I'm in Oakland for the National Homebrewer's Conference. Expecting great beer and food.

O'so Picnic Ants on tap at Capt Mike's in downtown Kenosha.

Beware the Night Stalker!

The scene opens with Carl Kolchak, wearing his signature seersucker suit and pork pie hat, heading down a dark alley way, furtively glancing over his shoulder. He knows that in the dark shadows of the night, all types of supernatural creatures hide just waiting for their unsuspecting victims. He isn’t afraid of them, he plans to expose them to the world, that’s why he is known as the ‘Night Stalker’.

Sorry for the literary license and the flashback to the 1970’s. Goose Island has a new seasonal beer out, named Night Stalker, in tribute to the 1974 TV series of the same name set in Chicago.

You don’t have to be afraid of this Night Stalker. While it is big (11.7 % ABV) and dark, it is still very friendly. Night Stalker is Goose Island’s Imperial Stout. It is the base beer for their Bourbon Barrel Stout, however instead of aging in bourbon barrels, this beer gets dry hopped.

Night Stalker has a caramel and toffee nose with some hints of dark fruits. There is some hop aroma, however the malt aromas dominate as they should.
It is a deep black beer, with a dark caramel colored head that is long lasting. The body is rich and mouth coating. Flavors of caramel, coffee, toffee chocolate malt and black licorice dance over your tongue, causing you to marvel at the complexity of the beer. The dry hopping adds some bitterness to the finish, however it is well balanced for the style. There is a slight alcohol bite in the finish, which acts more as a warning not to over-consume.

I think this version is better than the bourbon barrel version. The Imperial Stout characteristics are able to show through and are thoroughly enjoyable.

Night Stalker is currently available on tap at Capt. Mikes, downtown Kenosha.

On the 3rd day of December, my true friend gave to me.....Beer!

Greetings from the great Pacific Northwest. I decided it was time to talk about beer again. I've decided to not limit my comments to Southeastern Wisconsin. I will discuss beer where ever I find it.

My freinds Tom and Becky and I have headed west for the 13th Annual Holiday Ale Festival in Portland, OR. This is my 4th trip to this festival and I can not say enough good things about it. I would recommend it to any beer lover.

On December 3rd, we flew into Seattle and planned a leisurely drive down to Portland. Along the way we did stop for a beverage or two. Our first stop was Fish Brewing Company in Olympia, WA. We had a nice lunch and sampled several of the products from Fish, including Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Fish Tale Organic India Pale Ale, as well as several beers from the Leavenworth brand of beers, also made by Fish. If you get the chance to visit the Fish Brew Pub, enjoy their beers and the good food too.

A few miles down the road, in Centralia, Dick's Brewing Company, shares space with Northwest Sausage and Deli. While not the standard brewpub, Dick's does offer a tasty selection of smoked meats and sausages. And then there are the over 20 different brews made through out the year. While there we tried Dick Danger Ale, Dick's Cream Stout and several Belgium style brews.

We arrived in Portland later that evening, and after checking into our hotels, went straight to Pioneer Square for the Holiday Ale Fest. The festival features over 40 strong, winter brews. Several of the beers featured were vintage barrels, which often were limited to a keg or 2. That evening we had the oportunity to taste beers from Hair of the Dog, Brasserie Dubuisson Freres, BridgePort Brewing Company and Firestone Walker Brewing Company. Some of the specialties were tapped out before our arival, however there were still too many beers to sample that evening. The small crowd allowed easy access to the servers and gave us the opportunity to be selective. This was the first year for a Wednesday session, creating more midweek festival time with small crowds, something which would soon be lacking.

The Beer Geek Returns or Chain, Chain, Chain...Chain of Brewpubs

More beer geek thoughts from Terry...

Since my first Beer Geek v. Beer Snob article had good feedback, I’ll try again. This time the snobbery struck close to home. I was at Romans Pub having a beer with one of my oldest friends and the conversation was about beer, of course. I mentioned the Rock Bottom- and the BOOM there it was, Beer Snobbery - “ I don’t care for them since they’re a chain” replied my friend. I sipped my Dragon Milk Stout, bit my tongue, and measured my response. Having more than one location would appear to be the sign of success. Do we criticize Rogue or Great Dane because they have expanded? Why does the Rock continue to get the “chain” treatment? Last time I looked at medals given out at GABF, Rock Bottoms, from all over the country, were winning with different recipes.

I choose my brewpubs based on a lot of things; atmosphere, price, pub food, customer service and yes the beer. Rock Bottom has scored high on my list on all of these. The mug club is an outstanding bargain; where else are you going on a Wednesday night, for $2 beers and free appetizers? The food is terrific and it is extremely family friendly. Now the beer- go get a growler of Up Your Kilt Scottish Ale and compare it with the peaty example from Sprecher. I think you will find Rock Bottom an excellent example of the style.

When it comes to my brewpubs, I do not care if it is a chain, or the beer is brewed with extract, or shipped in from Iowa, I go there for fresh beer, good pub food and the atmosphere. Two years ago, before I visited my brother in San Diego, I did a little research on the beer scene. Yes, there are a lot of no-brainers, Stone was the first stop, half hour from my brothers place and Pizza Port was 2 blocks from the hotel. However when asking locals, I got a lot of Snobbery about Karl Strauss Brewpub. The beer “snob” community despised it. We all know the late Mr. Strauss is a beer legend in these parts, but is not so appreciated in San Diego.

Well as a geek, not a snob, I found the perfect opportunity to visit a Karl Strauss right next to Lego Land. It was crowded, and appeared to be like a TGIF without the crap on the wall. Bottom line is I’m glad I went, because I had the best microbrewed Hefe Weizen I have ever had. I wish Mr. Strauss had opened up one of his brewpubs here in Wisconsin. It would just be another “chain” brewpub I’d love to go to.

Cheers,
Terry
Beer Geek in Racine

Everyone must get Stone

Stone Brewing made its entry into southeast Wisconsin last week with a release party at several bars on the south side of Milwaukee. Several friends and I visited Cafe Lulu and Sugar Maple for the event.

It was my first visit to Cafe Lulu and overall I was impressed. The beer selection was good, however I will admit we focused on the Stone products. The Stone Pale Ale was very nice, with some hop bitterness but not overpowering. Overall a very drinkable beer and at $12 for a pitcher quite affordable. While waiting for the release party to begin we enjoyed having a couple of appetizers. The Hummus Deluxe was tasty and plentiful and a nice change of pace from the standard spinach artichoke dip available elsewhere. We also had the Bleu Lulu, a basket of thick fresh made potato chips with a side of tangy blue cheese dipping sauce. The chips were huge and cooked perfectly cooked, crunchy but not overcooked or greasy. The addition of the blue cheese dip made them even more enjoyable. I was really happy to find such an interesting place to have a bite to eat, especially one so close to Sugar Maple.

After finishing our appetizers, we walked across the street to the Sugar Maple, to see it the release party was in swing there. That was when we found out there had been some transportation problems and pub crawl release party was having a slow start. No matter, Sugar Maple had 3 of the Stone beers on tap and we could start tasting right away. Stone Ruination was our first choice. Ruination is an IPA, however it is probably more correctly an Imperial IPA. It was intensely bitter, the hop character dominated the flavors. That being said though, there was still enough malt to make it an enjoyable beer. We ended up talking with Bruno (the owner) and found out that he was looking forward to having Oaked Arrogant Bastard on tap in a week or 2. Fortunately, my friend Terry who was with us had thought to bring along some samples from his cellar. Terry's brother lives in the San Diego area and often surprises Terry with Stone products that up til now were not available in Wisconsin. Well, the Oaked Arrogant Bastard was just the beginning. Soon bottles of Stone XI, Double Arrogant Bastard, Old Guardian and Vertical 06.06.06 appeared. They were all great beers with varying levels of hops and malt; almost magical elixirs or gifts of the Gods. At some point the tasting notes were forgotten and the simple enjoyment of the brewer's craft took over. With beers like these, you must experience them first hand; everyone must get Stone.

Homebrewers of the World, Unite!!

I recently returned home from a long weekend at the National Homebrewers Convention in Cincinnati, OH. It was several days of beer, chili, beer, food, beer, seminars, some mead, beer, speeches, some cider, more food, and beer. But I am jumping ahead, lets back up and start from the beginning.

Tom, Scott and I (all members of the Kenosha Bidal Society) started out on our journey to Cincinnati on Thursday morning. Now Cincinnati is a 6 1/2 hour drive from Kenosha, so we knew we had a full day ahead of us. Fortunately, we also knew that somewhere in Indiana a brewpub awaited us for lunch. We weren't quite sure where, letting the traffic and associated delays determine that for us.

When we crossed into Indiana, we knew we weren't too far from Three Floyds Brew Pub, however it was still early enough that we felt we should continue on. Now, I had done some homework and I must recommend to anyone traveling and wanting to know where to find breweries or brewpub the following items.

First, Google Earth is a fantastic online mapping system to which you can add the Beer Me! Worldwide Brewery Map. With these two tools you can select a country or a state and see a map showing every brewery for your selection. From this we knew that our next option was the Lafayette Brewing Company in Lafayette, IN or waiting until Indianapolis.

The second recommendation is a GPS unit. I have a Garmin which I have found to be helpful when traveling to unfamiliar locations. The unit I have allows me to load custom Points of Interest. I found a website, POIFriend, where users have loaded Points of Interest files they have created. Specifically, I found a file with every brewery listed by the Brewer's Association. With this file loaded on my GPS unit, it was simply a matter of selecting the brewery of interest and let the GPS calculate the arrival time.

With all this high tech information, we ended up at the Lafayette Brewing Company for lunch. Located in downtown Lafayette, amidst turn of the last century buildings, the LBC was a friendly and attractive restaurant/pub. We started with a sampler round in order to familiarize ourselves with the beers. All the beers were well made and had no fatal flaws, however we seemed to find the hop character in the Eastside Bitter, Tippecanoe Common Ale and Eighty-Five to be too aggressive. The Prophet's Rock Pale Ale was described as "Eminently quaffable!" and it lived up to that description. The Black Angus Oatmeal Stout was also a very nice beer. One very nice option at LBC is that the beers are available by the pint and half-pint; a really great option when you want to try a couple but don't want to over indulge. For lunch, we started with Bavarian Beer Nuggets, described as "balls of spicy sausage, sauerkraut and cream cheese rolled in panko bread crumbs and deep fried." They were quite tasty and something different from the usual wings or onion rings. Tom had a Southwest Chicken Wrap, Scott had the Pulled Pork Beer-B-Q sandwich and I had the Jumbo Pork Tenderloin sandwich. All three were excellent and are recommended. All in all, our visit to LBC was enjoyable and a good way to breakup the drive.

To be continued......