Long awaited conclusion

I just can't seem to stay consistent with this damn thing, can I?

I figured since another Month of Awesomeness is just around the corner, I'd better finish off the last one.
Yes, I did end up drinking the beer but sadly fell short with posting the results.

Let's take care of that old business so I can get started with the next one when it arrives.

December 26th saw several beers, these being the highlights.

My favorite beer to pair with my Monte Cristos. A great way to kick off your morning too!.

 

My birthday beer (12/27)

December 28th.

December 29th

December 30th

And of course, celebrated the New Year with a very appropriate beer.

Now let's just hope that I can be a little more consistent for the next Month of Awesomeness and finish off this part of it in a timely manner.  Let the games begin!

December 25th - St Bernardus Christmas Ale

The most special day of the month (of awesomeness) deserves the best beer, right? I guess it could be up for debate but considering that St Bernardus Abt 12 is my favorite beer and the St Bernardus Christmas Ale is a very similar beer, it's hard to argue too much.

It's a great beer for a good price too, maybe a buck or two more than the regular St Bernardus offerings. I shared some with my nephew who lacked proper glassware but it resulted in demonstration of just how luscious of a head this beer gives you.

It was my only beer of the day. Well, by day I mean hours during which the sun was in the sky. We later ventured over to the Nortons' for several more beers including something I brought, another can't-go-wrong beer for the season. I bought two bottles and only made it through one. We'll see how that second bottle tastes next  year.

December 24th - Nøgne Ø/Jolly Pumpkin/Stone Special Holiday Ale

Christmas Eve had rolled around finally and I got to bust out some of the beers that I had been saving for this exact holiday. The first was an unofficial entry into the MoA but still worth mentioning.

Goose Island's Christmas Ale didn't seem like the most intriguing beer since brown ales are usually at the bottom of my list of styles to try but I really liked the label and always appreciate a nod to a great holiday. The beer was about what I expected, nothing special but a solid and very drinkable example of the style.

The next beer was one I've had for a long time and was a bit nervous to try because I wasn't sure how it would hold up. Luckily, not only did it really seem to hold up well but unless I'm not remembering the last time I had this accurately, I think the flavors and aromas really came out more after sitting for awhile. This version of the Special Holiday Ale was the one that was brewed at Nøgne Ø.

This is a super unique beer that I grabbed a few bottles of because not only did it sound good but I really loved the label artwork. After sipping on this one again I'm happy to say that the beer inside definitely matched the spirit of the holiday because this stuff just tasted like Christmas. The spices really worked well, specifically the juniper.  I'm not sure if they'll ever make this one again but put it on my Christmas list if they do.

December 23rd - Great Divide Belgian Style Yeti

Belgian Style Yeti is a beer I've been siting on for about half of the year and I really didn't know what to expect. Alvey was sampling some at the Four Firkins last month and while it's tough to get a good gauge on a beer in that setting, I knew that I liked it.

I also have some Tiny from Weyerbacher which is also described as a Belgian style imperial stout. When I first heard about this style, I half expected some odd spicing to be thrown into the beer. Since I was trying to keep to beers that I had matching glassware for in the MoA, I opted for the Great Divide instead.

I'm not sure exactly what about this beer made it a "Belgian style imperial stout" but I know that it was probably my favorite of the Yeti varieties. Not to say I didn't like the others but this one seemed to have a deep, rich chocolate flavor that really stood out to me. I'm glad I have another bottle or two stashed away.

December 22nd - New Belgium Lips of Faith - Transatlantique Kriek

By now, you shouldn't be surprised to see a Lips of Faith beer from New Belgium in the MoA lineup. This is another one that I've been sitting on for awhile and really looking forward to drinking.

As has been discussed before, I'm a sucker for beers with cherry and I've had the kriek style before. Interesting story behind this beer:

In a never-ending quest to create new beers and defy category, New Belgium Brewing and Brewerij Boon of Belgium have partnered together again to create Transatlantique Kriek - a spontaneously fermented lambic ale made with Polish cherries. This authentic kriek beer began life in the oaken vessels at Frank Boon’s brewery in the Lembeek region of Belgium. After more than two years aging, Boon’s offering shipped across the Atlantic and found its way to the intuitive palate of New Belgium’s Brewmaster Peter Bouckaert. After much sampling and internal consultation, Peter and his brew staff created a full-bodied golden lager to round out the light-bodied kriek.

I think this one's done and gone so I'm glad I got a shot to try it when it was still available.

December 21st - Boulevard Smokestack Series Bourbon Barrel Quad

December 21st saw a night of beer for dinner. By that I don't mean meticulous menu planning meant to pair wonderfully with the complexity of a wonderfully crafted Belgian beer. I mean I started drinking beer and forgot about eating dinner.


Not that that's a bad thing. Nothing wrong with being extra happy on a Wednesday night. It was actually a two-fer that night (well, maybe one and a halfer) because I started off with St. Sebastiaan Dark.

Admittedly, I do things bass ackward sometimes and it's not usually by choice. This time it happened because of my unstoppable habit of collecting beer glassware. I saw a St. Sebastiaan glass at the Four Firkins a couple few months back and loved it. So naturally I needed to find the beer to drink out of that glass. This night the glass got broken in.

The beer was really nice. Not mind blowing by any means but it was a very nice easy to drink belgian (maybe dubbel?) beer to sip on when you have no agenda and want to utilize a cool drinking glass and pour out of a bad ass bottle.

Next up was a Boulevard Smokestack Series beer and not just any one, probably my favorite one to date. And that's saying a lot.  The first time I had BBQ I thought it was one of the five best beers I ever tried. It was a combination of everything that I loved in the beer world. Quad+Bourbon Barrels+Cherries. What wasn't to like?

Subsequent experiences of it weren't quite that good with a couple of them being downright disappointing (more on that down the road... maybe). I wanted to see how this bottle would treat me.

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't as good as that first bottle and I'm not sure if it's because I changed or the beer did. Didn't matter. All that did matter was that it wasn't the same bad experience again  and even though it was a lot boozier than I remembered, I was happy to drink this one down all by myself.

December 20th - New Belgium Lips of Faith Le Terroir

Alright, back to this. I've fallen behind in writing about the Month of Awesomeness but I kept up the important part, the drinking.

December 20th saw yet another visit to the New Belgium Lips of Faith lineup, this time with a personal favorite - Le Terroir. This is a unique sour beer in that it was dry hopped which gave it an unusual extra dimension over other sours out there.

This has to be the Lips of Faith beer that I've bought the most of and with good reason. Not only was the uniqueness of it a draw but it's not too often that you can get a quality sour for less than $10 a bottle. Sadly, I think this was my last one. Here's hoping that I stumble across one more in the back of a fridge or in a hidden box.

December 19th - New Belgium Lips of Faith Eric's Ale

Another week in the MoA brings us to yet another Lips of Faith offering from New Belgium. As I've said I have a bunch of these and this month should see several of them consumed.

Eric's Ale is one that's not even on their website anymore but being a sour ale I wasn't worried about sitting on this one.  It was aged in oak and refermented with peach juice.  I'm not picking up too much of the wood characteristics from this one but the tropical fruit notes are definitely there and in puckering fashion.

I'm thinking this beer would have been best drank on a hot summer day but considering I live in Minnesota, those days are too few and far between to be picky and the fact that it reminded me of such a day means it was a success nonetheless.  Cheers!

December 18th - Fitger's Wildfire Lager and Surly Smoke

Another week in the Month of Awesomeness finished up with a double shot of beer.  Surly Brewin'g's Smoke Lager was the main entry of the day but an even bigger drinking vessel was consumed first, Fitger's Wildfire Lager.

A few of us spent a weekend at the North Shore of Lake Superior last month and the trip really kicked off with an afternoon (ok, late morning into afternoon) of drinking at Fitger's brew pub in Duluth. I got through pretty much every beer that I wanted to try that day except the Wildfire Lager. I did have a sample of it and it was hot. I mean damn spicy hot.

They make it with peppers, habeneros and hatch I believe and it doesn't give just a tingly sensation like all other pepper beers but this stuff is like drinking Tabasco sauce. The flavor isn't as intense as Tabasco but the heat is definitely there. I was the only one in the group intrigued by it but the responsible side of me (there actually is one) kicked in and said I had enough at that point. So I did the next best thing and bought a growler.

Fast forward to yesterday. I knew I'd need help with the growler and I also knew it would pair perfectly with food so I enlisted the help of my friend Noe who has been a big help in my Mexican cooking skills. He really liked the beer like I knew he would and he was surprised at the heat that came from the beer. What we both really liked was the pepper flavor that is very prevalent in this beer as well.

Needless to say it paired very well with the tamales, carnitas and chorizo that we ate for lunch. One pint was plenty for me so I decided to save the rest of the growler to make my own carnitas tonight with it. I'm really looking forward to it, especially since I'm making my carnitas with my new favorite pepper, pablanos. I love the smokiness you get from them and can't wait to see how the beer and the peppers work together.

The next beer is a style that's a usual suspect when Noe and I get together for beers and dinner, smoked beers.  It's a style of beer that I'm not crazy about by itself but is one of my favorites when paired with food. This was a bottle from my cellar and not from the upcoming release and while the smoke faded slightly, the presence still left made for a nice glass of beer to finish up the meal with.

December 17th - Sierra Nevada Ovila Saison

The Ovila Saison has been waiting to be consumed for a long time so the MoA is the perfect time to do it. I'm not saying that it has been in the collection for longer than most others but it's a beer that would have been opened a long time ago if not for one little detail. I really wanted the matching glass.

I really liked the glass the first time I saw it and did my best to track one down locally since I had placed an order for Sierra Nevada swag last year and didn't really want much. I eventually started asking around to see if anybody else wanted to go in with me to save on shipping (the reason I don't order stuff more often). We got lucky and last month they ran a free shipping on orders of $100 or more. Done and done.

I also have a couple bottles of the Ovila Dubbel that have been waiting around for the same reason. I had both beers on tap at Bricks when they first came out so I wasn't in a hurry to open them. The third release in the Ovila series (the quad) dropped this past week so I figured it was time to finally crack one.

The other thing that made it time was that the Four Firkins got in new shipment of the saison and at a damn good deal even ($7.99 a bottle).  I bought a few more to stash because as I said on Friday, saisons are one of my favorite beers to pair with meals. You should too.

December 16th - Ommegang Hennepin

Friday night saw us come to the end of the Ommegang run but it was a damn good run. Hennepin is the only beer from the week that is a part of their regular lineup but that doesn't make it any less awesome. 

This is the bottle that came with the aforementioned gift pack and it's one of my go to saisons because it's pretty easy to find. Since I wanted to finish off the work week how I started it, I decided to make my ever popular pasta last night because I knew it would pair very well with the Hennepin. 

I was right. It did. Saisons/farmhouse ales have become my drink of choice when it comes to a dish with garlic because the spices in the beer compliment the spices that I usually cook those dishes with. You should totally try it sometime soon.

Don't cook or don't have saisons? Come on over some night. I'll hook you up.

So ended a great week of some really nice beers from a solid brewery. Luckily I still have some Chocolate Indulgence and plenty of Three Philosophers to satisfy my fix for them when it arises in the future.

December 15th - Ommegang Biere de Mars

Halfway through the MoA brought us to yet another bottle of Ommegang that has served as a bar decoration for sometime now, the Biere de Mars.

I wasn't sure how this one would hold up being one of the bottles I wanted to drink awhile ago but it's another one made with brett and it did some nice things to the beer.  Looks like it's the only bottle I'll ever have since it appears to be retired but I'm at peace knowing that the one bottle I did drink contributed to an awesome project like MoA!

December 14th - Ommegang Aphrodite

Yeah, by Wednesday there was a definite theme to this week's MoA beers. I've had a good looking row of Ommegang bottles for a long time, too long in my opinion and I figured I'd keep knocking them down. This time I went for the Aphrodite.

Definitely one of the more unique beers I've had and that's in a totally good way.  Made with pear, raspberries, grains of paradise and brett and the combo worked.  The brett didn't come through as much as I expected but it did add just enough.

I've realized that my dislike of raspberry flavored stuff over the years is likely a result from the fake flavoring in everything that I tried growing up (candy, kool aid, etc) and when something like this is made with real raspberries, I'm on board. 

Great beer, something I'd drink again and something I'd try pushing to a wine drinker who doesn't like beer (assuming they'd want to be pushed, no need to waste good beer on someone stubborn!).

December 13th - Ommegang Gnomegang

Tuesday brought not only another Ommegang beer to the MoA but another collaboration beer, this time brewed with Brasserie d’Achouffe. This is the beer that comes in a gift pack with Hennepin and Three Philosophers and a glass for a ridiculously low price (you couldn't buy all three beers let alone the glass for the price I've seen the set go for).

So yep, that's how I got mine. This beer was never on my radar but I figured that even if this beer sucked, I still got a bottle of Three Philosophers, a bottle of Hennepin and a glass for less than $30.

The beer didn't suck. It wasn't awesome and it certainly wasn't nearly as good as the Zuur from the night before but it was still a solid beer worth drinking and worth its place in the gift pack.

December 12th - Ommegang Zuur

I thought it might be tough to keep up with MoA (I'm not typing the damn thing out every time anymore) on the same night as Beer Club but I'm persistent, I knew I could make it work.

After almost everybody cleared out, it was time to open up a bottle that I had put away. I told Hoffman to pick out the bottle that would become Beer Club extra credit and Monday's entry into MoA. There were a couple offerings from Ommegang but it was an easy choice for him since he had not had the Zuur.

I didn't realize until we opened it that it was not only a collaboration with Liefman's but it appears that it was brewed there as well.

It was about the exact opposite from the beers we had during Beer Club (old ales) but the sour kick to this beer was enough to reawaken the palates in the bar. Not sure if they'll be making this one again but I'd buy it in a heartbeat if they ever do.

December 11th - New Belgium Lips of Faith Prickly Passion Saison

Time nearly ran out on Sunday's entry into the Month of Awesomeness but it was saved in the 22nd hour of the day by another Lips of Faith offering by New Belgium. This time it was the Prickly Passion Saison.

It's no secret that saisons are one my favorite styles of beer but I initially passed on it because I already have way too much beer and one of my Getting Tanked with Frank partners Mark told me he didn't care for it (he promised his review of it is coming soon on his blog).

I'm not sure what exactly convinced me to toss it in the cart last month but I'm glad I did. Again, the entries this month aren't about detailed tasting notes so you won't get them here. It was a nice solid saison in my opinion and the addition of the passion fruit and prickly pear didn't take over the beer but gave it some separation from other saisons and a nice unique quality.

Not only was I glad I bought a bottle but assuming I have a little more room in the house after the Month of Awesomeness is over I might seek out another bottle or two for the future.

I have a box full of Lips of Faith beers and have been waiting for a stretch like this to open them. If this one and the Fresh Hop IPA are any indication, it's gonna make this month that much more awesome.

December 10th - Stone 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA

I managed to fit a moment of Awesomeness into the middle of Toy Fest on Saturday with the latest Stone Anniversary beer.

I split this one three ways but still stayed on track to reduce the inventory a bit. I didn't notice a huge difference between it and the Stone Sublimely Self Righteous but I'd have to try them side by side to verify.

This beer was definitely good enough that I'd be glad to buy another bottle to do just that sometime.  Cheers!

December 9th - New Belgium Lips of Faith Fresh Hop IPA

I managed to sneak in a bomber Friday night while putting the final touches on Toy Fest prep. No need to put the Month of Awesomeness off the burner when it could be staying alive on the back burner.

I wasn't sure which one to pick until I realized I still had a bomber of a fresh hop IPA waiting in my fridge for me. I've been sitting on quite a few Lips of Faith bombers for awhile and decided the Month of Awesomeness would be a good time to take down a few of them and the Fresh Hop IPA was the logical place to start especially since Allison wanted to share it with me.

Naturally this would have been better a few weeks ago when I first bought it but I thought it was still pretty damn good.  Not in the neighborhood of my favorite fresh hop beer (Founders Harvest Ale) but still had great hops aromas and flavors to make make my senses happy.

December 8th - Samuel Adams The Vixen

Hopefully I didn't scare anybody into thinking that the Month of Awesomeness had ended. Hell, it wasn't even on hiatus. It just wasn't being documented in a timely fashion due to Isenberg Toy Fest 2011 last weekend.

The Vixen by Samuel Adams is here to fix that. Well, it was here last Thursday anyway. 

I'm not sure why Sam Adams gets ragged on by some beer geeks but I think they're full of shit. They're the same people who only listened to [insert any band that started small and made it big] before they caught on with everybody else and now that more people know about them they're not any good.  Whatever.

I was excited to see Sam Adams get outside the box with offerings like the Imperial Series, the Barrel Room Collection and now whatever-the-hell they call this series (their website isn't so user friendly).

I'm a big fan of their chocolate bock and when I saw this on the shelf at a reasonable price (I think I paid around $5-6something for it) I thought I'd give it a whirl. Peppers in a beer used to scare me off but I've learned when they're in a stout or something like this beer they're there more for effect than actual flavor.

This was no exception. Nice chocolate flavor highlighted by the little bit of tingle from the peppers. I really liked this beer and would drink it again for sure, especially as an after dinner dessert scenario.

December 7th - Kasteel Rouge and Steel Toe Provider Ale

Yet another installment of the Month of Awesomeness. Last night's edition featured Kasteel Rouge. As with many beers, this one had an odd way getting into my house. I stumbled across a steal of a deal for the Kasteel glass ($2.99!) and then realized I had never had any of their beers. When I saw they had one made with cherries, I was sold. Actually the beer was sold. To me.

I'm a fan of this one. It reminds me of a couple favorites in the cherry beer realm, Wisconsin Belgian Red (still the king) and Leifman's Red. This one did not score very high on the appearance scale, it looked like murky brownish red swamp water. Luckily, it tasted damn good. And that's all the matters.

I also had a bonus entry into the MoA last night, the Steel Toe Provider Ale. No boring stories to go along with this one. It's just a good beer from a new local brewery that I'd like to help support. You should too!