What's been going on....

Here's a few quick updates from my world of beer over the last couple months:

I finished "the wall" of beer at WOW Wingery in Mt. Juliet along with my friend, Nate. We each drank 45 different beers over a course of 3 or 4 months and are anxiously awaiting our pictures to go up on the wall of fame there. We are happy to report we never had to resort to drinking any domestic Bud or Miller swill thanks to WOW's decent rotation of good beer selections. Some "new to me" beers that I had on my way to 45 included Lion Stout from Sri Lanka, Magic Hat's Winter Howl (draught), Victory's Weizen Bock, Rogue's Mocha Porter, North Coast's Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, Abita Strawberry, and # 45 itself: Abita 's Abbey Ale (pint bottle - photo above).

I had a surprisingly good Indian lager recently at one of my wife's favorite ethnic restaurants, Bombay Palace, in Nashville. It was a pint bottle of Flying Horse and went great with the excellent spicy food.

My friend Nate who I mentioned above has gotten into home brewing himself and shared with with me one of his first creations, Nate's Black IPA. It's a bottled stout with extra hoppiness (which I love). It was very good with a nice finish and much better than many beers I have paid good money for. Thanks, Nate, for sharing and good luck with your future brewing because you are off to a great start!

As a belated Christmas present to myself, I got a variety six-pack from my local fav beer store, The Mount Juliet Beer Company, that included the following:

- O'Fallon Hemp Hop Rye out of Missouri - very nice

- Blue Heron Pale Ale out of New York - excellent

- Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale from the Netherlands - smooth and clean

- Point Brewing's Burly Brown Ale - Wisconsin - two thumbs up

- Jackmans APA from Left Hand Brewing out of Colorado - decent

- Stoudt's Scarlet Lady Ale ESB out of Pennsylvania - not too shabby

Speaking of Christmas, I am halfway through four huge pints of beer that my lovely wife, Ashlee, got for me at a store in Louisville, KY, that we visited in November. I recently had the Punk IPA from Brew Dog Brewing out of Scotland at a dinner party which had excellent hoppy flavor and finish. I also had the Rye 75 IPA from Bluegrass Brewing in Louisville. It too was tremendously hoppy and I loved every drop of it. I have two more IPA styles from BBC to go. Thanks so much, honey!!

Other random beer encounters include:

A draught glass of Monk in A Trunk Belgian-Style Organic Amber Ale from Inlet Brewing in Jupiter, Florida, at Havana Hideout Restaurant in Lake Worth, Florida.

A draught glass of Bosco's Hopgod in celebration of National Hop Day on Feb. 26. It was pretty good but not near as hoppy as I was expecting.

I also bought a couple of new canned beers from Butternut Brewing in New York while shopping at Green Life Grocery in Chattanooga recently. I have had the Porkslap Pale Ale which was excellent. I have not opened the Moo Thunder Stout yet, but actually already had a sip of it when my wife unknowingly ordered a can of it at The Flying Saucer in Nashville recently. It's a great stout and I am glad to see it available in Nashville since Chattanooga and Music City have not always been on the same beer distribution list.

Finally, while on a long weekend trip to Miami recently to see my beloved Duke University Blue Devils play basketball vs. the Miami Hurricanes, my wife and I visited Titanic Brewing and Restaurant next to the U of M campus. We went for the beer (which was tasty) but also loved the food. Definitely a place to visit again if we get the opportunity. Beer-wise: I tried their White Star IPA (of course) which was decent albeit not super-hoppy. I enjoyed my second-choice even more which was a seasonal: the Dry Hopped Pale Ale. This was a crisp tasting beer with a nice hop flavor and finish. I had a sip of their Boiler Room Nut Brown Ale as well which my wife ordered and was pleased with. I thought it was decent as well.

EuropBEERan

My wife and I took a quick week-long trip to Europe after Christmas visiting England, Portugal and Barcelona, Spain. I was able to a sample a good amount of new-to-me beer during the trip especially in England where in the couple of days we were there we were able to visit four different pubs - three in London and one in the small village of Lacock.

In London we went to three different pubs: The Lyceum Tavern and The Wellington in the theatre district near our hotel, and The Stanhope Arms in the Gloucester Road district.
The three pubs that I visited in London had a good selection of draught beer to choose from including some great cask ales. Two of them were loyal to national brands (Samuel Smith Brewing in Yorkshire for The Lyceum and Fuller Brewing of London for The Stanhope). There are also "free houses" in England which serve a variety of different brews from competing breweries. The Wellington is a free house.

I had the cask-conditioned Old Brewery Pale Ale at The Lyceum. It was good and quite inexpensive. We spent more time at The Wellington the first night we were there and I had four of their offerings that were on tap. They were White Shield IPA (considered a microbrewery but under the Coors-Molson umbrella), Vicious IPA (an American wheat IPA that I was skeptical about but was actually really good), Sharp's Christmas Ale (a nice seasonal brew) and Sharp's Doom Bar Ale (a popular bitter from Sharp's brewing on the west coast of England). My wife also discovered a bottled alcoholic ginger beer called Crabbie's from Scotland that she really liked. I tried it and thought it was OK, but ginger beer has never been my thing. Interestingly, it is served with a glass of ice which is surprising since most beer in Europe isn't served or advertised as "ice cold" at all and you usually have to ask for ice in colas, water, etc. if you want it.

On a day-trip excursion out from London to see Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the city of Bath, we stopped for lunch at The George Inn pub in the medieval village of Lacock. The George is a beautiful old pub and was loyal to Wadworth Brewing. a regional southern England brewery started back in 1875. I was able to order a pint of their famous 6X Cask Ale with lunch. It was delicious with my fish and chips.

We we got back to London we were dropped off in the Gloucester Road district and we happened upon the Stanhope Arms for dinner. They had a strong collection of cask ales on tap as well and I had three more of from under the Fuller Brewing umbrella. I saved the names of them on our international cell phone, but have yet to retrieve them (dead battery). When I do, I will update this blog entry. BLOG UPDATE (1/17/11): The international cell phone is alive again, and the names of the three beers I had here were: Fullers Spitfire (a bitter), John Smith's Extra Cold (i.e. Extra Smooth) is a bitter as well, and Timothy Taylor's Landlord Pale Ale. Obviously, if I couldn't remember the names, they must not have been too great, but actually they were all good for the most part and I would definitely remember if I didn't like one of them.

The best thing about the beer in England was that it was, surprisngly to me, VERY GOOD...I was very skeptical since many "English" brands sold here in the U.S. are definitely not my favorites, but perhaps it's like Australia where they send Foster's over here because it's awful and keep the good beer for themselves? Either way, I can't wait to come back and check out more pubs and more English beer on tap!

Moving on to Lisbon, Portugal and Barcelona, Spain, was a great experience and each city/country is beautiful and vibrant in its own way. However, beer is not the biggest forte in Iberia. In fact, "cervaza" is "cervaza", pretty much wherever you go. Light, fairly tasteless beer with weak color and body. Now, I enjoy a good cervaza on a hot day in say, the Caribbean, and while the winter temps were mild in Portugal and Spain, it was far from hot. Lisbon's main beer was Super Bock, which is a deceptive name since it was neither "super" nor a "bock" which I associate with a much stronger lager. I guess "So-So Cerveza" doesn't having the selling punch. I had another bottled beer on a pub crawl we did, but didn't catch the name of it, but trust me, it was a cervaza and it could have been Super Bock for all I know. The photo above was taken in a club during our pub crawl and you can see your choices are limited no matter how many taps they present to you.

Again, things did not improve in Barcelona, although I did see a few more names of beer including Estrelle Damm which is pretty good and you can get it here. It's always fun to order "another Damm beer." The only one I partook of in Barcelona was San Miguel and as you can see in the photo above that my wife took, they serve 'em big in Barcelona. It reminds me of a quote from my high school chum, Kim, who once said at an Atlanta Braves game..."Baseball is kind of boring, but at least they serve really big beers!!"

Epilogue: I was able to have another great English beer at Heathrow Airport on the way home during a layover coming back from Barcelona. It was Stone Cold Ale from Lymestone Brewing. a new, small, independent brewery located in Staffordshire. It didn't go real well with my Asian dish I ordered (my fault), but it was a great beer nonetheless.