persistent and becomes full and deep. Finish is consistently bitter and remains enjoyable throughout the bottle.

Bear Republic, Russian River, Lagunitas, Rogue Public

Took a bit of tour to start off my stay in California and spent a day going north and hitting up some classic CA breweries. The day started furthest north to make the drive back easier. First stop was the Bear Republic brewpub (main office in Cloverdale) in Healdsburg which is nice little town with lots of small shops. The brewpub had a decent looking menu but we kept it simple since it was still fairly early in the morning and were planning on getting real food at Russian River. BR conveniently offered flights of their entire tap lineup, both house and specialty:

The resulting spread was pretty impressive:


I only took notes (apparently very brief) on the beers that were new and interesting to me.

• Short Track: sweet caramel, cocoa bitter
• El Oso: fuller, ale-y (unreadable) lager
• Nor Cal: hoppy, amber froth without too much bitter
• Das Koma: hoppy wheat, double (?) lighter malty, fullness
• Apex: 100+ IBU fresh, crisp clean finish, not as bitter as expected but long finish
• Peter Brown: fruity, malty, rich, complex, muddy but smooth
• XP: decent for a pale ale

And down to Russian River for lunch where they had a variety of pizzas and such. Russian River was pretty noisy and crowded and full of curiously young folks. Apparently, it was some graduation weekend. The flight trays were pretty cool, and I would have liked to have filled it, but I focused on the most important beers.

RR is well-known for its IPAs so that's the lineup I went with along with whatever else caught my eye.

• Sanctification: 100% brett yeast, OG 1.059, sour, but refreshing.
• Perdition: malty roast bitter
• Blind Pig: OG 1.055, 72 IBU, mildest
• Russian River IPA: OG 1.062, 62 IBU, solid hop, got a growler
• Pliny the Elder: finally got to try this after hearing about the ranting and raving about it. Definitely the hoppiest. It's a tasty brew but overrated. Too much to deal with for a whole growler.

We barely made it onto the Lagunitas tour which had a pretty cool loft for VIPs. The tour was nothing particularly new but the attached brewpub was pretty crowded. On a nice day, it would have been a cool place to hangout with lots of outdoor tables. Alas, it was rainy and we ended up having to sit outside. They were having an oyster grill so that was pretty awesome. We got a couple of flights to check the draft list.

• Zephyr - New Zealand hops. I remember that Sierra Nevada also has a New Zealand hop harvest.
• Lucky 13: unusually unhoppy bitter
• Bourbon Barrel Aged: dirt, coffee, cappuccino
• Fusion 6: wort-y wheat

We rounded out the day with a stop at the Rogue Ales Public House in SF. The draft list was pretty good and managed to find a few to fill a flight. I also got an imperial IPA with my meal, a Kobe burger (pretty much all the beef used on their menu is Kobe).

• XS Imperial IPA: expectedly tasty
• Old Crustacean Barleywine: not really in season for me, but it was new to me. toasted malt, warmer, less sweet, hop bitter on finish.
• Morimoto Soba Ale: finally got to try this. I had read it was discontinued and never got around ot picking up a bottle at my local bottle shop. Tastes like soba, low carb. I guess it's interesting, if you've never eaten soba. Underwhelmed.
• Buckman Ginger: grassy but not in the hoppy way. Ginger was rather subdued.
• Chocolate Stout (cask): watery chocolate syrup, but in a good way.

I didn't pick up any swag this time around since I figured I'd be back during the summer anyway. No swag expect for the CASE of Double Mocha I got for $20 during their Garage Sale. Woop woop. I got the standard pint glass at Bear Republic. Russian River had sweet looking growlers so I had to get one of those. Lagunitas had mason jars for glasses which I can jive, and for only $2, it's an affordable, unique piece of swag. For just one day, it was a pretty good time and haul.

Flood.

Today is actually 6/28 but I'm backdating this to precede the batch of posts I have queued. Lately, I've been thinking of having a dedicated beer blog that has a little more rhyme and reason, one that I wouldn't feel silly or embarrassed about sharing. I don't know how much trouble it would be to migrate my old posts, but I'm guessing it would probably be a hassle. Backlinking is not desirable but a quick fix.

I've relocated for the summer and will have more of a slant on beer than food as a matter of circumstance. I've resolved to try all new beers this summer, from breweries that don't have (or have extremely limited) distribution back east. Also, Asian liquors.