Our Tastes-- Voodoo Doughnut Pretzel Raspberry Chocolate Ale

Another contribution by Junk and a taster I finally got to try. This line of beers also includes a banana doughnut something or other, I think? VDPRCA pours a dark brown with chestnut highlights and is made with 10 ingredients, "2-Row, Munich, C120, Chocolate, Black - Kiln Coffee & Rogue Farms Dare™ and Risk™ Malts; Rogue Farms Rebel Hops™; Pretzels, Raspberry Extract, Chocolate, Pacman Yeast & Free Range Coastal Water". The aroma is dead on for absolute German chocolate covered pretzels!! Now let's be honest the taste is a gimmick and I often wonder what "flavor" we will taint good beer with next along with a snazzy label just to push conventional thought. Having said that and being a capitalist and proponent of the free market, I'd buy it again, try it with doughnuts and the shirt though pink is a must have for me. 5.4% abv for this candy coated "doughnut" brown ale. Will be trying the bacon one when I get it with my bacon-lovers t-shirt on.

Brew Batch #65 La Gran Calabaza...Pastel

Into the keg today at FG 1.010+ 0.001 @74F. The color is spot on and the nose hints away at pumpkin pie but it's much more subdued that I thought. This recipe has continued to haunt me, but I've decided not to give up. I'll just continue to take good notes and alter it where necessary. I'll be dropping it cold and blowing off the keg, so in the mean time while it's pressurizing, I hope the nose and flavor pump up a bit. On the FG taste it seemed more like an amber that someone jut put spices in, not 8lbs of pumpkin. 6.83% and we'll see where it goes, even have a great tap handle for the keezer!

National Beer Day

I had no idea that this was such a big deal that we celebrated New Beer's Eve (April 6th), to coincide with it. So on this day in 1933 FDR signed the Cullen-Harrison Act which allowed people to buy, sell and drink beer again as long as it was <4 .05="" 1.5million="" a="" abv.="" amstel="" barrels="" be="" beer="" day="" drank="" drinking="" enough="" href="http://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/by-state/" in="" is="" light="" more="" must="" oddly="" of="" one="" popular="" population="" s="" so="" than="" that="" the="" why="">Colorado
produced in all of 2013. To put it all in perspective, every man, woman and child (and yes the census included Native American's as of 1930) consumed 47 ounces of beer on that one day. You read it here first.

Our Tastes-- Southern Tier Warlock

I finally got a chance to sample Southern Tier Warlock and it did not disappoint. The dichotomy to ST's Imperial Ale, Pumking, this imperial stout has already been perfected considering it's only been brewed since 2013. Pouring a clear medium brown with slight garnet hues, the white thin head gave way to pumpkin pie and hazel nut (good pick up by The Taskmaster). The taste is a bit overly spicy in the nutmeg realm with much bitter coffee in conjunction with allspice. I haven't tried a lot of ST brews, but after checking out their website, I may have to brush up a bit more on them. I noticed at least 4 pumpkin based beers, so apparently they're not skittish of the gourd! I'll definitely be picking this full bodied "Black Series" beer up again next year. 8.6% abv