Following the beer circles as I do, I noticed a lot of hubub about Deschutes The Stoic, and how beer aficionados were clamoring to taste. So when I noticed it at Whole Foods (ha!), I decided to give it a try. And you know what? Its good! As a Belgian Quad goes, it was very tart, tasty and full of that flavor that makes Belgians either awesome, or terrible.  In this case, it was really good. However. It was also $13. And although tasty, I’m not sure it was that much better than some other Belgian beers I’ve had, and I’m not sure worth the effort of making a big deal of. Of course, I am bothering to write this post, so that says something.

I’m not one to disparage hard working craft brewers (hahaha…ok), but I think we may have found a new contender for the worst beer I’ve ever tried. I want to give Sam, the boss of Dogfish Head, the benefit of the doubt, because I find his such an entertaining guy. Unfortunately, this stuff was way beyond nasty.

Wondering if I was just crazy, I handed the bottle over to the wife. Her initial reaction was “ew, it smells like vomit”. Then after taking a sip, “OMG it tastes like vomit”, followed by a few muscle wrenching convulsions. Sorry sweety. It was so overpowering, it took sucking on a few super salty smokehouse almonds before I was able to taste anything else at all.

Perhaps the bottle was bad. Or maybe fermenting peach juice in a beer is just a very, very wrong thing to do. Either way, my sink may never forgive me.

In my storied career of beer, I have tasted many things (although none nearly as bad as Walt’s usual fare.). Sometimes though, all I want to do when I sit down to fog my brain is to have something that qualifies as “Just Good Beer”. And that can be said about Oakshire’s Line Dry Rye. Is good in the way typical rye beer is. It’s light in that summer beer way. And it has a touch of flavor from the honey that say it’s brewed with. But apart from that, it’s relative unremarkableness is a welcome change from tingle the teeth flavoring that so many seasonals have. And now that Oregon has decided to be warm enough to actual call this month summer, I for one welcome something I can pour, sit back and just sip as I watch the children terrorize the backyard chickens. Salud.

So for some reason, I’ve been on a horrendously-sweet beer kick lately, to the detriment of my beloved malt liquors.  Well, I know perfectly well what that “some reason” is… I’ve exhausted all the crappy beer I can find at my local establishments.  I must be the only sap scanning the beer aisle, disappointed when I don’t find Colt 45.  (And what happened to the Walgreens beer?)   So I’ve been exploring the edge of the genre of beers that are basically alcoholic soda pop, but not quite as obvious as Zima.

Like the Jeremiah Weed’s fine beverages, this brew is sweeter than cherry Power-Ade, has double the alcohol than yer typical Budweiser, yet is stealthily marketed enough so your buddies won’t realize you’re getting efficiently drunk on something close to a milkshake.  Not that I am one to ridicule — there is certainly a time and place for such a brew, but for me that time was about 1.5 decades ago.  At this point, my refined palate reaches the same state near the end of this beer as when I eat too many skittles.  All in all, it’s not bad, certainly worth considering for dessert, but I’m going to be hunting for some savory beers next time around — does anyone make a roast pork lager?

I was trying to work up a Foghorn Leghorn impersonation to start this review of another “southern style” malt beverage from Jeremiah Weed, but I’m going to stop while I’m ahead.  This is their sister product to their Roadhouse Tea (which must be said in Peter Griffin’s voice:  “Roadhouse!”), and it occupies the same odd niche in alcoholic beverage land.

Malt beverages that aren’t beer are usually either a little froofy (e.g. the running joke that is Zima), a little jersey-shore-y (e.g. the horrible idea that is alcoholic energy drinks), or a little crappy (e.g. all the 40 ounce abominations that I might be too old to drink, at this point in my life).   Jeremiah Weed seems to be aiming for the Kid Rock crowd, the blue-collar southerners who heretofore wouldn’t be caught drinking any of these malt beverage categories.  And if I have some advice for the south after drinking these two J. Weed brews, it’s this:  brush your teeth afterward.  Just like their sweet tea, this stuff isn’t bad, exactly, but WOW is it sweet.

The taste is more or less a bourbon and coke — 24 ounces of it.  Have you ever done 24 ounces of bourbon and coke?  Have you had 24 ounces of just coke, for that matter?  That’s a lot of sweet.  It goes down smooth, easy to drink, but about 3/4ths of the way through, I was hankering for a carrot.  These drinks are probably just perfect for the new drinker trying to wean themselves off hard lemonade but aren’t yet ready for oatmeal stouts — males will get somewhat less crap from their friends drinking this.  Though, after a few months they’ll get tons of new crap for their decaying, rotting teeth…

Can you believe I haven’t had a true malt liquor in almost a year?  There’s a spring in my step, a better color to my face, I can see clearly now…  so it’s time to end *that*.  But first, let’s try a relatively high-end beer, the well-regarded “La Fin Du Monde” from Unibroue in Quebec.  This is one of those beers that are stored on the exact opposite of the beer aisle at the grocery store from my usual fare –about 73 feet down the beer aisle from my favorite malt liquors, you’ll find La Fin Du Monde hanging out with the other beers with foil-encased tops and cork stoppers.  I could get a tanker-truck’s worth of King Cobra for the price of one of these fancier beers.

So now that I’ve established my lack of qualifications to judge La Fin Du Monde, let’s get on to the review.  Tang-errific!  This is an intensely fruity beer — the tang packs a wallop right off the start, yet is really tasty.  Quite surprising with the first sip (woke me right up, I tell you what) but hard to put down once you get a few gulps.  I can see why it’s one of those buzz-worthy award winning beers, though I also think I’ve gotten my dose of vitamin C for the rest of my life.

As I was sipping some fun and different flavors at the recent Portland Fruit Beer Festival, it struck me suddenly that there was a particular entry that seemed to be glaringly absent. You see, Bridgeport recently released this years edition of Stumptown Tart. Yet despite the brewery being only a few miles away, and ST being a fruit beer and all, it seemed a curious omission. And it got me to thinking. I sure haven’t heard much about it in the social media world. None of the local beer bloggers had talked about it. And they didn’t even send me one (I know, right?). All of which led me to the conclusion…the brewery doesn’t like it. I mean, really…almost no marketing push, no inclusion in the local FRUIT beer fest. So I set about to try and find some to test it myself.

And try I had to. Apart from Belmont Station and presumably the brewery itself, I couldn’t find it anywhere. So after a trip to the previously mentioned Belmont, I returned home and did the most regretable thing I could have. I tasted it.

Ugh. I didn’t want to be right about my suspicions, but I played a perfect Sherlock on this one. In what has been a steady decline in greatness since then first Stumptown Tart, this year’s (and I’ll bet final) rendition is just not good. Not at all. Not even a little. It’s just ….blech. Barely fruity, barely decent ale flavor. For the first time in four years, I poured a Stumptown Tart down the sink. You can blame the strawberry inclusion if you want (there are almost no decent strawberry beers), but I think it’s just a case of it being time to put the idea out to pasture. ST One was amazing. But like so many ham fisted attempts at cashing in on sequels (cough…Matrix…cough…Star Wars), this beer was phoned in, and it’ll take many more bottles of something good before the travesty is wiped from my memory.

One of the great things about Portland, is that it isn’t satisfied with just one festival of beer a year. Whether its winter, summer, or having no car, Portlandians always seem to find a reason to celebrate gourmet inebriation. And now, we have one more: fruit. Hosted by the new Burnside Brewing, The first annual Portland Fruit Beer Fest was this weekend, and it was fantastic.

I love fruit beers. I hate fruit beers. In my experience, I have found there is very little middle ground between awesome and vomit. So you can imagine my intrigue then when presented with an entire lineup of potential greats…or terribles. I can report however, that with the exception of an Orange Marmalade ale I tried (my apologies to the sink), it was all good. In a few cases, really good. A couple highlights were the Mango IPA from Breakside, Lucky Lab Cherry Kolsch, and a Framboise from someone whose name eludes me at the moment. In fact, there were so many good ones, I’d be hard pressed to describe them all.

If I only had one complaint to give, it was just the nature of a festival of rare beer. By the time we arrived on Sunday, several of the ones we were hoping to try were long gone (no more apple bier … #cry). So keep that in mind for next year. Also, someone tell Burnside to have a larger menu. But I digress.

In all, it was a fantastic time, and a wonderful addition to the pantheon of beer tasting events Beervana has to offer. Now if youll excuse me, I’m off to hunt down some Fruli Strawberry Beer.

To the gent behind the rare taps, your socks are amazing.

I have to admit to a bit of a love affair. The tiny little “Captured by Porches” brewery has reached a point where all I need to do is see one of their beers on the shelf, and I get all excited. With only one exception, I have loved everything from them I’ve tried. Maybe it’s the cool fliptop bottles.

But rather than wax poetic about the brewery, or even their fine Friday Rye Ale, which I drank on a Friday coincidentally, I instead present you with a few pics of CbP & I’s time together.

I know I'm a biased Rye fan, but this stuff is fantastic.

Wait, Dark AND Wheaty? Yay!

It wasn't cuddly, but if you like IBUs in a porter, this is for you.

UPDATE: Oh no!! I went looking through my archive, and was horrified to discover that I don’t seem to have any photos for a the rest of my CbP beer history! Curse you “Spring Cleaning my iPhoto library”. So with sad regret, I present the following names of other CbP beers I’ve had, now consigned to history and fading drunken memory. *plays Taps*

Hefeweizen: Best Hefe ever. I reviewed it here.

Rebecca’s Divine Wit: Also fantastic & wheaty, only with more fruit. Review here.

Roggenbier: I just love rye beer. Why I never posted this one still haunts me.

Kolsch: Awesome by Kolsch standards. It was the hero of our last camping trip in 2010.

Until next time by dear brewery. Drink on.

In honor of Walt Liquor’s return to frostygoodness, I thought I’d review Jeremiah Weed’s Roadhouse Tea — a brand-new alcoholic iced tea that comes in a tallboy can, with the usual faux-western label art you also see on many low-end beverages.  I’m BACK!

First I’d like to discuss the use of the “Roadhouse” image for this brew.  What kind of picture are they trying to paint?  The term “Roadhouse” is meant to evoke a dusty, hard-bitten mining town in one of the Dakotas, a town hit hard when the economy deep-sixed, a town where a man could find a new start, could put the horrible past behind him, the terrible things he done seen.  He’s *seen* things, man.  And all he needs now is a tall mug of Roadhouse Tea, a hot meal, and he’ll be on his way.  The cool, smooth taste of some of that ol’ Jeremiah Weed is just what he needs now to wash the taste of failure out of his mouth…

What Roadhouse Tea is *not* meant to evoke is me, middle-aged nerd, sipping Tea while watching a documentary on wine-tasting, occasionally putting the Tea down on a T.V. tray to eat another Cadbury Egg left over from Easter.  Icing my sore left heel injury, obtained from stepping off a curb.  And there’s a lace doily on the TV tray, by the way.

It’s not bad, exactly, but odd — the taste is pretty close to a bottle of iced tea you’d get out of a vending machine, allowed to go flat, with twice the sugar.  MAN is it sweet.  I’m not helping things by scarfing down Easter candy at the same time, but still.  By the end I was slightly drunk and on a sugar high.  By 4 am that night I had defcon-level heartburn.  Which I cured with a couple antacids, which because I have a sensitive stomach, are kept in a bottle that sits on my nightstand.  On a lace doily.