Eight Beers. Four Words.

Since our Tuesday night roundable has been discussed in depth below, and since I have the unenviable position of following the brilliant haiku reviews, I give you (at Jim's request) the four-word beer review:

Brooklyn Summer Ale -- Sigh. Disappointed. Pretty gross.

Dogfish Head Burton Baton -- Campfire smoke. Alcohol burn.

Fraoch Heather Ale -- Light! Flowery! Girly! Good!

Clipper City Red Sky at Night -- Yeasty, peppery. Butt kicker.

Dogfish Head Aprihop -- Delicately fruity. My favorite.

Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat -- Hometown love. Okay taste.

Unibroue 16 -- Complex but not overwhelming.

Black Dog Ale -- No thanks. Sobering up.

Thanks again to the Hop Shop for the hospitality and to Jim Walker at INtake for the company.

Back by popular demand, a beer review done in style of haiku

It takes many cells
of brain to write in haiku.
I have so few left.

But will try my best
to give you, the reader, eight
good haiku reviews

If Brooklyn in the
summer tastes like this, I am
staying home this year.

Burton Baton is
a good scotch; incognito,
disguised as a beer.

What the Fraoch? This is
beer? More like a stroll through the
Highlands in the spring.

What does a sailors
delight have to do with a
farmhouse saison ale?

You can sip it; you
can swig it; you can gulp and
swig it: Aprihop.

Off we go to drink
the Warbird Thunder; high on
wheat, tastes like the sun.

Unibroue sixteen:
the real champaign of beer.
So sorry high life.

Black dog ale is not
a bad dog ale; be no bad
dogs, just bad owners.

Last review was lame;
so were my taste buds after
seven beers were gone.

Used chance to make a
social statement; like Bob said
"Spay or Neuter Pets."

Little glasses o' beer - The Hop Shop

I'm not going to rehash Mike's post about our roundtable at the Hop Shop. Suffice it to say that, like Mike, I thank Courtney of the Hop Shop for his beer sagacity and Jim Walker from INtake for hanging out with us to see how we do things. And wouldn't you know it, for this roundtable, we did things completely differently from the way that we normally do them. Sorry for switching up on you, Jim. I hope you had a good time and were enlightened nonetheless.

Mike's four-word review method was indeed my idea, but I have to confess that it was an idea that I stole from the music industry website Coolfer. So while I'm not completely original in my thinking, I stole the idea because I thought that it would be an easy way to review the murderer's row of beers that we plowed through last night.

Before I hit the four-word reviews, the "Little glasses o' beer" in the post title refers to the way that we drank last night. Normally, we each consume at least one full pint of the feature beer. But since we sampled so many last night, Courtney was kind enough to break out beer sampler glasses for us. We did things in small doses, which was a great way to go.

On with the show . . .

Brooklyn Brewery Summer Ale - You ain't no Oberon.
Dogfish Head Burton Baton - A perfectly peppery finish.
Fraoch Heather Ale - S***, I'm drinking grass.
Clipper City Red Sky at Night - Delightful Belgian farmhouse ale.
Dogfish Head Aprihop - Wow, this stuff rocks!
Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat - A good summertime choice.
Unibroue 16 - Stupendous, mysterious Belgian-style ale.
Black Dog Ale - Dark, smoky, altogether malty.

Hop Shop Publicity Stop

Last evening, the beer geeks met up at The Hop Shop for a beer conversation with owner Courtney and Jim Walker from INtake. Knowing that this had the possibilities of being my new five minutes of fame (replacing the time I made it onto the field at a St. Louis Steamers indoor soccer game at the age of 10), I made sure to wear a nice shirt.

Jim asked us to behave as we normally do at a meetup, and this proved to be a little difficult; We don't have a very specific formula. We all decided to chose a warm-up beer and go from there.

If you haven't been to the Hop Shop, then you're in for a treat - shelves upon shelves of brews from all over the place, with individual samples available for each beer. Want to try six different beers? Make your own six pack and receive a 7% discount on the price of the six individual bottles.

The very expansive selection made choosing a warm up beer quite a task, but eventually I settled on Spaten's Optimator, a highly regarded beer that I had yet to try. Into the cooler it went, along with the following:

Brooklyn Summer Ale
Dogfish Head Burton Baton
Fraoch Heather Ale
Clipper City Red Sky at Night
Dogfish Head Aprihop
Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat
Unibroue 16
Black Dog Ale

As it turns out, I didn't make it to my warm-up beer until the end of the night; Courtney took the lead and led us on a beer tour de force, with lessons in history and chemistry along the way. It was quite the learning experience.

Normally, we try to at least pretend we're accomplishing something. But last night we were basically just drinking. Once we had reached the end of our samples, we decided to write what stuck with us. HBG Jim (I think...) suggested four word reviews. I'll give that a shot.

Brooklyn Summer Ale: I've certainly had better.
Dogfish Head Burton Baton: See also Conquest Ale.
Fraoch Heather Ale: This one? Mashed Potatoes.
Clipper City Red Sky at Night: So.. was this red?
Dogfish Head Aprihop: I'd try this again.
Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat: Airplanes! Indiana! Sheet-Metal Blonde!
Unibroue 16: Nice work, Uni Dudes.
Black Dog Ale: I now remember nothing.

So there you have it. 4 word reviews (almost). Hopefully you can make out which beers I liked.

Thanks to Courtney at the Hop Shop for the beer lessons, and to Jim at INtake for the exposure.