Sunday, August 21, 2011

Beer Glassware Porn

This post is purely to make EskimoDave jealous. One day he asked to see my home bar and glassware collection. Those who follow my blog might have noticed the glassware used; yes, it is all mine. I love to collect beer glassware. Not like this guy. There are a few rules about collecting glassware that I firmly stick too. The only style that I am missing is an English thistle.
1. Never pay more than $4 for anything. Unless it is really, really cool. Most of my glassware was found at yard sales or thrift stores for under $1.
2. Never buy anything with chips or imperfections. There will always be a perfect glass to be found.
3. If you find something cool and you already have it, buy it for a friend.
4. If you find a better glass, pass along the old one. If you don't it is called hoarding.
5. Take care and display your collection properly.

This is for you Dave.




And some new beers from Portland.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Driftwood Twenty Pounder

I have lost in my way as a beer blogger. Everyone has a 'thing'. Dan has a great thing going stirring up trouble with CAMRA UK. Even John is getting into the biz with reviews of great beers from far off places. Dave has neglected his old blog but is working hard on Beer on the Rock.


Perhaps I should just stick with being a beer prick! I'm good at it. The best part about being an opinionated prick (at anything) is that you do not always have to be factually correct. You just need the skill to yell louder than everyone else and sound like you know what you are talking about. Which leads me to the newest release by Driftwood: The Twenty Pounder Double IPA. Yes, I know it is the wrong glass to use for an IPA, but it is new and wanted to show it off.

This one is most likely a BCJP 14C: Imperial IPA. The stronger IPAs are an easy target to brew; hop the snot out of anything and people will think it is good. Sadly this misses the mark. The nose on this thing speaks of PNW Cascadian hop joy. Miss Clavel turned on her light and said something is not right. It is all there: grapefruit citrus, spruce but it seems unbalanced. A sip reveals all. Holy unbalanced hops Batman! It is almost painful. It burns of nail polish, pine sol and grapefruit seed extract. With hops this harsh you need something to balance things out, with more malts or other hop varieties. Two good examples of Imperial IPAs are Pliny the Elder and Hop Donkey. I had a Pliny recently and remembered why this is one of the greatest beers in the world. The Half Pints Humulus Ludicrous was also a great soup soup beer.

Back to the beer, the ending burns everything and could flare up your GERD. The aftertaste is sticky with pine pitch, grapefruit rind and burns the nose. Sadly I didn't like it. This is so odd for Driftwood, usually their beers are awesome. Oh well at least we can look forward to the Satori.

Taste +1
Aftertaste -1
Alcohol Content +1 9%
Value 0
Appearance +1 (always great art!)