David and Walker are drinking a different beer each day* for an entire year, 365 beers in all, starting August 5th, 2010. We're writing about our daily regime to share the experiences and delicious discoveries with our friends and mild acquaintances to inspire YOU to bring previously unknown beers to your lips. (*limit one new beer per day consumed before midnight, no catch up days allowed)
Our skiing group is heading to the fancy shmancy St. Regis hotel at the base of Deer Valley ski mountain on our final night here. It's built at the top of the hill and you have to take a tram from the base of the mountain up to the resort. This company knows how to build brand luxury by creating an event out of a hotel stay. All that's missing is blowing of trumpets upon your arrival. Once you ride up the tram, which can hold around 20 people at capacity, you are looking down at everyone. You feel like the king of a castle.
Speaking of kings, apparently the creator of Papa John's owns the entire top floor of the hotel. We're in the presence of delivery pizza royalty! Hot damn, I've really made it. Once we're on the outside patio, the view only supports my perception that this is less of a hotel and more of a castle.
The temperature is about to dip below the freezing mark and I'm dying to order a hot toddie, but Sam suggests that I order an ice cold beer that fits the occasion and surroundings. My fingers are numb but as the old saying goes, when in Rome...drink a beer (*citation needed).
With the sun setting behind us, I order an Outer Darkness. It's from a local brewery, Squatters and it's one of their premium beers that arrives in a 750ml bottle.
The label is unquestionably cool. It has the eyes of Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Nerd alert
Look how beautiful it pours! There's a surprisingly light roast aroma with a bit of licorice that arrives out of a fantastic toffee colored head. The glass is cold but at 10.5%, this liquid is warming me up almost as well as a hot toddie. And it pours like pure unadulterated motor oil. I love it. The menu says it's "one of the most intensely flavored beers a brewer can create." Will the beer live up to these bold words?
Licorice and an intense roasted malt greets my tongue, as well as some oak and molasses. The brew lives up to the words on the label. This isn't a rich beer, but the unique flavors are incredibly intense. I'm not sure I've had a beer where the flavor characters of molasses and licorice assault my palate like this. A small sip will leave you tasting the licorice long afterwards. It stays with you, like the smell of a teenager who uses too much Axe body spray. It reminds me of drinking a liquor with a strong character, like Jaegermeister or Fernet. David would really like this beer and I hope he ends up in Utah sometime to sample this devil. I pour nearly two full glasses for other people in the group to taste and everyone loves it, but it certainly is not for the faint hearted. This actually quite accurately describes the people sitting around the table pretty well; our skiing group is nothing but adventurous. Sorry Obi Wan Kenobi, this SkyWalker is going over to the darkside. BAD BOYS rating.
At sunset, a hotel employee comes out with a sword and a bottle of champagne. Apparently at the end of each day they saber a bottle of champagne. Talk about classy! Here is a video of the event and it's about 2 minutes long because the gentleman tells a fascinating story about the origin of sabering a bottle. Could you guess that Napoleon had something to do with it? What a pint sized badass.
I picked up the Kolsch because my latest homebrew, the Heisenberg's Honey Wheat, is made with a Kolsch yeast and it's getting raving reviews from people, so I'm on a quest to sample other beers with similar yeast profiles in order to compare.
It says HooDoo on the Surly Goat menu but google says otherwise. Tonight's beer is the Summer Solstice Kolsch from Uinta Brewing in Utah and the evening is shaping up to be a good night for beer.
It's remarkably crisp and clean but there is nothing clean about it. It's an excellent summer patio beer, that you could drink a sixer of and not be overwhelmed by hops or flavor. It's only 4%, so you probably need to drink a sixer to get properly sauced, so don't forget about your friends Bloody Mary and Mr. Mai Tai. TRANSFORMERS rating.
But guess who Surly Goat decided to stock? Bruery Three French Hens. It's only 18 bucks! The bottle, which you can't find at a store anymore, probably costs at least $14 or $15. For this years The Bruery's limited run of the 12 Days of Christmas, this price is quite a steal. Here's my old write up: 3 French Hens. French Hens can be aged for up to 9 years, but Matt and I aren't going to let that happen. For America Dammit.
Hello Utah, I'm in Park City! Me, the parentals and friends the Veselka's arrived hopping to chow down on grub and delicious local brew at The Wasatch Brew Pub but were confronted with a 45 minute wait so we headed next door to an Italian restaurant for a Carne pizza (italian meat lovers) and a beer from Missiula, Montana: Moose Drool.
Love a good beer name
Such a sexy name, Moose Drooool is a brown ale that pours a dark hue and has high carbonation. He drools nutty with a tinge of coffee as you finish tasting the saliva. Overall, it's very similar to english brown ales, and I don't know if it's the carbonation or the smooth malts, but I actually prefer this over Newcastle. Bold words I know, but it's uniqueness made an impression. If you encounter this moose, drink his milkshake. TRANSFORMERS rating.
So what's the plural of Moose - Mooses, Moosen or Meesen? It's a fun and legendary debate, but how often do you encounter multiple Moose in the wild? I actually did encounter a pair, Mom and Calf, one college summer at a Sigma Chi leadership course out in the god forsaken woods and the above question never entered my mind. My only reaction was, "Shards, that's a big f*cking Moose." And then I ran away like a girl scout because getting between a 1,000 pound mother and calf was not how my fortune teller told me I would die.
