Beer Review: Fruit IPA from Angry Horse Brewing

Aloha, everybody, 

Let's review this fruit IPA from Angry Horse Brewing, located in Montebello, CA. 

Enjoy and aloha! 

Opening a Mystery Beer Box Part 2

Aloha, everybody, 

I bought a Mystery Box full of Beer and opened the contents in Part 1. There were a few awesome beers in there. Let's see what remains in the box in Part 2.

Aloha!

I Bought a Mystery Beer Box - What Was Inside?

Aloha, everybody, 

I bought a "Mystery Beer Box" for $20. Let's open it up and see what we can see. 

Aloha!

More Beer Tasting Goodness!

Aloha everybody,

Over the weekend we had our poker and beer tasting night. 
As promised, here's a look at the beers we tasted.  

Comments on any beers that I show or on anything else you may have tasted or made a favorite are encouraged and welcome. 

As Matt (Bob Walk the Plank) has mentioned and I concur, let's keep the beer conversation working...

The first taster of the night comes from the legends of the beer worlds. Pliny the Younger is a beer that has been far too rare for me to get my taste buds on, but luckily we can get our hands on its Elder. 

As one of the boys mentioned when we popped these, Pliny the Elder rates 100 on Beer Advocate. I don't doubt that, as the Elder went down smooth as velvet. This one is a real beer treat. ABV 8%
 

I'm a big fan of Firestone Brewing. As with other brewers I recommend, you can't go wrong with anything coming out of Firestone. They're located here in California, and I can't wait to have the opportunity to finally get up there and tour the brewery. 

Saisons are generally lighter summer beers. That said, Opal was definitely not light on flavors. The note I made on it says "Wakes up your taste buds" - in a crisp and bold way. Opal is highly recommended. ABV 7.5%
 

This Weins beer immediately lets off a note of citrus and fruit when you open it. I think it has more of a red ale flavor than IPA. ABV 6.5%
 

This Rogue was one of the surprises of the night. When I first got into craft beers chocolates and stouts were not to my liking. However, as my beer mind and taste buds have expanded, I now enjoy stouts, chocolate and coffee-flavored beers when done right. 

This Rogue chocolate stout is definitely all that. Smoooooth chocolate flavor. High recommendation. ABV 5.8
 

I don't know if you folks out there in the midwest and on the east can get beer from the Lost Abbey, but this brewer is a big favorite with my poker circle. 

As per the label, this ale was brewed with  honey, raisins and rosemary. The beer snob crowd probably love this on a label, but we don't want beers with good taste - We want beers that taste good! 

You might recall Lobotomy Bock from our last batch of tasters. It was was 12% ABV and you could taste every one of those percentage points. It wasn't executed very well. 

This Lost Abbey brew mixed those funky herbs and honey very  well and produced a brew that delivers a sweet and smooth 12% ABV.  Be careful with this one.
 

 My favorite brew of the night comes from San Diego. A truly big IPA with bold hoppy flavors up front (just like I like 'em), but it tails off with a smooth finish. Highly recommended. ABV 6.8 

Oh yeah, we played poker as well...

One of my biggest pots of the night!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to comment. I would love to know what you all think out there.

Aloha!

The Dodgers Are Done. Time For...Poker and Beer!

Aloha everybody,

Recently, good ol' Matt from Bob Walk the Plank wrote about a topic near and dear to my heart, my second hobby: playing poker and enjoying a good beer. Actually, Matt only wrote about beer, I tacked on the poker aspect.

I've got everything ready for first deal of the night

 Matt asked a couple of questions in his post and I was one of the first to reply in the comments. Actually, I thought I would be first, but Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown must have been writing his comment at the same time as me, because when I went to post mine, there was his comment, sitting in first place, all shiny and new.  

I stopped by Matt's blog earlier today to check if he had replied to my comment yet, as he is one of those guys who will respond to just about every comment someone leaves. I'll drop a shout out to Matt here and say THANKS for that, because I really appreciate when someone takes the time to reply. 

I was blown away when I saw the amount of comments, from all of you out there who share this love of a good, cold one. That got me to thinking there are lots of us in the card collecting community who love quality, craft beers and want to share our enjoyment of it. 

I mentioned to Matt that a lot of my craft beer tasting is done with my poker buddies, and I got to thinking some of you out there might like to see what we're tasting, and give your takes on those beers. 

I know, it's not baseball cards, but at the risk of putting off the card blogger snobs, here is a look at what we tasted last month. 

Maybe you've tried one or two of these, or you've seen them on the shelf and haven't tried them yet. So here we go....

This puppy (pun intended) was my favorite of the night. You generally can't go wrong with anything from Lagunitas Brewing. 
 

 

 The Chimays are good as well, but I find their taste a bit rich and heavy. 

This one seemed like they spent more time trying to push the ABV up to 12%, and less time on making something that tastes good. 

In Indian Wells' defense, it's not easy to make something that high in ABV and not have the alcohol overwhelm the taste. 
 

This one is aged in bourbon barrels, and it was pretty durn good. Highly recommended. 
 

There was a time that Belgian was my favorite style of beer. These days my favorite is IPA, with sours coming in at a close second. 
 

Imperial IPA, but very so-so. I got the bottle on sale for $2.99, so that was a great value and well worth trying. 
 

 Tasted like fish. Just kidding. This was another good choice. 

We'll be playing poker tomorrow night, so I'm expecting another crop of great new beers to taste. If you all out there would like me to post what we try, I'll be very happy to post and recap. 

Aloha and good night, Dodgers.