I'm Back, and Bearing Tidings of Great Beer!

It's been a long, lonely three weeks since I had my cat5 umbilical cord severed in the move, but they've finally plugged me back in to the intrawebs so I can resume rambling about beer and other stuff in a semi-coherent fashion.

I want to start things off on a good note so I'm going to put aside my tirade on the OLCC's new ruling regarding the OBF and the hypocrisy of not "punishing" the big wine events in the same manner, but rest assured I've got plenty to say about that decision.

New Arrivals:

Sierra Nevada - Big Foot 2007: Year after year, this is one of the most consistently delicious and reasonably priced barleywines on the market. If you like your barleywines big, hoppy, and aggressively flavored you NEED to buy a case of this before it disappears. Yes, a whole case. If you don't I can almost guarantee you'll run out and suffer withdrawal symptoms sometime in March or April.

Sierra Nevada - IPA: This limited release spring seasonal is supposed to fill the gap between Big Foot and Summerfest, but they seem to have gotten ahead of themselves and released them both at the same time. Oh well, no complaints here. This 6.9% English-style IPA has lots of nice earthy hop flavor and a wonderful malt backbone that helps separate it from the current batch of west coast IPAs that seem to rely entirely on the "Big C" hops. Quite tasty, and quite limited, so grab a 6 pack while it lasts.

Rogue - Dry-Hopped St. Rogue Red: Not to be confused with Salmon Nation, Santa's Private Reserve, or any of the myriad other red ales from Rogue, this is in fact a NEW beer from the venerable Newport crew. This tasty little concoction can be summed up in only a few words: Clean and neat, with a well-defined hop character. Unfortunately I haven't seen any of the 22oz bottles of this yet (and the small bottles don't list the ingredients), but if I had to guess I'd say it was brewed with a singular hop, probably Crystal. That's my amateur speculation of course, but the hop flavors remind me of Fish Tale IPA and Rogue Brutal Bitter, both of which are 100% crystal-hopped beers.

Coming Soon:

The Danish/Norwegian invasion has begun. Denmark and Norway are rapidly making a name for themselves in the brewing world with cutting edge nano- and microbrewers popping up across the country. The first of the new breed to be imported are Nøgne Ø and Ølfabrikken.

I haven't even had a chance to see the bottles, much less try them, but given the reviews I must say I'm excited. With any luck they'll bring me samples today so I can have a write-up prepared for everyone when the cases arrive tomorrow. Since these are new, relatively-unknown beers, the first batch will probably be limited to a couple case of each variety, so don't delay...

Nøgne Ø - Imperial Brown Ale: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Porter: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Imperial Stout: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Pale Ale: description coming soon...

Nøgne Ø - Winter Ale: description coming soon...

Ølfabrikken - Porter: OK, I just cracked a bottle (kindly delivered by the distributor) and all I can say is, "Wow!" They've taken the classic porter formula and added a nice dose of roasty, coffee flavors (presumably from the malt and not actual coffee) and one heck of a lingering aftertaste. This stuff pours dark, thick, and opaque with a tight creamy head that lingers for quite some time. It should be priced in the $5-6 range, which I'd gladly pay for something like this. It's not quite Speedway Stout or Peche Mortel, but it's awfully close and it costs a lot less. I can guarantee this brew will go fast, so we may have to impose a 4 bottle per person limit until we find out how much is available.

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