New Autumn Brews

I am having a great fall so far this year and much of that happiness comes from some good, new (to me) seasonal beer that I have been having. Here's a quick run-down:

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale: I had this at WOW Wingery in Mt. Juliet as part of their "Drink the Wall" quest that I am currently on (see previous blog). They served it in a glass rimmed with brown sugar and the results were phenomonal. The brewers from Maryland do it right again.

I got a growler of Terrapin Pumpkinfest Ale at the Mt. Juliet Beer Company (MJBC). Amazing aroma and taste of all the spices of the season. This Athens, GA, product has been my (and my wife's) favorite so far of the fall brews.

I recently got a growler of Yazoo Fallfest Ale as well from the MJBC. Although not as good as the Terrapin product, it was still a good variation and worth carrying this Nashville-produced product to a BYOB Halloween party that my wife and I attended.

Greetings from the Portland, Oregon Airport

Who says you can't get anything good from an airport gift shop? My wife recently returned from a trip out west to Portland, Oregon, and found some great craft beer for me as she waited to board her flight home. Portland's a great craft brewing town with a couple of well-known producers, Rogue and Bridgeport, as well as several other smaller regional brands. Here's the list of what she brought me (none of which I have had before) in the order they have now been consumed:

Bridgeport Hop Harvest Imperial Ale - this was a pint bottle claiming only a one-hour process from field harvest to brewing. It is triple-hopped and delicious from Bridgeport Brewing, the grand-daddy of all craft brewers in Oregon.

Summer Grifter IPA - MacTarnahan's Brewery - This was a 12 oz. bottle from a small brewery in Portland that I had not heard of before. It was an excellent IPA with nice hoppiness and finish. Probably my favorite of the three I received.

Nice Rack IPA - Great name! This decent IPA is produced by Southern Oregon Brewery (SOB) in Medford. It was also a pint bottle.

IN OTHER NEWS:

This weekend (October 16 to be exact) I joined WOW Wingery's "Drink the Wall and Get Your Wings" Club over in nearby Mt. Juliet - 3 down and 42 0r so to go - New Belgium's Ranger IPA, Stone IPA and a Dogfish Head Pumpkin Ale (new to me) in a glass rimmed with brown sugar. The bartender said most folks can't do it in a year....we'll see about that!

My local fav beer store, Mount Juliet Beer Company, is now serving half-size growlers which are a great way to sample a new or beloved draught (works out to about 3 glasses) while limiting caloric intake or worrying about it going flat if you try and space out the five to six glasses you get from a full growler. Mike, the owner, also recently announced eight more taps to be coming in!! It's great to see the MJBC having such great success!!

Havin' a Drinky in INKY

I took a quick weekend trip up north to INKY (that's Indiana and Kentucky to those not in the know) to play some poker at a couple of Indiana casinos on the Ohio River that are sucking money at a steady rate out of Louisville and Cincinnati. Good job Kentucky and Ohio for letting that happen just like stupid Tennessee letting money flow out of both ends of it into North Carolina and Mississippi. Keep trying to legislate morality and keeping losing revenue to your border states. Just plain stupid. OK, I'm getting off my soap box...the poker didn't go real well, but I was able to drown my sorrows at a couple of nice brewpubs in the Louisville area.

Saturday afternoon I stopped in the town of New Albany, Indiana, just across the river from Louisville to check out The New Albanian Brewing Company. The town was holding an outdoor fall festival known as "Fringe Fest." NABC was participating as well at their new Bank Street Brewhouse location with live music, outdoor grilling and, of course, beer specials. They had $4 draughts and I partook in three of their eight choices. I started of with their imperial IPA that they call Hoptimus (great name and logo). It was uber-hoppy just like I love my IPAs, and with an ABV over 10%, it's a powerfully strong and tasty brew. Next I tried the Community Dark. This is a dark-colored, yet light-bodied ale that was pretty good albeit a little bitter in the aftertaste to me. The weak ABV of 3.7% was surprising. My last selection was the Oaktimus: that's the Hoptimus soaked in oak chips as a speciality brew. Wowzers! Great, great beer. Very unique and creative. They weren't doing growlers during the festival, or I would have been bringing some of this stuff home with me. What a great find this place was. I can't wait to try some more of their concoctions. I may be back up this way in a couple of weeks and will hit this place again for sure if I do.

I played poker Sunday morning at a casino right outside Cincinnati in tiny Lawrenceburg, Indiana. No great results but at least I lasted longer than the day before and was just card dead as opposed to taking one horrible bad beat after another like the day before. On my way back down through Louisville towards home I stopped at the original location of Bluegrass Brewing Company in the St. Andrews section of town. My wife and I and our friends, Nate and Ginny, stopped here on the way home a few months ago on a Sunday and they weren't serving beer until 1 PM. Ugghh! Stupid blue laws. Almost as dumb as no casinos in your state that is surrounded by them.

Annnnnnyway, I planned better this time and arrived at about half-time of the early NFL games and bellied up to the bar to check out some scores and fantasy football team updates as well as try a few brews. Their selection was fairly familiar to me, but one speciality brew with a clever name that caught my eye was the Card Strong U of Ale in honor of the hometown University of Louisville Cardinals. Unfortunately, the name was about the best thing about this rather ho-hum brew. The rest of the line-up was either ones I had already had or just didn't do anything for me, so I opted for their "guest tap" and selected the Three Floyd's Scottish Ale. TFBC is an award-winning Artisinal brewery in northern Indiana (the town of Munster) just south of Chicago...yes, there is a casino south of Chicago in Indiana...those Hoosiers are smart enough to know there's more to state revenue than corn. Even when the bartender, adorned in his BBC shirt, sat the draught on the bar in front of me, he couldn't help but say...."this is a great beer." He was right. Spectacular beer! Thanks BBC for brewing good beer and not being snobby enough to recognize that others are doing the same (if not better).