Sometimes, I find myself doing a fair amount of tasting, and not nearly enough posting.
Time to get back to sharing.
This oughta be good
I am headed to Wolff's Bier Garten, which just opened this week in Albany, NY. It will be a short visit, because I have a girls' state basketball tournament game to cover, then I have to pick up my wife at the airport.
Albany's a little over an hour away.
This place has done a soft opening this week and has engendered a lot of buzz. This will be a scouting visit, but I know I will get back there.
"I'll have the lager?"
If you read the blog or know me, you know that my tastes tend to be at either end of the beer spectrum -- high-end, hoppy IPAs or Porters and Stouts. That's not to say I don't enjoy the tastes in between, but those are where I look first.
So imagine my disappointment when I went into Davidson Brothers, my home bar in Glens Falls, NY and saw that the Brewer's Choice was a lager, of all things.
But . . . I had to try it anyway, and it poured a fairly dark brown. It's a Danish Lager, and, honestly, it tastes like a slightly thin Brown Ale. I like it a lot more than I expected.
Beer for breakfast?
I know this is a fairly local-focused blog today, but I also want to recommend the Brewmasters Series from Long Trail Ale. It's an Imperial Coffee Stout, and the Little Miss Short Pours The Younger says it's made of "shiny and win." It's really full and has the right coffee taste. No bitterness.
On the national level
I will admit it. I first picked up Flying Dog for the Ralph Steadman drawings on the labels. It's now one of my favorite breweries.
For tasting high-end beers, I recommend the Canis Major packs. They have a four pack of 12-ounce bottles and a case of seven-ounce bottles -- an Imperial Porter, a Barleywine, a Double Pale Ale and a Tripel -- all with spiffy names and great label art.
The beers inside are excellent examples of their style, and I will review each one in the coming week.
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