Sunday, March 21, 2010

Big or Small, I Drink 'em All

First, the big beer. And it is big, both in size and in stature. Fritz and Ken's Stout, the first of Sierra Nevada's 30th Anniversary collaboration series, is available for a short time. The beer was brewed by, and named for, the owners of Anchor Brewing (Fritz Maytag) and Sierra Nevada Brewing (Ken Grossman), two true pioneers of craft brewing. The style is an Imperial Stout that is 9.2% ABV, and is heavy on the roasted malts. This 25 oz. bottle can go home with you for $9.99. I got mine at Kelly's on Wyoming, and I haven't seen it anywhere since.

The second beer is just another repackaging job by the king of repackagers, Rogue Brewing. They are now putting their XS series of beers into 7 oz. bottles rather than the 26 oz. ceramic flip-top mammoths as in previous versions. Those ceramic bottles were too expensive, going for around $15.99 apiece, though Jubilation had 2008 XS Imperial Stouts on sale for $5.99. I went to get one, but they were all out. Instead, I get one of these 7 oz. bottles for $5.99. So Rogue cuts the size, but if you do the math, you see that the price actually goes up, from 62 cents per ounce for the big bottles to 86 cents per ounce for the new 7 oz. bottles. Since I am usually drinking by myself, it is nice to be able to have a manageable sized Imperial Stout that I can handle in one sitting, so that is the one plus to the new sized bottle.

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