Summer Pumpkins and Winter Shandies

I know that Pumpkin beers have their detractors, but count me as a fan. A huge fan. Since I hate cold weather, the only thing about fall that I look forward to is the release of Pumpkin Ales. I'm not ready for the influx of the Pumpkins just yet, but it is happening anyway. Why the breweries didn't check with how I felt first is beyond me, but our shelves are already filling up with Harvest Moon, Wasatch Pumpkin, and two from Samuel Adams: the regular Pumpkin Ale that is part of the Harvest Collection 12-pack, and the first bottling of Fat Jack Double Pumpkin Ale. Fat Jack is 8.5% ABV, with added pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. I picked one up at Kelly's on Wyoming ($6.99) but I'm going to keep it stored away at least until the temperatures drop below 90 degrees.

Pass the Poi Mahalo

Muka laka hiki, and welcome to another wonderful Tuesday, Hawaiian-style. I wanted to let you all know that Ibiza in the Hotel Andaluz will be hosting a Kona tap takeover on Thursday, Aug. 16 Thursday, Aug 16 from 6-8 pm. For $8, you get four 3 oz. samples and 1 pint of your choice of Kona Longboard Lager, Kona Wailua Wheat, Kona Firerock Pale Ale or the new Kona Big Wave Blonde Ale. These tap takeovers are a regular feature at the hotel and aren't filled with the regular Andaluzers you might expect to run into, so stop by and enjoy some Hawaiian beers.

Opa! Stone 16th Anniversary is Here

Not to be confused with the Stone Ruination 10th Anniversary, or the Stone Enjoy by 9.21.12 IPA, the 16th Anniversary has something that neither of the other numbered beers have: a lemon twist. The Anniversary series lets the brewers at Stone use their creativity with ingredients, and this year's version boasts lemon verbana and lemon oil. Were they brewing a beer or making avegolemono soup here? They added some rye malt, five hop varieties, and a dollop of tzatzaki sauce (no, of course not). The final result is a 10% ABV, 85 IBU DIPA worthy of being sold at Alex's Lemonade Stand or Olympia Cafe. Jubilation is selling it right now for $7.99.

Spending a Weekend at the Butte

Or rather, I should say spending a weekend with the Butte. I am not talking about driving down to the New Mexican kids' toilet that is Elephant Butte- I instead will be sampling Black Butte XXIV from Deschutes Brewery. The big brother of the flagship Black Butte Porter, this Imperial Porter changes recipe from year to year. Last year saw orange and chiles in the recipe, while this year has added figs and dates. The beer is 11% ABV and retails for $11.99 at the Wyoming Kelly Liquors, and should be available at most liquor stores today. Reviews on this have been very good thus far, so maybe you'll think twice about packing the car up this weekend for Elephant Butte and just cracking a Butte instead. It's so much easier staying home and being lazy.

A Day That Will Leave You Feeling Bitter

Bitter, and loving it! 8/2 is of course National IPA Day, which means you have to pick up some IPA to celebrate, be it from a local brewery, liquor store, supermarket, whatever...if you have any money left after buying all the Chick-Fil-A you could eat on 8/1, that is. So, what will it be? Local favorites Il Vicino Exodus, Marble IPA, La Cumbre Elevated, Happy Camper, Nexus, something from Texas? No...Shiner doesn't count. Green Flash West Coast IPA? Does it count if you go to Billy's Long Bar and drink Double IPAs like Odell Myrcenary and Sierra Nevada Hoptimum? I think that would qualify as twice the amount of drinking credits...but it's your choice. If you're thinking DIPAs, may I suggest a growler of Chama River's just tapped The Big Lebrewski? Just make sure to save some for me, as I can't get over there until Saturday.

Falling All Over Autumn Seasonals

It's about 97 degrees outside as I type this, but I'm not longing for fall, because after that comes winter- which means biting winds, numb, non-functioning hands, and the inevitable jacket that I liked when I bought it last winter but I hate now.

I would have thought that with global warming, the Autumn seasonals might come out later this year, but no- they are showing up on shelves in all their various forms: Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale, Samuel Adams Octoberfest, and the newest in New Belgium's ever-changing world of seasonal offerings: Red Hoptober. Now, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm deducing that this beer is a hoppy Red Ale...maybe in the same vein as a Marble Red, perhaps? The hop bill is Target, Nugget, Cascade, El Dorado, and Centennial, with the beer containing 60 IBUs and a 6% ABV. I first saw this at Whole Foods on Carlisle, but it's New Belgium, so you can get it at a gas station.

FO! FO! FO!

This is getting ridiculous! For the fourth consecutive year, Il Vicino has taken the top spot in the NM IPA Challenge. 114 votes in the final leg (held at Il Vicino) sealed the runaway victory, with Marble, Chama, Santa Fe, and La Cumbre trailing far behind. Congratulations to Brady and the Il Vicino crew for another job well done!

1. Il Vicino 114 vote2

2. Marble 61

3. Chama 38

4. Santa Fe 35

5. La Cumbre 32

6. Turtle Mountain 30

7. TIE Second Street/Three Rivers 24

9. Tractor 15

10. Blue Corn 13

11. Blue Heron 11

12. TIE Nexus/High Desert 10

13. Mimbres Valley 7

IPA Lineup

IPA Challenge lineup:
1 Blue Heron
2 Tractor
3 La Cumbre
4 Blue Corn
5 Mimbres Valley
6 Marble
7 Il Vicino
8 2nd Street
9 Three Rivers
10 Turtle Mtn.
11 High Desert
12 Santa Fe
13 Chama River
14 Nexus

I'm Not Endorsing This...

Just letting you know it is going on, that's all. Tonight, from 6-8 pm, Hotel Andaluz is hosting a "tap takeover" of...the Shock Top family of beers. $8 gets you a flight of Belgian White (a.k.a. I was made to compete with Blue Moon), Raspberry Wheat (for those who find Zima to be a little too flavorful), Wheat IPA (I do not think this "IPA" stands for what you think it stands for), and Lemon Shandy. Don't even need to say anything else.
I'm giving the beers a hard time but they have their place, and Hotel Andaluz seems like the perfect place. Plus that $8 gets you a pint of the Shock Top you like best. Maybe you need to give your taste buds a re-calibration before the IPA Challenge this Sunday at Nexus. Maybe it's just so damn hot that a Shock Top Belgian White sounds good right about now?

Stone's Smoked Porter Goes 31 Flavors

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Ok, just two for now, but I wouldn't mind if they experimented with some other flavors. Right now, 12 oz. bottles of Stone's Smoked Porter are available in vanilla bean and chipotle pepper versions. I've only seen these at the Kelly's on Wyoming so far, but I'm sure Jubilation has them too- especially since Jubilation got the Ruination 10th and Kelly's got shut out so far.

San Diego, Day 2

What's with this "Books" crap? I ain't here to learn! I hear ya, but this is just Alpine, California's version of an Albuquerque strip mall, bookended by Alpine Beer Company! Get schooled by beer, not books; that's my motto. The left side is home to Alpine's restaurant and plenty of beers on tap. For $10, we got to start the day with a sampling of six 5 oz. beers of our choice. Got to try Duet (Simcoe and Amarillo IPA), Chez Monieux (sour with cherries), Captain Stout, Odin's Raven (Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout), Pure Hoppiness (DIPA), and Nelson (IPA with Nelson Sauvin hops, and my favorite).

The right side of Alpine's operation housed fermenters and barrels and a tasting area/t-shirt sales area/growler filling station. We drove the person at the counter crazy while trying to decide what varieties of bottles we wanted to get, "Two Duet, four Nelson...no, wait! Three Nelson, three Pure Hoppiness..., no, I want a hamburger, I want a milkshake. I want a hot dog..." While we didn't get nothing and like it, we left without any growlers, as just the empty glass is $10. I didn't want to pay $10 for a standard screw-top growler, no matter how good the beer is. The place is still awesome, though.

After

Afterwards, we drove down to Escondido and stopped in at Holiday Wine Cellar. Just look at that sign! Can you imagine the John Williams symphony going through my head when I saw that sign?? We picked up a couple of bottles for the room at the spacious Comfort Inn (Midnight Sun Meltdown IPA and Drake's Denogginizer). Laugh at the hotel, but we had a balcony that let us watch the never ending flow of traffic to the In-N-Out drive in right next door, where we got to hear thousands think they were being unique by ordering "animal-style".

And we didn't stay in the hotel for that long, not with Stone Brewing Co. just a mile and a half up the road! A typically hectic Saturday at the Bistro greeted us, though we shunned a table in favor of seats at the outside bar and a small sampling tray. No, that picture is actually beers for a large group of guys who must have been kicked off the bus to Tijuana, as they had no idea what beers Stone had and just ordered some medium, some dark, etc. We were happy to have the Stone 10th Anniversary Ruination on tap, then went back to the room and finished off some more beers there.
We had an appointment to get "wild" on Sunday morning at 10.

San Diego, Day 1

Got sick of this Phoenix-like weather going on in Albuquerque and decided to take a quick trip to San Diego, where the weather is warm but bearable. I have to say, though, that I was a little surprised at how chilly it got at night around the city. I think of SoCal, I think of warm weather, you know?? I should have remembered the scene in The Karate Kid, where Daniel-san and his new friends have a fire going to stay warm while at the beach (until Johnny and the Cobra Kais come and ruin it...and Daniel loses his "friends" just because he couldn't beat up a karate champion..."I thought you said this guy was cool." What a bunch of dicks.).

I don't like paying the huge jump in fees that come with renting from Avis, Hertz, National, and the like, but this experience with Advantage has me wondering. We waited an hour and a half just to get a damn rental car! The couple we flew with, Turtle and Majin from the upcoming Goat Head Brewing, had time to get their car and eat lunch at Karl Strauss before we finally got the car. And Advantage had three people behind the counter, but a family from Europe took up one rep's time for a whole HOUR arguing about pre-pay gas and extra drivers and God knows what else.
Once we got the sporty Nissan Versa, we headed downtown for the obligatory stop at Super Jr Mart, a.k.a. Best Damn Beer Shop, for some Russian River Row 2 Hill 56 and Ballast Point Dorado DIPA. Yeah, I know the selection is so big that you can't believe that's all we got, but this was only in the first couple hours of being there.

From there, it was a quick stop into Tiger!Tiger!, sister bar of famed Blind Lady Ale House, for some Firestone Walker Sucaba (Barrel-Aged Barleywine). The Sucaba was on tap as a part of a three-day tapping of four barrel-aged beers over three days. Kind of a rough first beer to drink after not sleeping so great (the usual night before going on a trip for good beer jitters), but I managed without even mixing it with MGD 64. We moved down 30th st. to Hamilton's (pictured), the classic craft bar that gets super-crowded with locals. Luckily, we got there just before the crush and enjoyed Ballast Point Sculpin with Habanero (and it was good!) and Upright Seven Saison.

To end the night, what better place than Toronado? Just a quick 15-minute bus ride up 30th (yup! Took the bus! Technology is such a great thing...looked up the bus route on the phone, saw there was one coming in five minutes, and boom! a $2.25 ride instead of a $15 cab. I'm very proud of myself for taking public transportation...I feel like I'm qualified to be the Green Party candidate for president now. This renowned beer bar didn't let me down- the beer list was heavy on the hops that night, so you know I wasn't crying. The first beer was the Ballast Point Dorado DIPA, on my list of drafts to try for years and it finally happened...along with Bear Republic Double Apex, Hop 15, Lost Abbey Bourbon Barrel Angel's Share...ouch. I can't help but going heavy on the first night.
Had to get up for the second day though...and it was an early start. Coming tomorrow!