Drake's Brewing Expedition Red Ale compliments a feast fit for a Rachel

Aaron B is throwing a festivus for the rest of us to say goodbye to Sarah P's, sister, Rachel, who has spent the last week here. To honor her send off, I pulled an 'expedition' ale out of the fridge. I'm incredibly excited to try this, as Drake's is one of my favorite breweries. I'm hoping this red ale, like Rachel, will be the younger sister of the hoppier and stronger Denoggonizer, which is one of my favorite 'pleasure beers.' David and I have to always ask the other when buying beers, if it's a day beer - for the blog - or a pleasure beer, which is something we've already drunk and won't count for that day. At 315+ beers, we rarely drink pleasure beers because we're already swimming in ale.

Between Aaron and David, I'm surrounded by excellent cooks and I'm eagerly looking forward to dinner. What awaits us is shrimp seviche in sliced cucumbers, scallop salad and flank stank with a balsamic vinaigrette reduction. Everything is delicious, and I had thirds of the flank steak. Yes please thank you much fat kids rule.

The Expedition Red Ale clocks in at 60 IBU's and 7% alcohol, compared to the Denoggonizer's 90 IBU and 9.75% but the Red holds it's own. It's not as intense as the Denog, but this is a good thing. The caramel flavor is medium rich and the sweetness doesn't last long, quickly replaced by a roasted flavor that isn't too bitter. The problem with red ales is they tend to be overtly sweet because in order to create that caramel flavoring, you have to use a high percentage of caramel malt. Drake's fixed this by adding a small amount of roasted malt to their grain bill. Some people just do what they do well, and Drake's has another winner. I plan on adding this to my small list of 'pleasure' beers. THE ROCK rating.

David finishes off the main meal with broiled sea bass. For dessert, Jessica grilled peaches and chopped walnuts while David delivered homemade whipped cream, whipped with awkward enthusiasm by David himself...That boy certainly loves a brisk churning. 

YUM

Uinta Tilted Smile Imperial Pilsner isn't as desirable as Joan Holloway

Well, today is my officially my 28th Birthday. The party started Friday with the All-Denim extravaganza, continued Saturday with Beach day Sloshball and followed through with lobster and a partial mash homebrew. I've been celebrating this day three times over before the sun debuted on May 9th 2011. Cookies for lunch and chips and dip for dinner is all I need for birthday celebration. I'll be out all this week and I'll be tasting 7 or 8 breweries this weekend with my parents and David.

Some people would argue that you have to do something for your birthday, or that you shouldn't be alone on your special day. To them, I say that thinking is for the birds. I've been surrounded by great friends enjoying memorable experiences for 72 hours. I think I'll be okay if I take a night off, open up one of my favorite beers as an appetizer before the beer of the day, demolish some guacamole and watch my best show on TV, Man Men.

Next to all the special whiskey we keep in the hard to reach cupboard above the microwave, I keep a bottle of North Coast Pranqster and Drake's Denogginizer Imperial IPA for a special occasion. Tonight is perfect for the Drake's, which has an incredibly rich caramel and Munich malt. It's inspiring enough that I have decided here and now to design my next homebrew to hopefully create a malt of this caliber and richness. It's amazing. 

But the beer of the day hales from Utah and is a strange bedfellow. Almost as strong  as the 9.75% Denogginizer, the wacky Tilted Smile is an Imperial Pilsner. This is our second imperial pilsner, a very odd style but one that some American brewers apparently like to play with.

I immediately taste that it's too malty. On the flip side, David says that it's not hoppy enough. He's right. An imperial malt bill needs an imperial amount of hops to balance it out. Unfortunately, Uinta didn't adjust accordingly for their increase in alcohol. Maybe they kept the same IBU number as they had with their regular pilsner. Either way, it doesn't work. I'm not impressed, ARMAGEDDON rating.

I'm going to climb onto my soapbox for a second here to spout about Imperial Pilsners as a style. To me, increasing alcohol content serves two purposes. Obviously, one is you create a potent beer. In order to make a higher content brew, you have to increase the amount of malt. This allows for a greater complexity of malt to be used - or so I think. As a style, however, Pilsner are brew to be clean and crisp. They are not known for their complexity. I really don't see the need for them. Maybe they're fun to toy with, but I don't understand why you make them.

Drake's Denogganizer Imperial IPA is the beer support I need for a big BBQ

The rain has stopped and the sun broke through the clouds, so I'm cooking up a big BBQ today. Three stacks of ribs, lines of cider-simmered bratwurst with onions and salmon with red-curry coconut sauce. Having a bunch of people over, mostly old friends but a few new ones as well, Heather, Jamie, Brent, Nick G, Beth, Sara, Josh, Lisa, Jake, Matt and Ri.

David's usually the cook but he's out of town, so I'm going to Emeril this shit up and I'm charging hard. I need a big beer to propel me through the day and Drake's comes through once again.

Deliciousness!

I love Drake's and at 9.75%, this beer is big and bad. This is more malt than IPA, but it's a bold malt and an accented bitterness. The beer may be dank but it's finely tuned. Love this and would love to create a home brew inspired by this. THE ROCK rating.


If the Discovery Channel was on hand filming the day, they would have mistook my friends for Jackals because all three racks of ribs were gone within the first half hour. Only a pile of cleanly picked bones were left as evidence of their existence. The Bratwurst and Salmon were met with love by everyone as well, and later we played Jenga while I finished off an Arrogant Bastard. Beautiful Day indeed and except for the war zone that is my kitchen, I'm one happy camper.

To Josh, Heather and Lisa for helping out with the curry sauce and manning the grill whilst I played host and/or boozed, thank you so much for your help!

Drake's Hop Salad distracts me from Foosball but not from awesome handshakes

It's Friday, and I know what time it is...Unhappy Rammed Sheep night! No but seriously, Tiffany actually found out tonight the origin for the bar's name. It came about  because the owners had a failed graphic t-shirt venture and had a large quantity of left over t-shirts available with 'Surly Goat.' So they named their bar after it. I feel like that would be like naming my first born child after my unpublished spec screenplay, the Untitled Dennis Dugan Comedy Project. I still believe they could use my help writing the Grown Ups sequel.

We have a huge group here with Tiffany, Matt, Maryelle and Glen, who brought several more excellent friends. We're having a fairly outrageously good time here and these wonderful peeps are inspiring me to break into Eddie Murphy's golden hit featuring Rick James:

After smelling and tasting this salad o' hops, it's safe to presume they named this beer because it's like a mixed fruit salad, but with hops. There's a complexity of hops here that results in a VERY intense pine aroma and taste. And apparently the Drake's brewers eat their mixed fruit salad with grain vodka, because this IPA clocks in a startling 9% alcohol.

The reviews online are overwhelmingly positive for this brew but I'm not a huge fan, it's not well balanced and is a little intense for me. ARMAGEDDON rating.


Of course I played Foosball tonight with Tiff, Maryelle and Glen. Maryelle and I created a handshake that's almost but not quite as cool as this one. Something to aspire too...

Drake's 1500 Pale Ale closes out the work year at Library Alehouse

Tore out of work early Friday hoping to catch my first happy hour at Library, alas, it ended half an hour earlier than David and I had believed. Next time Library, next time. Your Chipotle Shrimp Quesadilla was still bomb.

Surprisingly they were out of my first two choices, various Christmas ales, but Drake's 1500 proved a worthy substitute. Medium bodied pale ale with a mouthfull bursting with hoppy bitterness. Pale ale with with a bite, an excellent beer to fuel a hopefully trouble-filled night celebrating the holiday break. TRANSFORMERS rating.

Drake's Jolly Roger Imperial Red Ale is my kind of pirate poison

Needing something strong to power me through my room cleaning (been at least 6 months), we poured Drake's Jolly Roger. Rumor has it, that Drake's brews a different style of beer every year named "Jolly Roger" and this is their 21st year. If the lore is true, color me impressed. Making a different quality beer every year takes a real mad scientist. I don't know how the other 20 turned out, but this Imperial Red Ale is a tasty.

I wonder who's that handsome bastard?

Imperial = strong (8%), but here it doesn't affect the red ale taste, just makes you warm and fuzzy. This brew is well rounded with earthy, chocolate tones rounding out the flavor profile. This is unique and nicely crafted; welcome to THE ROCK rating.