Catching up, starting with last Thursday

Last Thursday my new glassware from Stone showed up via UPS and the IPA glass was tested out shortly after I got home from work with...Stone IPA of course. The tasting glasses are very cool as is the rest of the merchandise.

I had a bottle of Un*Earthly from Southern Tier after the Stone and I've come to the conclusion that it must be the most volatile beer I've bought. As I've stated before, the first bottle I tried back in June did not go over well with me. Not the citrusy hops that I expected but a malty chewy beer that I wasn't too crazy about. The second one I tried was one of the best beers I ever had and the third one was right there too. But the one I tried this time was close to the first one I had. I know Alvey told me that the hoppy profile is the first thing to go with these kinds of beers but this one really surprises me.

I finished the night off with a couple Furious pints at Mainstreet while we watched Kenny, Josh and Tucker play.

Speaking of Surly, let's rewind a little bit and go over the first beer of the night. I called the Liquor Barrel in Golden Valley to see if they got any of the Surly Hell in and sure enough, they did so Allison picked up a couple four packs for me (the limit). After reading about the beer, I tempered my expectations because I too thought that something named Hell would be a more aggressive beer. But like all things, going into it with a bit of skepticism usually ends up giving you a pleasant surprise.

I figured this would be somewhere along the lines of Heineken or Rolling Rock and being that I hate these beers, it took Surly's name for me to even want to try this German style lager. I could taste that it was in the style of the above-mentioned skunky beers but without the stuff that I hate in those beers. Maybe there's hope for this style in my beer world yet. More to come on this when I officially rate it.