Beer Club Volume Thirteen - Oktoberfests, Part II

***Editor's note - Yeah, I suck at keeping this thing up. I'll try to do better once I get caught up with the next three! ***

The anniversary event, a year in the making had finally arrived. As I stated in August's write up, I can't believe we made it this far. I can barely hold a fantasy football league together from year to year, let alone a monthly beer club.

Don't get me wrong, people love to drink beer. They just don't always like to have it structured and that's one thing this beer club's control freak leader requires, structure. I've had lots of ideas that I've had to politely (and sometimes not so politely) turn down because they don't fit my vision of the club. Yeah, I really do take it that seriously but it has worked so I'm not fixing what's not broke.

It was only fitting that we had record attendance to celebrate our anniversary. Initially we tied it with ten of us but Paul U decided he couldn't miss it so he showed up late to give us eleven people.

Since I'm playing catch up with the blog, this will be a shorter entry but here's the lineup (with stats) that we all enjoyed (not counting some extra credit beers!):

• • Samuel Adams Octoberfest (5.3% ABV, ~ $.122/oz)
• • Schell's Oktoberfest (5.5% ABV,~ $.11/oz)
• • Victory Festbier (5.6% ABV, ~ $.138/oz)
• • Spezial Rauchbier Märzen (5.3 % ABV, ~ $.296/oz)
• • Great Lakes Oktoberfest (6.5% ABV, ~ $.138/oz)
• • Coney Island Freaktoberfest (6.66% ABV, ~ $.27/oz)
• • Two Brothers Atom Smasher (7.7% ~ $.327/oz)
• • Odell Woodcut Number 4 (11%, $25/bottle, ~ $.98/oz)

The finale of the lineup was far and way the most expensive bottle we've ever cracked for Beer Club but considering how cheap most Oktoberfests are and that this was a special occasion, it was definitely in order.

It was also the first time that we had a beer on tap since I had just picked up a keg of the Schell's Oktoberfest. The keg went over very well not just at Beer Club but also at Isenberg Freedom Fest a couple weekends before.

It was another great month for me because none of the of the beers seemed to be an overwhelming favorite and most seemed to have different fans. I like to see that because it means that Beer Club is accomplishing its goals of exposing several different people to several different beers to find out what suits each person.

The Odell of course, blew everybody way. Thankfully it did because I'd have been pissed about dropping $25 on a bottle that nobody liked!

Well, with the way the time is flying by I think we'll be celebrating two years of Beer Club before we know it. That's not a bad thing at all...

Beer Club Volume 12 - Altbier, Kölsch, a little of this & a little of that

Beer Club Volume 12... it's hard to believe even as I type it. Not only did we not fall apart after a few months but we've grown to be a pretty strong club. We've added people and the only ones we lost are one who moved away and a couple that realized it just wasn't for them. We did have a prodigal son but like in the original story we were all glad to have him back.

Brent being welcomed back to Beer Club in July

I think the line up for this edition, hell even the style for this edition, changed several times before I settled on something. I thought about continuing the summer beer theme with Kölsch or some other easy-to-drink lawnmower beer. I thought about dipping into the sour category. Then I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a potpourri of beers that could serve as a gauge for me to see what others would like to devote a month to.

Then one day I was listening to a podcast with Todd Parker, brewer at Copper Canyon Brewery in Southfield, MI and he was discussing the altbier and/or kölsch and I thought of an idea that Josh had to do both of these beers in the same month. He was telling me how there was a rivalry between the two towns in Germany that make these styles of beer. I did a little Googling and was very intrigued at the bitterness between Düsseldorf and Cologne.

So I made it a mission to track down four of each style and make them a lineup. I knew kölsch wouldn't be a problem with Schell's and Goose Island each putting one out as a summer seasonal and Lake Superior Brewing and plenty of others to fill out the last two.

Then I hit my brick wall. I realized as I talked/emailed/tweeted with people that altbiers were going to be tough to track down. In fact, most people couldn't even tell me what to look for let alone where to look for them. The first one was easy, I got word that Princeton's was carrying the Tyranena Headless Man so I grabbed a sixer of that.

At US Liquors in Hopkins I found something called Pinkus Münstersch Alt. I wasn't sure what the hell it was but I grabbed a couple bottles since it had Alt in the name. That my friends, was it. No more of it was to be found at this time of the year.

So, I decided to go with a hybrid of a hybrid of an idea. We'd do two kölsch and two altbiers and then throw in another four beers styles that would never be its own month of Beer Club (at least not in the foreseeable future).

I went with the Schell's Zommerfest & Reissdorf Kölsch to go along with the two altbiers that I had and decided to go with a HeBrew Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A (to give a taste of a rye beer), Founders Dirty Bastard (for a Scotch Ale experience), Brau Brothers Rubus Black (a blackberry imperial porter) and a Goose Island Fleur (which had just enough sour notes to it to allow me to test the waters for a potential sour lineup down the road).

Another reason I went with the Rubus was because Dan from the Four Firkins had taken a job as an assistant brewer at Brau Brothers and we were going to drink the Rubus and then ceremoniously change the Brau Brothers sign in my bar from "Population: 220" to "222" in honor of Dan and his wife.

Even had a first time guest at Beer Club

The beers went over pretty well I thought. Kölsch is one of those styles that's very close to the yellow fizzy beers, but only made well. I think it would be a solid style to get macro fans to drink but I'm afraid they wouldn't appreciate why they're paying $13 for 12 pack of Zommerfest instead of $17 for a case of Miller Lite. Luckily, we all did.

I thought the altbiers were surprisingly closer to the kölsches than I thought they'd be. Trying them side by side makes you realize why they're a rival beer even though they look nothing alike (the alts being dark brown and the kölsches being very light yellow).

My favorite part of these beers was talking about the history between the two, it's one of the things I always enjoy about Beer Club. It was also cool to hear Brent and Josh talk about their time in Germany drinking these beers. The highlight of the night for me was when Brent took a sip of the Reissdorf and then said he felt like he was in Cologne again.

The rest of the beers went over pretty well too. I was shocked at the unanimous decision to put together a sour month after everybody tried the Fleur. They might be regretting it when every part of them is puckering from something like a La Folie but at least we'll say we give it a go.

The Lenny was probably the most brutally bitter beer that I've ever had... and I really liked it. Obviously I didn't expect any citrus notes in the beer being that it was a rye IPA but damn, this stuff was an assault on the tongue. Not everybody liked it a ton but it was acknowledged for what it was.

Brent trying to decide if he wants another go at Lenny

The Dirty Bastard was the low light of the night for the group as a whole and that surprised me. It's a pretty big beer but I expected everybody to be able to handle it better. I'm not sure if it was the size of the flavor (I doubt it because we've gone much bigger than that before) or the flavor itself but I'm sure it was the worst reception yet for a Founders beer.

The Rubus went over great as was to be expected. It's a great beer and fair or not, when you'd got to meet the guys who make a beer it always seems to taste better and nobody forgot how much fun we had in Lucan last spring. As planned, we had a ceremonious changing of the Brau Brothers sign in the bar and even made sure the letter was a little cockeyed so everyone noticed it was changed.

Before and after

The mix and match of the night was kind of fun for a change of pace but when we were done I was really looking forward to getting back to a theme for the night and of course, that next theme was not only Oktoberfest but it was the one year anniversary of Beer Club!

Beer Club Volume 11 - Pilsners

*Editor's note - one of these months I'll get my Beer Club write up posted in time. July was not the month though.*

When I first started Beer Club, I would have never dreamed about doing a month focusing on pilsners. At the time, I associated pilsners with the yellow fizzy American macro lagers that Beer Club was supposed be leading me and my beer drinking buddies away from.

I'm not sure at what point it was that I drank a really good pilsner that made me re-evaluate what I thought about them but Pilsner Urquell was definitely one of the beers that made me revisit the style.

Somewhere along this beer journey of mine I got too consumed with bigger, badder and bolder beers to the detriment of appreciating and enjoying the more subtle and yet equally well-crafted styles of beers such as pilsners and even pale ales. Some people of influence made me realize the error of my ways. This Beer Club was designed to not only correct that but to illustrate just how far everybody had come in the past 11 months.

I picked out a lineup that did a pretty good job representing local stuff (Schell's) and US breweries from California (Lagunitas, North Coast) to Michigan (Bell's) to Pennsylvania (Victory) and threw in a couple from across the pond like Bitburger and the previously mentioned Pilsner Urquell.

From top to bottom, the beers went over very well with the guys (and girl). I actually thought there were a couple different ways to do the style and I couldn't decide which way I liked better. Beers like Scrimshaw and Pilsner Urquell had a very bakery fresh type of aroma and flavor to them in my opinion and beers like Schell's and Prima Pils had a very nice bitter hops character to them. I felt like a winner no matter which style I drank.

Just for fun, I took a Michelob Golden Draft Light (I believe this is somehow the most popular beer in Minnesota) that I found in the back of the fridge (left by guests no doubt) and had everybody try it in the middle of the lineup. It was pretty funny seeing everybody's reaction.

To me, it just tasted like carbonated water that I spilled an ounce of Schell's into. To others, it turned into a drain pour. This is the beer that half these guys used to stock their fridges at home a year ago and now they didn't even want to finish a 2 oz sample of it. Looks like I'm accomplishing something!

Like I said, everybody seemed to have a different set of favorites for the night. I already knew how good Pilsner Urquell and Schell's and Prima Pils were but the surprise to me was the Scrimshaw. It was a last minute addition when I couldn't find Brau's pilsner but it was damn good. I also think it was the best one in the bunch that could pull a yellow fizzy drinker over from the dark side.

I'm not sure if these beers will catch on for everybody and be the kind that they'd stock at home but now we all have better options when we want something on the lighter side of things than reverting back to Miller Lite or Mich Golden.

Beer Club Volume Ten - Hefeweizens

June's Beer Club was such a good time it took me over a month to recover from it and write about it. Our newest member Todd is a party animal and we all drank non stop for the last five weeks. OK, not really... I've just been busy guy (or a slacker if you wanna go that route).

Let's rewind five weeks. It was time to introduce hefeweizens to the members of Beer Club who hadn't had the pleasure of trying them. This was another self scheduled month for us because I knew that Schell's version of the style came out in June and it was one that I definitely wanted to showcase.

After a few discussions with some people who know their beers, I decided to once again go with a lineup that would give us a good opportunity to compare and contrast beers that were unique for various reasons.

Here's the lineup:
Hacker-Pschorr (Hefe) Weisse
Schneider Weisse Original
Georg Schneiders Wiesen Edel-Weisse
Brauerei Aying Bräu-Weisse
Summit Hefe Weizen
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Kellerweis Hefeweizen
August Schell Brewing Company Hefeweizen
Brauerei Aying Ayinger Ur-Weisse
Brauerei Aying Ayinger Weizen-Bock

We had a few beers from across the pond which gave us an idea of how much is/isn't lost from a beer style that should always be drank as fresh as possible. We had a couple examples from the complete opposite direction with Schell's and Summit being made practically down the road and Sierra Nevada Kellerweiss which is not only domestic, but included so we could see if their open vat fermentation added anything to the mix.

I also included the last two on the list to give people an idea of how the closely related dunkelweizen and weizenbock styles would compare to the hefe style.

I expected the domestic examples to pull away from their German counterparts but to my surprise they were very good and very well received by everybody. I guess years of experience can help make up for the lead time it takes to get to us.

It was another month when the opinions varied quite a bit but the ones that seemed to be the most popular were the Hacker-Pschorr and the Schell's. Trying them all in a lineup together confirmed for me that the Schell's was still my favorite. That was no surprise to me since they combined the best of both worlds. They're a brewery with 150 years of experience that's located less than two hours from us.

Brett executing the "roll" technique (see step 7 here)

I'm not sure if I converted anybody to being a hefeweizen fan, but at least I opened some people's eyes to a new style and gave them an idea of whether or not they'd want to explore deeper into a style that's terrific during the dog days of summer.

Beer Club Volume Nine - Wheat & Wit Beers

As with saisons last month, I wanted to plan May's Beer Clubl with some beers that everybody could try and enjoy during the hot summer months in Minnesota. Let's face it, Bourbon County Stout might be one of the best beers on the planet, but it's not something you wanna sit out on your deck drinking several of on a 95 degree Saturday afternoon in June.

Enter wheat beers and witbiers. Rather than do two separate months with these closely related styles, I wanted to keep things interesting by combining them so everybody could notice how one differs from the other.

At the same time, a line up of beers that similar to each other could be a little boring so Alvey and I decided to throw a few curveballs in with a strawberry wheat (and again representing a local brewery), a hoppy wheat beer, a dark Belgian ale brewed with wheat and even an imperial witbier. Here is the lineup:

Hoegaarden, a Belgian White from Brouwerij Hoegaarden (Belgium)
Strawberry Wheat, a Wheat Ale from Brau Brothers (Minnesota)
Hop Sun, a Wheat Ale from Southern Tier (New York)
Steenbrugge Wit, a Belgian White from Brouwerij Palm (Belgium)
Oberon, a Wheat Ale from Bell's (Michigan)
Chambly Noire, a Belgian Ale from Unibroue (Sapporo) (Canada)
Witte Noire, a Wheat Ale from De Proefbrouwerij (Belgium)
Imperial Dunkel Wit, a Belgian Strong Ale from Nøgne Ø (Norway)

This style wasn't the most interesting to break down or discuss in great lengths but I think everybody got to try something new (or in some cases, a half dozen or more new beers) and get an idea of what they want to grab a sixer of to bring to the cabin, fishing or to the park with them when the weather is hot. I also finally had an excuse to buy a Bell's mini-keg!

The thing I got most out of this meeting was how much fun it was, I don't remember laughing that much in a long time and it was pretty evident that we've gelled pretty well as a club it's proof that having beer as a hobby can make you great new friends.

Beer Club's First Field Trip

One of the things I had envisioned when I was coming up with the idea of Beer Club was that we'd do some field trips as a group. While some very loose versions of "group outings" had occurred (Josh & I going to Surlyfest, Paul & Paul & I going to Winterfest), a true group outing had yet to happen.

Surly was very high on my list because of its closeness and because of how much we all love their beer but the first one to actually come about was Brau Brothers. It started in January when they were doing a tasting at the Four Firkins and I spoke with Dustin about us possibly coming out. He seemed to be more than happy to have us so I started thinking about putting something together.

I later saw Dustin and his brother Trevor when Paul & Paul & I were at Winterfest and we once again spoke about the group going to the brewery for a visit. After plenty of emails to the group, we decided on April 10th as the date that would work for the most people. It was on.

I wanted to make sure it was a good sized group so I encouraged people to bring significant others and any friends that were interested and by the time it the day came around there were seven of us from Beer Club with seven other guests. The more I thought about it, I realized that New Ulm was less than an hour away from Lucan so I also set up a private tour of the Schell's brewery for the same day.

The day of the tour we all met at Brau Brothers at or around 11:00 for the tour. The Brau Brothers tour reminded me of the Surly tour because most of it takes place in one big room. Dustin told us about the day to day happenings of the brewery, the history of it and plenty of other info that we all wanted to know.

Besides that, we all got to have some good conversation with Trevor Brau and Dale Brau as well as sample plenty of beer from the nine taps that were flowing. I can tell you with some certainty that there were some new fans of some of the beers, notably the Sheephead. I got lots of positive feedback about that beer. Eventually everybody broke off into smaller groups and spent the rest of the time talking with each of the Braus and just having a good time.

We were told about Brau Fest, which will happen the first weekend in June. I really want to make it and hopefully can get a small group of friends to go too. If you don't have plans currently, mark it on your calendar and come have a beer (or ten) with me.

One thing I'd like to reiterate is how much I love to support not just a local brewery like Brau Brothers, but to support a great group of guys like the ones who run the place. All three of them were very genuine guys that you'd want to sit and have a beer with, no matter where they worked. One of the very cool things about the day was that they didn't charge for the tour, they just asked for a donation to the local Lions Club and we were more than happy to oblige.

After the tour we decided to stop by the Brauhaus for some food and to check out their offsale beer which included (of course) Brau Brothers. One of the things I noticed on their website and for some reason thought I needed to try was a "Beyond Insanity Wings Challenge". Since this is a beer blog and not a "Man vs Food" blog, I'll spare you the gory details. I will say though that in hindsight, I'm not sure it was a smart idea on my part. Apparently the success rate is only 15%. But I did it and will now be immortalized in Lucan on the plaque inside the Brauhaus. Look for me if you're ever there!

After we finished up in Lucan, we all drove to New Ulm to hit Schell's Brewery. A regular tour is $3 per person and if you want to set up a private tour for your group, it's $60 or $3 per person, whichever is greater. I figured even if there were only 10-15 of us that paying the extra $2-3 per person would be worth it to have the tour all to ourselves. We ended up with 18 people because four others joined us in New Ulm.

I had been on the tour several times before, most recently in January of this year, but each time it's a little different. Sometimes it's because every tour guide has their own style and set of information that they decide to share with you. Sometimes it's because new events are going on. Sometimes it's because a new gift shop & tasting room just opened. Sometimes it's because of whatever. Bottom line is that even if you've toured it before it's worth your while to check it out again.

Since I wrote a bit about Schell's a few months ago when I toured it, I don't have a ton more to add about it. One very cool part of the day though was being able to do both of these tours on the same day to compare and contrast how different they are.

Brau Brothers is a very small operation that opened only a few years ago and they are making beers that are very current in today's craft beer world. Their lineup fills several different niches and no matter what you like, you should be able to find something. Included in that lineup, they have a great flagship pale ale, a very drinkable cream stout, a light lager and even a big & complex sipper. Their tour consisted of basic background on the brewing process, how they got the company going and some plans for the future.

Schell's on the other hand, is a pretty good sized brewery that is the second oldest in the country and has a lineup of beers that very much sticks to their 150 year history of brewing German style beers. Their beers are in no way as diverse as Brau Brothers but they have a proven history of success. Their tour consisted of a detailed historical background of both the brewery and the family that has been running it since day one. They talk about how to keep their history alive in modern times and sustaining both their success and the Schell's tradition.

I'd also like to mention that we had a wonderful tour guide at Schell's. From the minute the tour started she was very chipper and friendly to everybody and did a great job putting up with a group full of wise crackers and comedians. She let us hang around well past our hour tour and answered a ton of questions that we had. Schell's is lucky to have a sweetheart like her working for them.

After the tour was over, about half of us visited another staple of New Ulm, Happy Joe's pizza parlor. I mention this for two reasons. First and foremost, if you ever make it to New Ulm you have to eat there, and I would highly recommend the taco pizza. Second, they had the new Grain Belt Nordeast which had just come out three days prior and wasn't even in the Schell's sampling room yet.

If I had known how fun this day was going to be it would have happened a long time ago. Kudos to the entire group for mobilizing and making this happen. Everybody contributed in a positive way to make the day a huge success and that includes not just the Beer Club members but the guests as well. Everybody did a great job asking questions, engaging in good conversation and representing what the craft beer community can be like.

I'm not sure what the next field trip is going to be but after this experience I can promise two things. It'll be soon and it'll be a damn good time!

Beer Club, Volume Seven - Trappists!

We're finally back to another episode of Beer Club that has no rhyme or reason for the month other than that I've really started to like Trappist ales and wanted to expose the rest of the group to them. They have such a cool background and history behind them (for some great info on them, click here).

In a nutshell, Trappist beers are those brewed by or under the control of Trappist monks. There are seven Trappist monasteries in the world that brew beer and they are the only brewers who are allowed by law to use the Authentic Trappist Product Logo.

Of these seven breweries, only six of them are readily available in the United States. The seventh, Westvleteren, does not distribute their beers beyond the monastery. While discussing this brewery with an importer of these beers at the Four Firkins last week I learned that they used impose much lighter restrictions on what they sold at the brewery (used to be ten cases per car) but that led to gray market sales of the beer that they had to change their policy. You are now only able to buy one case per person, per vehicle/license plate, per month and you must call ahead to reserve that case (they will not sell to you if you just drive up without calling). Or you can enjoy it at their cafe as well.

Since I wasn't driving to Belgium any time soon, we had to limit our choices to the six breweries that did distribute their product in the US. With Alvey's help, I picked up an impressive cross section of Trappist beers that showcased not only each of those six breweries but that also represented several of the styles that the Trappists are famous for brewing.

The lineup:
Orval (easy choice, they only make one beer that I could buy)
Westmalle Dubbel (recipe unchanged for almost 150 years!)
Westmalle Tripel (they invented and coined the tripel style of beer)
Achel Blonde (smallest Trappist brewery)
Chimay Blue (my personal favorite)
Rochfort 8 (this beer represents the largest proportion of Rochfort's production)
Koningshoeven Quadruple (the only Dutch Trappist brewery)

I knew this wasn't going to be a cheap month for Beer Club since these bottles are typically $5-6 per bottle and since we were spending extra this month anyway I decided to splurge and got some cheese to go with it. Last month I discovered that Chimay also makes cheese and was able to try two of the varieties of it so I once again went with both of them and also one more recommended by a Surdyk's cheese expert (I forgot to jot the name of it down but I think it was Taleggio). For one month, dues went from $10 to $20 but we got to live the good life and experience some of the finer things in the world.

There was another reason this month was going to be a special month, not only was it the most people we had for a month but we got to welcome two newcomers to the group, Pete and Brett. Pete is a friend of Paul's and we've been working on him to check out a meeting for awhile. Brett is a homebrewer/beer geek/all around good guy that I "met" on Twitter and convinced him to give our event a try.

When Josh joined our group, it was a huge addition for us because his homebrewing experience brought a lot to the table. Brett was no exception and delivered a lot more than a hop grenade, he was dropping knowledge left and right giving us some insight to how these world class beers were crafted.

The big group made it difficult to discuss as many things as I would have liked to because of so many side conversations going but the main things that I got were that even though some of the guys had some apprehension of how they'd like this style, they did find a style or two or three that they indeed liked. Those of us that already knew a bit about the style just reaffirmed how much we liked them. With any luck, a few people will leave a comment or two about their thoughts for the month.

As for me, I was thrilled to get to pull off this edition of Beer Club. Trappists continue to wow me every time I have one and even if I got a few of the group to find one in the lineup that they liked, I feel like my mission was accomplished. As for me, my chalice will be filled on a regular basis from now on while I explore new options and enjoy my already discovered favorites. I'm looking forward to pouring a work of art in my goblet, kicking back and as the monks so eloquently put it, "tasting the silence".

Beer Club, Volume Six - Bocks!

I decided to go with Bocks for this installment of Beer Club in honor of Bockfest at Schell's Brewery in New Ulm. It ended up being doubly important this year because sadly my streak of seven years at Bockfest was broken this year. At least I had a good lineup of beer to help me feel better about it.

Rather than focus on one of the specific bocks like dunkler bocks or doppelbocks or heller bocks, I decided to throw a couple of each in there to give us an idea of the differences between them. Due to illness, vacation, forgetfulness and out of town visitors, we had the smallest group yet but the three of us made the most of it.

The first two beers we did were dunkler bocks, Sam Adams Chocolate Bock and Schell's Bock. I've been sitting on a couple bottles of the Chocolate Bock for awhile now and figured it was as good of a time as any to crack them. Schell's is the bock that always comes to mind for me because it's the one I've drank the most of in my life (even if 95% of it has come on seven specific days!)

The Sam Adams was unique, definitely chocolate chocolate and more chocolate. Not that it was overpowering, but it was definitely the main flavor in the beer. To me it tasted like a coco powder more than the chocolate I've tasted in other beers and I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm wondering if it was because they use coco nibs. I'm not even sure what they are but I know this is the first beer that I've had with them. Guess I'll find out when I finally try the Dogfish Head Theobroma. The Chocolate Bock was a decent beer but I'm not sure I'd run out to search for more of it at $10 a bomber.

The Schell's was as I always remember it, a perfect example of the style. Bocks to me are similar to brown ales and amber ales in that I can sit down with 5 different ones and notice that each one is different but have a hard time describing the exact differences. Another way to put it is that I know what bocks are supposed to taste like and this beer is the standard for me.

Next we moved to the two heller bocks - Sierra Nevada Glissade Golden Bock and Dead Guy Ale from Rogue. I've never had a heller bock before so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Well, technically I had the Glissade at a Sierra Nevada tasting a couple weeks ago and thought it would be a cool change of pace to throw in the line up. It has a light golden color with a nice pillowy white head. Aroma is bready, malty as is the flavor which also has some spicy and hoppy notes. Nice clean finish with a small hops bite.

The Dead Guy was a bit of an anomaly to me. I knew that bocks fell into the lager category but Dead Guy is advertised as Dead Guy Ale, not Dead Guy Lager even though most resources I've seen call it a heller bock. After some research and a few messages back and forth with Rogue, I'm just going to go with it being a hybrid, heller bock style ale. This is one I'd like to drink isolated from Beer Club to get a better handle on what I think of it. I know I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it. I'll update my thoughts on this beer in the comments section.

The last three beers on the list were doppelbocks. For a quick history lesson on these and to find out why so many of them end with -ator, click here.

First up was Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock. This beer is rated as the number one doppelbock on Rate Beer and it's easy to see why. This is a fantastic beer. Deep brown pour with a big creamy tan head. Sweet & roasted malty aroma and flavor with a sweet caramel finish.

A random entry to the night was Boulevard's Seeyoulator. I stumbled across this beer a couple weekends ago and picked it up because of the cedar aging. It wasn't till I was home that I even realized it was a doppelbock and decided to use it for Beer Club.

It was fantastic. Caramel color, LOTS of lively head, fantastic lacing. I poured the first glass quickly and down the middle like I do for most small samples and got a ton of head. I tried pouring more slowly and off to the side on the next two and still got quite a bit of head. Not a ton of aroma, sweet and malty is what does come through. Flavor is sweet, fruity, malty with a chewy mouthfeel. The cedar does come through in the flavor as well. Very cool beer, pretty unique for a doppelbock.

The last doppelbock was the Sam Adams Imperial Double Bock. It's a nice big chewy beer with a bunch of intense good flavors in it. Very sweet and smooth considering how much is going on in it.

We wrapped up the night with attempt at poking our bocks. You heard me right. If you've never been to Bockfest in New Ulm, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, at Bockfest they have campfires set up to huddle around if you get too cold. They also keep hot pokers in these fires and if you ask, they'll "poke" your bock by sticking one right in the middle of your brew. This caramelizes the sugars in the beer and makes it sweeter and a bit smokey.

I procured a metal rod from Home Depot and we fired up the burner from my turkey fryer and gave it a try. It didn't come out exactly like it does at Bockfest but it was a pretty good attempt for our first try. I'd guess that there's a bit of "seasoning" on the pokers down at Schell's, something like a cast iron skillet acquires after many uses. It definitely had a reaction and gave everybody a good idea of how it works.

I think my favorite of the night would have to be the Celebrator. It's number one for a reason and I can't argue with it. The Seeyoulator was nipping at its heels for me though. I really liked the depth that the cedar seemed to give it.

Over the weekend I also tried some Paulaner Salvator and a bottle of Widmer Brothers' Reserve Cherry Oak Doppelbock. I found the Salvator to be a solid beer but if given the option, I'd go for the much more economical Schell's Bock and enjoy it just as much.

As for the Widmer, it was phenomenal. As I always say, give me any combo that involves imperial stout, bourbon, oak aged or cherry and I'm all in. This stuff was awesome. It bummed me out that I waited so long to try it because I figured it was all gone. I was lucky enough this week to track down a couple more bottles of it before it completely disappeared. I'm going to hold one or both bottles for awhile and see how they age.

I'm already looking forward to next month's Beer Club, I'm leaning towards doing Trappist Ales after discovering that Chimay makes cheese. If you have any advice on Trappists, please let me know. Until then - Cheers!