Thanksgiving is over, Christmas (and Hanukkah for you members of the tribe...Jim) is yet to come. But the Random Beer Roundup is year round fun.Let us not forget, though, that 75 years ago the twenty-first amendment was ratified, marking the end of that dreadful eighteenth amendment. I suspect spending the Thanksgiving holiday with family drove the last few states to ratify the amendment. I don't know about you, but this much extended-family time is a bit much.
Enough with the smart ass commentary. If you just awoke from a tryptophan-induced coma, who might have missed a couple of Hoosier Beer Geek news items, such as the Brass Monkey in Kokomo being on a temporary hiatus or the announcement of Winterfest '09 by BIG (Brewers of Indiana Guild).
Baby, it's cold outside... There will be other opportunities after Winterfest '09 to warm up inside, including:
Lafayette Brewing’s Winter Warmer, Feb. 7th (tickets go on sale December 15th)
Alefest Indy, March 7th (more info to come)
Here are some other stocking stuffers of note from around the state...
Tired of turkey leftovers? Try the Goose. Gabriel from Goose the Market offers some advise:
Goose your holidays with the following brews:
Boulder Obovoid Empirical Stout
Breckenridge Christmas Ale
Two Brothers Avalon
Two Brothers Bohnfire Dunkel Weiss
Two Brothers Northwind Imperial Stout
Two Brothers Hop Juice
Brasserie Achouffe N'ice Chouffe
Corsendonk Christmas Ale
Du Pont Avec Les Bon Voeux
Mad River John Barleycorn Barleywine
Meantime Coffee Porter
Left Hand Milk Stout
Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout
Three Floyds Alpha Klaus
We will continue to bring in gobs of holiday seasonals over the next month or so.
Man in the Big Red suit shops here. From John at Big Red Liquors, some new beers and other new news:
Thirsty Dog 12 Dogs of ChristmasDeano's: home of the other jolly fat man. A quick reminder from Deano's about something we reported earlier:
Two Brothers Bonfire dunkel weiss
Founders Back Woods Bastard
Founders Curmudgen
Great Divide Fresh Hop
Great Divide Hades Strong Golden
Stone Double Bastard 3L
Barley Island Beastie Barrel Stout ( Bronze medal GABF2008)
Shiner Holiday Cheer
New store Opening In French Lick Dec 22nd.
Christmas isn't just for the children. It's for beer lovers too! Join us! 5 PM 'til Late Saturday, December 6. On Tap:
Three Floyds Alpha Klaus
Three Floyds Alpha King
Three Floyds Pride & Joy
Tell Mr. Klaus what you want for Christmas!!
$15 TASTY Buffet
Pet a reindeer
Giveaways for the Naughty & Nice
Live Music: Last Drop Juggers, 8 PM, No Cover. Featuring our good friend, Jude
Ghost of Christmas Beers Past. Mike at J. Gumbo's updates us on his tap list and the upcoming vintage beer tasting:
We just flipped a bunch of lines at J.Gumbo's. We're still doing $2.50 pints all month. The new beers are Ommegang Stout, Abita IPA, Breckenridge Xmas, Ayinger Oktoberfest, Harpoon IPA, Magic Hat No. 9, Three Floyds Gumball Head and Murphy's Irish Red.
I've also decided on the menu for my vintage tasting this Sat. at 7:30.
$15 per person. Reservations required: 317-522-2666.
King & Barnes Xmas '99
Harvey's Xmas '00
Gale's Millenium '00
J.W. Lee's Harvest '99
Dogfish Head Worldwide Stout '02
Dogfish 90 min. IPA '04
Bells' Batch 5,000
DeDolle Stille Nacht '96
Northcoast Anniversary '98
Northcoast Old Stock '01
Crown for a king; beer from the Crown. Mike at Crown Liquors has new stuff and new specials:
A few things are new or back in stock.The (Christmas) Wrap of Kahn. Apologies for the lame attempt to tie Christmas and Star Trek together. Looking for beer geek gifts? See Cari at Kahn's:
Dogfish head World Wide Stout
3 Floyds Alpha Klaus
Rogue Yellow Snow Ale 22oz and new 5L's and Santas Pvt. Res.
2 Brothers Northwind Imp. Stout and Avalon Spiced Ale
more Pannepot '07 almost out of the Reserva
Avery Ale to the Chief
Brooklyn-Schneider Hopfen Weiss
Ridgeway Pickled Santa
Mikkeller and Olfabrikkens Seasonals
We will also be running Barley Island, Flying Dog and Wabash on sale what will work out to be $2-$3 off a six pack starting next week.
We have a nice assortment of seasonal and holiday beers both domestic and imports in stock, including some lovely Belgian gift sets, like Tripel Karmeliet and Corsendonk.Mr. C. likes Mr. G's. I'm running out of creative headlines, can you tell? Latest from Mr. G's:
Monday, December 8 from 5-7 p.m. we have a Belgian tasting with Matt from World Class Beverage, too.
New this week
Two Brothers Hop Juice
Two Brothers North Wind Imperial Stout
Schlafly Christmas
Schlafly Sampler
Can we call it the "Bah Humbug Brew"? Rock Bottom (both Indy locations) have their Old Curmudgeon tapping on 12/11 at 6:00PM. We assume it's a barley wine.
Look for this gift under your tree Mat at Cavalier Distributing sent us this email:
The 2008 limited edition one liter flip top bottles of Breckenridge Christmas Ale arrived in Indiana this week just in time for the Holiday's. Once again the 1st case was deliverd to the Party Pack! Only 1,400 liter bottles were shipped this year and only 150 were shipped to Indiana.
Malty Christmas! Straight from the mouth of bartender Rudy at the Legend to the ears of Mike:
Currently on at the Legend:
Brugge Black
Sam Adams Winter Warmer
Three Floyds Robert the Bruce
BBC Bourbon Barrel Stout
It's a maltfest over there.
Also he wanted me to know that they're now open late on Saturdays and will have live music.
Unfortunately, part of the Brewpubs of Christmas Past. Sad news from Indiana Beer:
The Brew Pub Ltd. restaurant located at 3703 North Main Street, Mishawaka will be closing at the end of business on December 3, 2008...It came from the heavens... And one final item of note from the international scene: Space Beer
It should be noted for those who are not familiar with our structure that The Brew Pub Ltd is a corporation separate from The Mishawaka Brewing Company and The Pub (located at 408 W. Cleveland, Mishawaka at the corner of Grape & Cleveland).
The Mishawaka Brewing Company has continued to grow and in 2006 we opened a production brewery in Elkhart, IN. We will be consolidating the two brewing operations at our Elkhart location. Distribution will continue unchanged.
Yee-haw!
i have been drinking alpha king for over five years and recently have noticed a sour taste in bottles at two different retail outlets near broad ripple in indianapolis. i have e-mailed three floyds twice with no response. anyone else notice this? i am tired of paying 10+ dollars for a six pack with no way of telling if it is good or in my opinion bad. feedback would be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had this experience.
ReplyDeleteAre you buying the new foil/shiny labels? If you see paper labels out there they are really old and don't buy them. I have the same complaint about FFF's because Dreadnaught is amazing fresh, but with just a little age on it tastes like wet carboard, and there are no freshness dates anywhere on the bottles.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I usually buy a case of AK a month -2months, and I haven't had any bad bottles in the recent past. I had a six pack that had bad caps on them once and all of them tastes oxidized, but good luck ever since then.
I'll be happy to pass along this concern to Three Floyds. This is the first I've heard of this and you shouldn't be getting a sour flavor from Alpha King.
ReplyDeleteThe earlier post about the foil lables is correct as they are the new version of the Alpha King (and most other 3F) labels. If you don't have a foil label, let me know or contact your retailer. All of the beers we ship from the warehouse are of the foil label type, so a non-foil label has been sitting in a store for a while.
Having said all that, a sour taste is not something I would associate with beer just because it is old. Sour taste is usually caused by something getting into the beer that should not be there.
By any chance, do you happen to have any un-opened bottles of the sour Alpha King?
Replying to Bob Mack, yes i returned one bottle to A-1 on 52nd Street in Indy. They are aware of my concerns and should have the bottle. Thanks for your reply.
ReplyDelete