new beers!

Today after work, I picked up a couple beers for an upcoming belgian beer tasting that I'm hosting, as well as a couple others for immediate consumption.

Up first, I tried the Bobtoberfest from Heater Allen. This beer was lighter than I would have expected, but very tasty. The bottle was a step up in design from their usual offerings as well, so I was pleased with the purchase from the collectability standpoint alone; the drinkability was a bonus.

After the Bobtoberfest, I cracked open a new beer from Rogue. The first in their Chateau Rogue series - Wet Hop Ale. This is a fantastic fresh hop beer made with first growth hops grown by rogue on their farm in independence. It was everything you could want in a fresh hop beer, very floral and grassy; bitter, but not overly so; well balanced on the malt side; a great addition to Oregon's ever expanding selection of fresh hop beers. The bottle is another beautifully serigraphed piece, and I like the "first growth" labeling, which is sure to make this a collectors item.

In addition to these great brews, I picked up another stone vertical epic 9-9-9, as well as the new stone collaboration beer, juxtaposition black pilsner, to enjoy over the next couple of days.

For the beer tasting, I grabbed a Fantome Saison, and an Oud Kriek.

vertical epic 9-9-9

Had my first stone vertical epic 9-9-9 last night. The description had me expecting a boldly unique beer, perhaps detrimentally so, but I think Stone really pulled this one off. The tangerine and vanilla didn't overpower the beer at all, and did a great job accenting the chocolate malts as promised. The only surprise here was how boozy it tasted, even at 8.9%. These will probably lose a little heat with time though, and these were released to be aged, so that's what you get. I paired this with a sweet banana upside-down cake, and the duo were perfect together. I'll buy more of this for sure, and would love to hold on to a couple to see how they change with age.