If you’re not one of the lucky lads or lasses who will be in attendance for the country’s biggest and baddest beer fests, aka Great American Beer Fest (aka GABF), fret not. The 29th installation of the GABF September 16-18 might offer over 2,200 beers to try which is more than you’ll likely find at any other single festival, but after all, who can drink 2,200 beers in three days (We’re imagining a few friends contemplating it).

This month, do what so many people around the country are doing, take a staycation. Yes, it’s that catch word you’ve likely heard promoted from advocates of living local, but it certainly is good for the economy, and in these rougher economic times, it might be just what you need to enjoy the fruits of the Pacific Northwest, in our humble opinion, one of the greatest places to live on the planet.

Here’s a look at some events coming up in September that you might consider attending if you love Oregon craft beer Read More…

Posted under Beer & Music, Oregon beer, beer and food, beer to do list, brewpubs, places to drink beer

From Ben Flerchinger, brewer at the Lucky Lab:

“Join us Thursday to pick hops off the vine for our annual fresh hop brew, The Mutt. Bring your backyard hops or come pick with your new friends and their hops. Festivities start at three and continue until the hops are picked and ready for the next days brew. BBQ and brews will be served to help fuel the picking.”

Posted under Oregon beer, beer awards, brewpubs, events, places to drink beer

Here’s a look at some events happening around Beervana on Tuesday July 20, 2010 that you might consider. That is, if you have it in you…

Cascade Meet the Brewer – Join imagineer and brewmaster Ron Gansberg, Curtis Bain, and Cascade Brewing‘s talented staff to experience first hand a bit of sour magic as well as some hoppiness. The BeerMongers, in a series of meet the brewers going on this month will be tapping a keg of Cascades Summer Gose, a light, mildly tart beer perfect for summer and accented with a bit of salt and coriander spice. We’ve tried it and think it’s the best rendition of this year they’ve made yet. Also pouring will be Cascade’s generously hopped Summer Solstice IPA brewed especially for Oregon Craft Beer Month and the great summer weather. 5-8PM.

The BeerMongers is located at 1125 SE Division Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 234-6012.

Over the Edge – Belmont Station kicks off their week-long alternative to the Oregon Brewers Fest…or, as we like to think of it, a supplement. “Over the Edge” is a celebration of Oregon breweries that will not be in attendance at the OBF (Strange, that there are any not attending). It is recommended that you follow the bier cafe’s Twitter to get up to the minute tappings like Bend Brewing’s Eclipse Black IPA, Calapooia Devil’s Hole, Hop Valley Alphadelic IPA, Gilgamesh Chocolate Mint Stout, Boneyard Bone-a-Fide Pale, and Barley Brown’s cask conditioned WFO IPA. Special brewer tastings will be going on throughout the week and weekend. Find out more at www.belmont-station.com. Event kicks off at 3PM.

Belmont Station is located at 4500 SE Stark Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 232-8538.

Alameda Open House – Visit the Alameda Brewhouse and brewer Carston Haney for some special vintage samples from the brewery’s cellars, as well as cask pours of house favorites. Alameda will also be offering brewery tours throughout the day. Check ‘em out 4-8PM.

Alameda Brewhouse is located at 4765 NE Fremont Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 460-9025.

Lucky Lab Meet the Brewer – Stop by Lucky Labrador Beer Hall‘s Northwest Quimby location and meet brewers Ben Flerchinger and Casey Lyons and see why this brewpub is one of Portland’s most beloved. The brewers will be tapping special beers made especially for Oregon Craft Beer Month and will have some house favorites like Super Dog and Triple Threat IPA in house as well. Don’ t miss out on this opportunity! 4-9PM.

Lucky Lab‘s Quimby pub is located at 1945 NW Quimby Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 517-4352.

MacTarnahan’s Firkin Tapping – The brew team at MacTarnahan’s lead by head brewer Vasilios Gletsos celebrate Oregon Craft Beer Month with this month’s second tapping of a special dry-hopped Mac’s Amber from a cask barrel served to you right at the pub at Mac’s Taproom. If you haven’t experienced this rendition of the perennial gold medaling brew, now’s your chance. Bungs fly at 5pm.

MacTarnahan’s Taproom is located at 2730 NW 31st Avenue in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 228-5269.

Fred Eckhardt’s 19th Annual Beer & Cheese Tasting – Fred Eckhardt, author of “The Essentials of Beer Style,” says that the combination of wine and cheese leads to a “train wreck in the mouth.” Once again,Mr. Eckhardt will make his case that beer is the superior pairing with cheese at the 19th Annual Beer & Cheese tasting event at the Rogue Public House and Distillery in Portland’s Pearl District. During the event, Eckhardt will lead participants through a decadent multi-course tasting featuring predominantly Oregon hand-crafted beers and cheeses. Starts at 6PM.

Rogue Public House and Distillery is located at 1339 NW Flanders Street in Portland, Oregon. For more information, call (503) 222-5910.

Posted under Oregon beer, beer events, brewpubs, places to drink beer

In case you missed it (and your liver might thank you if you had), Lucky Lab’s Barleywine and Big Beer Fest this year was a huge success. Everything you’d expect from a beer festival, the selection was exceptional, the atmosphere was welcoming, and the crowds were not overwhelming.

The event kicked off for the 13th annual installment on Friday March 5 at noon and lasted until 11PM before recommencing again the next day, again at noon. We did not attend the first day of the festival in fear of us not being able to return for our volunteer shift Saturday. Saturday the weather was spectacular, and a bicycle ride across town to the fest was invigorating. The warm sun shined through the partially opened garage door of the spacious brewpub on NW Quimby Street; a hearty and well needed beer fest was underway. A few people made their way to the tables as the event kicked off. These folks were the beer geeks who live for this kind of thing, some of whom were still recovering from the previous day’s samplings.

We were excited to garner responses from the range of tasters to get a pulse for what bold beers were ones we’d need to try after our shift commenced. As can always be expected when volunteering at any beer festival, some people are very passionate about their reviews of what they’re tasting. With some it is a welcomed well-rounded assessment of the qualities that exemplify a worthy or undesirable specimen. With others, the response seems to be knee jerk and not as founded in research as it is based on emotion or product loyalty. Good thing folks there like Beer Advocates Theo Skourtis and Jim Bonomo were on hand to give some constructive feedback we could use.

Every so often another keg would run dry and Preston Weesner or Lucky Lab’s Ben Flerchinger would come by to change it and mark the update on the impressive chalkboard behind us. The list of beers was so extensive, they would need to climb a ladder to make amendments. We were crossing our fingers, hoping we’d get to try the popular brews before they kicked. The general response of the crowd seemed to indicate these were the ever-popular Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws (this time aged in bourbon casks), 2006 Anchor Old Foghorn, Ninkasi Critical Hit (their first ever barleywine available in limited quantities), and Lucky Lab’s Son Of Old Yeller (which we had already tried and could confirm was going to be spectacular). As a keg of 2007 Cascade Defroster sputtered to a halt, Walking Man’s Olde Stumblefoot took over. It really is amazing to see how much respect folks have for Walking Man, as an impromptu line formed almost immediately to sample this behemoth. If it was anything like we remembered it in the past, it was a dry-hopped beaut that demanded our palate’s attention.

As 3PM and the end of our shift neared, the crowds grew bigger and our thirst for the beers we’d been eying all morning intensified. Finally, we were off, and able to aboutface the counters and start a-quaffin’. The first sip was the 2006 Foghorn, which, along with the others mentioned previously, was surprisingly still flowing. Simply marvelous! A rusty orange body with a soft off-white head, this four year old beer aged magnificently and showed little to no signs of oxidation. Lots of fruity, chewy bubblegum notes coupled by soft, subtle complexities imparted with age. Some butyl esters coupled with a gentle hoppiness and a solid underpinning of toffee-like maltiness. Old Foghorn is always a go to for us, and we are glad again in this case, we went for it.

Following the Old Foghorn was the Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws aged in bourbon barrels. This rendition of the brew poured out a murky thick brown-amber with a thin soapy off-white head. Fruity, malty, chewy brown sugar nose with lots of floral citrus and pine hops going on. Big and bold. Sweet and complex. Vanilla, citrus, sugar, molasses, and raisin to name a few. Not aggressively bourbony, more on the wood side. Every time we get to try Hair of the Dog beers like this, it makes us happy we live in Beervana.

Save for Astoria Brewing’s Bitter Bitch Triple IPA, Ninkasi Critical Hit, from what we gathered, was one of the hoppiest brews at the fest and likely the hoppiest barleywine. Lots of toffee and piny tropical fruit notes came from this deep tawny beer. This beer could have almost passed for an triple IPA, but there was some noticeable caramel maltiness present. Very bitter on the tongue, but overall, this is the kind of barleywine many Pacific Northwestern beer lovers like, and Ninkasi ain’t no dummy.

Walking Man Olde Stumblefoot is another hop-forward barleywine. However, a main difference between this beast and Ninkasi’s is the malt bill and the perception of the hops play. According to a description, Olde Stumby makes use of four malts, dark belgian candi sugar, Northwest hops.  At 12.3% ABV, this Stevenson, Washington brew contained almost 2.5% more alcohol by volume than the average beer at this festival. On top of that, the 85 IBUs was indicative of a potent hops dosage as well. In the glass appeared a rich amber-bodied sipper with a small almond colored head that left plenty of lacing and exhibited big legs. Full, rich creamy body with a nice chewy, robust finish; noticeable were the dry hops in the nose that caressed the olfactory senses before each sip. Thanks again, Walking Man. We do love thee.

A beer we’d tried, but didn’t want to miss again was Lucky Lab’s Son of Old Yeller, a beer that turns out was a fabulous mistake. An accidental overshoot of ingredients for LL’s popular Super Dog IPA, the Son was a perfectly balanced copper-amber beer with a rich frothy white head. Also aged in bourbon barrels, Son was undoubtedly the buzz beer of this year’s festival. It was kind of nice to see this beer win people’s hearts and tongues…kind of like how the Canadians must’ve felt about their hockey team at this year’s Olympics.

Another beer of note was the 2007 Butte Creek Train Wreck, a certified organic 10.6% ABV warmer. We are still surprised upon viewing the label on these bottles that the TTB allowed this beer to state “You’ll be lucky to walk away from this one!” but we dig the smart Alec marketing that coincides with BC’s “Go big or go home” mantra. In all honesty, this beer was not hyper aggressive on the tongue. Perhaps this is due to the three years of aging it underwent to reach this point. The deep brown color under a minimal head offered a unique mesh of chewy maltiness, dropped out yet prevalent hops and a distinct mintiness that could have been equated to the citrus hops mingling with the boisterous and once aggressive malts. We think we’ll pick up a bomber of this brew and try it fresh…maybe even put one down in the cellar as well.

So, there’s a glimpse at just a few beer from the Barleywine and Big Beer Festival. To us, this event is more about the camaraderie of good friends where the skullstompin’ brews serve to aid in the good times. It doesn’t take much to get you where you’re going, and if you are on a bicycle, you best watch your limit. A big thank you to Ben Flerchinger, Lucky Lab, Preston Weesner, and all the breweries, volunteers, and attendees who made this year’s BB+BW Fest a monster hit!

View more photos from Lucky Lab’s Barleywine & Big Beer Fest here.

Posted under Oregon beer, beer events, beer reviews, brewpubs, places to drink beer

Get your stunt liver primed for this coming Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6. You’re gonna need it. Lucky Lab is hosting the thirteenth annual Barleywine and Big Beer Festival at their NW Quimby brewpub. The spacious setting is the perfect venue for such an event. In the leading city for craft beer, this brewpub isone of Portland, Oregon’s finest.

A recent tour of the cooler thanks to brewer Ben Flerchinger revealed nearly 60 beers waiting to be tapped. More are still on there way. According to the Lab technician, the average alcohol by volume of all these brews is 9.89%. Hot damn!

Check out the New School blog’s preview and picks for this year’s festival. There’s a list of the beers there, too.

The Barleywine and Big Beer Fest will occur at 1945 NW Quimby in Portland, Oregon.

Posted under Beer personalities, Oregon beer, beer events, beer releases, beers on film, brewpubs, places to drink beer

Zwickelmania weekend was awesome! Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to visit every spot that we wanted to. Still, we did hit up some favorites. Here’s what went down:

Heater-Allen at Bailey’s Taproom

Our weekend began on Thursday at downtown PDX’s best beer bar, Bailey’s Taproom, where a special meet the brewer event was underway. McMinnville, Oregon’s Heater Allen Brewery owned three taps on this night. Arguably the finest lager producing brewer in the Pacific Northwest, Heater Allen’s Rick Allen was on hand for the release of his brewery’s Hugo Bock. In addition, Allen’s Bavarian-inspired Schwarzbier and Pilsner were also pouring. Allen told us that his Smoked Bob, a rauch version of his esteemed Bobtoberfest Marzen was to debut at the brewery during Zwickelmania weekend. The brew will make its Portland debut at a meet the brewer event at Belmont Station on March 10.

Cascade Brewery at the Raccoon Lodge

We made an early Friday visit to the Raccoon Lodge to try some delicious new beers. Highlights: Spring Gose that featured chamomile and two different kinds of lavendar from Sequim, Washington; the lastest Apricot Ale on tap in at the bar; a piquant saison; and a special Noyeau blend put together by brewmaster and friend Ron Gansberg. The esteemed Curtis Bain was also on hand, as was brewer Ben Edmunds of start-up Breakside Brewery. We have yet to visit Cascade Brewing without having one hell of a good time.

Full Sail River Place

This was our favorite from 2009′s Zwickel-fest. This year’s tasting was solid, but unlike the previous one, there was no ten year old bourbon-aged Old Boardhead Barleywine. Still, there was a great brown ale, the latest in their Brewers Share Series called Collin’s Dark Secret.. The chocolaty robust ale was designed by Full Sail packaging manager Collin Godkin and paired excellently with shaved Belgian chocolate that was offered. Seasoned brewer Phil Roche was on hand to talk beer. Free pint glasses were given out as well. Good times!

Rock Bottom Brewery

Speaking of seasoned brewers, there’s none quite like Rock Bottom’s Van Havig who was on hand pouring four grubbin’ beers off the RB zwickel. Havig, one of Beervana’s finest, offered up two IPAs, featuring Cascade and Centennial hop varietals. RB’s Blitzen Tripel and a new Baltic Porter also flowed in the upstairs brewhouse. Rock Bottom is the kind of place where many beer geeks might not visit due to the preppy clientele, but for the real heads who appreciate superbly crafted beers that span a variety of styles,  it’s  a must visit.

Deschutes Portland Pub

Forget about it! This place emphasized on the “mania” in Zwickelmania. Insanely long lines warded us off from joining the queue for free samples. Last year we enjoyed getting a close-up peak at Deschutes’  beautiful Bavarian-style copper brew kettles. Instead, we linked up with uber-geeks Charles and Theresa Culp and Marc Martin over a snifter of the Jubel 2010 and a pint of their new Hop in the Dark Cascadian Dark Ale (actually labeled as such instead of a Black IPA, yeah!). We also ran into The Daily Pull crew who joined us for our last stop on the Zwickel tour. If you haven’t check out Brady Walen’s new beer blog, you need to. It’s a wonderful resource for those in search of Pacific Northwest craft beer insight.

NW Quimby Lucky Lab

We biked over to one of Portland’s best brewpubs to visit Ben “Grandmaster Flerch” Flerching who was giving thirsting beer tourists a glimpse into the 15-barrel brewhouse of Quimby’s Lucky Lab. Samples of the Single Hop Galena IPA and the Pavlov Imperial Stout. Spectacular! Also got a taste of a special new quadruple IPA called Son of Gold Yeller that was a pleasant accident aka double Super Dog . Look for it at the Barleywine & Big Beer Fest coming to the brewpub in March!

Brewpublic and Saraveza’s My Beery Valentine

Serving as a Zwickelmania after party, the My Beery Valentine event welcomed a healthy gathering of beer geeks to a benefit to raise money for Mercy Corps Haitian Relief. The Saturday and Sunday event was a huge success thanks to the friendly, knowledgeable, and hardworking staff at Saraveza. Northwest Brewing News’ Bartender of the Year Jonathan Carmean and the lauded Tyler “the Elder” Vickers were amongst the celebrity servers on hand at this event. Brewpublic curated an assortment of Valentine’s Day appropriate beers from top Oregon Breweries for this one-of-a-kind menu. Highlights included Upright Four Play tart cherry Saison, Cascade sour Noyeau blend, New Old Lompoc bourbon barrel fermented Cherry Stout, Vertigo Razz Wheat, Oakshire Two-Wheeler Red IPA, Widmer W’10 Cascadian Dark Ale, Fort George Sunrise Oatmeal Pale Ale, and the buzz  beer of the event, a delectable Black Raspberry and Chocolate Stout from Block-15 Brewpub known as Love Potion #9. Thanks to owner Sarah Pederson and her lovely staff for a wonderful weekend! A portion of the beer sales and a variety of generously donated desserts from Sugar Pimp and organic chocolate from Equal Exchange helped raise a nice chunk of change for Mercy Corps Haiti Relief Fund. Thanks to all who supported!

Posted under Oregon beer, beer events, beer reviews

It’s been a great summer. The hops grew tall and plump and at last, the summer has wound down. As sad as it might seem, we’ve still got some sunshine and great harvest season events to look forward to. Over the weekend, we homebrewed a hoppy treat from our fresh off the bine nuggets. We pedaled over to BiKETOBEERFEST at Hopworks before enjoying the Beer & Art event at the Portland Art Museum.

At the museum, Ben Flerchinger of Lucky Lab, Zack Beckwith of New Old Lompoc, and Chad Kennedy of Laurelwood delivered art-inspired dandies to the delight of long lines of NW beer lovers.

After a delicious evening of art and brew, Sunday consisted of a bit of football watching amidst brewing a dark hoppy beer. Give us a few weeks and we should be quaffing on that. Hope you are enjoying the finale of your warm months. Get ready to bundle up soon and enjoy the changing and falling of leaves. Prost!

Posted under beer me

Once again it is September and this means the curtain is drawing closed on summer and the hops are ripe for the pickin’. At the Lucky Labrador, the annual Mutt Hops Pickin’ event was underway with a greater turn out than ever before. People from the community and friends of the Lucky Lab hauled in their homegrown bines to share not only in the labor and its fruits, but in an atmosphere of community and friendship at the heart of craft beer.

Folks like Daniel Klug make the event what it is today by showing up and selflessly contributing to an environment that has maintained Lucky Lab as a true public house where house made beer flows to dedicated patrons. Klug, an ornamental iron worker and traditional blacksmith began helping with the picking ceremony eight years ago when his business White Hart Forge was a stone’s throw away from the Hawthorne pub. Today, he works eight miles south of the pub but remains loyal to the semblance of local color that continues to define the event. “It’s as much about the people and the friendships as it is about the beer and the hops” says Klug. Like Klug, Lucky Lab brewer Ben Flerchinger carries much of the same sentiment. “I love it.” he says. “(The picking event) is awesome. It’s a very community-oriented event. People know each other and those who don’t make new friends. It brings the community together.”

In addition to fostering a bond between those in the craft beer community, the hops picking event will result in some scrumptious brews. The Mutt is the yearly brew that changes slightly from batch to batch somewhat resembling an E.S.B.  Flerchinger also says that he will be brewing a fresh hopped Pilsner. Nothing about the beers produced from this potpourri of hop varietals is typical or in accordance with any type of brewing style guidelines. It’s a free-form spontaneous collaborative that roots itself the comradeship that in many ways defines Beervana.

A record breaking year it was again for the pickers. Began at 2p.m. and lasting until sundown around 7:30p.m., 215 pounds of fresh hops ranging from Nuggets to Centennials interspersed in storage tubs. This was exactly double last year’s yield of 107 pounds and more than three times what was picked in 2007. Flerchinger and his fellow brewers anticipate the release of these floral brews to the public in about three weeks. Just another excuse to head back to the Lucky Lab.

Posted under beer events

Do you like fun? Enjoy enjoyment? Well, we were very pleased to make our way down to this year’s Cheers to Belgian Beers at the Lucky Lab on NW Quimby in Portland. The third annual installment of the festival was a real hoot with the star of the show being the Ingelmuster (aka Dutch Castle) yeast strain at center stage. All of the beers eligible for people’s choice were producing using this astringent and sweet microbrewer, and there were even some other random Belgians on hand for grins and gags.

We did not make it to Friday’s kick-off, the first of the two day event’s festivities. According to Ben Flerchinger of the Lucky Lab, this year’s Cheers drew larger crowds than the Barleywine and Big Beer Festival. I guess it can be officially noted that Belgian brews have found their place amongst the hoppy English-styles and are now a mainstay here in Beertown, USA.  To our chagrin, two of the bombest breweries’ beers were fully tapped out when we showed up with our quaffing shoes on. Double Mountain and Pelican, two of the best breweries in Oregon, bid adieu to their brews early.

2009′s Cheers to Belgian Beers had all the makings of a typically superb Portland beer festival including many of the usual suspects on hand to snag sips of a variety of industry one-offs as well as competing homebrewers with their own fabulous offerings, some worthy of equivolent praise. Small batch breweries like Philadelphia’s and Silvermoon stood alongside the likes of Widmer and Pyramid to concoct a variety of Inglemunster 3822-derived tasters.

Perhaps the most amazing happenstance of the day was an unbelievable thunder, lightning, high-wind, rain, and ice shower show that demanded the full attention of everyone on site. In the matter of about a minute, the temperature dropped about ten degrees Fahrenheit. Booming skies opened up a torrential down pour of percipitation with the power to ruin anyone’s day caught exposed in its presence. From where we stood beneath the parking structure just west of the building in the outdoor tasting area, we were fortunate that the high winds were coming from the west and the exposed entrance to the shelter was opposite from mother nature’s beatdown. It was buck nutty!

After several great beers derived from perhaps not my favorite yeast strain of all time, we casted our ballots. Unfortunately, we never got our buds on the DM Ingelmonster or Pelican Le Fluer Amere, but nonetheless, we did enjoy some wonderful glasses. Here’s the winners from what I had:

1. Deschutes (Portland) Streaking the Quad (aged to perfection)

2. Block15 (Corvallis) Oregon Castle (dangerously delicious)

3. Astoria Brewing (Astoria) Avant Guarde Akloo (best name, too)

3. Fort George (Astoria) XVI Chapel (hoppiest beer)

4. Big Horse (Hood River) No Name Belgian/B-Side (giddeyup!)

5. Hopworks (Portland) Double Suplex (body slammin’)

6. Amnesia (Portland) Double Whammy (I forget)

7. Lompoc 5th Quad (Portland) Le Chat Noir Barrell Fermented (tangy and tart)

8. Upright (Portland) Four (finally get to taste their awesome beers!)

9. Rock Bottom (Portland) Floreal Trois (snappy, dry and sweet)

10. Deschutes (Bend) La Fluer (herbal and zesty)

11. McMenamins CPR (Hillsboro) Zen Lunatic (summery and floral)

Watching the OBG crew count ballots, it looked like my #1 pick from Deschutes was going to take the crown.  I just wonder how the heck they are gonna get all those people in an always crowded Deschutes pub.  We’ll have to wait and see.

After PCTBB, my brother and I, big Boston sports fans, had to get to a bar with the Celtics and Bulls basketball game. It was game seven, and a do or die for our team. So, we headed over to Blitz Ladd and kept the Belgian train rolling with pints of Russian River Damnation. After some food and a few games of shuffleboard, we left with a Boston victory to feel good about.

Most of the remainder of the weekend involved gardening and getting our hops trellis finished. However, we did find time to bust out a few special beers including a bottle of Russian River Supplication and a Midnight Sun La Maitresse an Moine from deep in the cellar. Stops at Victory Bar to quell a dearth of Double Mountain beers was pursued (granted, it was Hop Lava, still a noble choice), and at Hopworks to finally get a pint of the super smooth Anniversary Cream Ale on nitro.  Now, it is back to the grind. See you at happy hour.

Posted under Oregon beer, beer events, beer reviews

Port Barrel-aged Lucky Lab Pavlov Imp Stout

Lucky Lab brewer and big dog Ben Flerchinger just got us drooling again.  This time, over the latest bottling, the Lab’s Port barrel-aged Imperial Stout known as “Pavlov.” The brew also features Northern Brewer, Fuggles and Goldings hops to round out a big, bad-ass robust malt underpinning. Flerchinger gave us this description of the brew:

Huge flavor from the roasted barley balanced with hints of vanilla from the barrel gives way to notes of raspberries and black currants from the Port. This is all followed by underpinnings of chocolate, caramel and licorice. With a head of dark coffee color, it’s all wrapped up with a finish of esters and warming alcohol.

Also, the Lab has bottled their Super Dog Imperial IPA in 22-ouncers. Says Grand Master Flerchinger of this  magnificently hopocalyptic hound:

A 12 barrel recipe of Super Dog shoved into a 6 barrel batch! Technically you could call this a Double Dog . A Hopalicious delight that will be available for a short time only in bottles.

Flerchinger also notes that the Lucky Lab anticipates having a bourbon barrel-aged Porter in bottles later this month.

Bow wow!

Posted under beer releases