This month's Fermentation Friday (a group blogging meme that revolves around homebrewing) is hosted by Rob at Pfiff! and is appropriately Halloween-themed: Homebrewing horror stories.

It's time for y'all to whip out your best homebrewing horror stories. Extra points for tales of woe told in true campfire fashion, and head straight to the front of the class for a bonus handful of candy corn if there's a deliciously ironic twist in the end. If there's one experience we're certain is common to anyone who's ever homebrewed, it's a disastrous tale worth sharing in order to scare the hell out of other homebrewers.

I'd wager to say homebrewers have all experiences (at one time or another) the dreaded boilover, or an overcarbonated bottle (or three), or even the feared exploding bottle... but I wonder how many have encountered the infected batch?

I'm not talking about infection in the form of horsey aromas or sour flavors or even that explosive overcarbonation... rather, something so creepy that it defies and logic and sanity.

It started out innocently enough, with an amber ale or something equally innocuous. Sure, there was that boilover on the stove, but one incident out of an otherwise good brewing session didn't raise any red flags.

Even after the beer was bottled, there was no sign. Those first few bottles were even drinkable, with no indication in either flavor or aroma that something was about to go horribly awry.

For I noticed that after several weeks something began... growing inside the bottles. Something viscous, and pale; it clustered near the bottom, like some hazy, fungus-laden mucous that settled out of the beer. The bottom two inches of each bottle was incubating this stuff. And the beers turned foul; the worm had turned.

I saved it long enough to show it to the local homebrewing club, in hopes that someone would have some idea of what it was—what had happened. My friend Paul even went so far as to open a bottle and taste it—and I'll never forget the site of him leaning over the sink, spitting the beer out, and claiming—ominously—that it was botulism.

The rest of the batch was dumped forthwith, though one bottle went with a club member who could have it tested to find out conclusively what it was... to this day, all I know for sure is that it wasn't botulism.

What was it? What caused it?

I'll never know.

(Actually, I suspect poor sanitation led to a Pediococcus infection.)

I hope everyone is having a safe (and beery) Halloween! For my part, after going trick-or-treating with the kids, I opened up a bottle of Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale as my "treat." It's good stuff, but funny thing, though—I notice on the label it says, "Brewed for Elysian Brewing... by New Belgium Brewing..." Huh. It must be related to this.

Anyway, go check out Jay's site; this week he's been blogging a different theme of beer-related costumes each day. (A much more in-depth look at what I was talking about here.) His countdown of themes:

• Part 1: Superheroes
• Part 2: Kegs
• Part 3: Miscellaneous
• Part 4: German Folk Costumes
• Part 5: Glassware
• Part 6: Beer Cans
• Part 7: Beer Bottles

Good stuff—but I still like my idea of a Trappist Monk with beer.

Happy Halloween!

Another item about canned craft beer (the second one this week) from 21st Amendment Brewery. They've started canning their watermelon beer (formerly "Watermelon Wheat") recently and renamed it to "Hell or High Watermelon"; the rest of the press release is similarly punny.

I'm unclear as to why the cans are only available in Alaska (outside of their own area of San Francisco); seems like Oregon / Washington / elsewhere in California would make more sense.

Just in time for Halloween, 21st Amendment Brewery has released craft beer disguised in a can. 21A's "Hell or High Watermelon" wheat beer and "Brew Free! or Die" IPA are now available, in cans, in Alaska and the greater Bay Area, including Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. They can be purchased:

• at better bars and neighborhood stores,
• at Beverages and More stores statewide in California,
• at finer specialty food chain stores such as Whole Foods, Mollie Stone's and Andronico's,
• and soon, in the Sacramento/Tahoe area.

Read full press release

My friend Simone, who is a professional photographer, was also at the Fresh Hop Tasting I reviewed yesterday (taking pictures, natch). She left a comment on yesterday's post pointing to her own blog where she posted a bunch of those photos.

Needless to say, they're better than mine and will leave you craving beer.

Yes, I'm way behind on posting this review, considering the Brewery's Tasting was back on October 18th! Too much stuff going on... anyway, the Fresh Hop Tasting was a beer event and showcase for seven (!) fresh hop beers that were all brewed by Deschutes. That's pretty impressive for one brewery, though at least two (possibly more) were brewed by their new-ish Portland Pub.

This was my first "tasting" event that I'd been to, not counting the Chocolate Beer Pairing Dinner which was more of a formal affair. At these Tastings, their Mountain Room is opened up to a more "mix and mingle" type format, and the beer flows freely. Food is served up buffet-style and it's all you can eat. For $35 it's worth it.

(They don't serve wine, however. Beer, along with pop and water only.)

Beer is definitely the highlight. Here's the list of what they were pouring:

Click through to read the full post - lots of graphics

I don't actually remember having Widmer's W'06 NW Red Ale, but that's apparently what their new seasonal Brrr is based on. It's a 7.2% alcohol in the "Northwest Red" style (although now that it's a winter seasonal, you'll see it classified as a Winter Warmer), and you'll recall that I received three of them.

By and large, general reaction to the beer when it first appeared was apathy, or at least "unremarkable." That was the pushback I got on it before I even opened a bottle, so I was definitely curious. (Having not had it before, remember.)

Appearance: Nice and clear, red-amber in color, with a light tan head that built up nicely.

Smell: Clean, spicy hop aromas, a little earthy. Some rich roasted malt notes accompany that as well.

Taste: Big hop kick right up front, which washes over the back of the palate with a very clean, very pleasant bitterness—spicy and powdery. Malt is mellow and smooth with a nice "red" character (roasty grains with no astringency) and there's a very pleasant warming quality accompanying the hoppiness.

Mouthfeel: Nice and smooth and medium-thick. Nice aftertaste—very clean—from the hops.

Overall: Hoppy and tasty, I was bracing for mediocrity since that was the prevailing reactions of others, but I quite like it.

On BeerAdvocate, it thus with 11 reviews scores an overall grade of B. On RateBeer, it scores 3.59 out of 5 and is in their 88th percentile.

Interestingly, my recipe for pumpkin ale from way back in 2004 is the number one result on Google for the search "pumpkin ale recipe"—this time of year I always see the search numbers spike (for good reason). I've bragged about this before (yes, I do that from time to time) but I certainly don't mind pointing to other recipes on the web that sound good.

Thus, the posted Pumpkin Spice Ale recipe over on Kegerators.com. It's similar to my own, though they use less pumpkin, and they have more detailed, exacting directions on the mashing of the pumpkin and grains together. (Mine are a bit vague in this area.)

I also like the use of whole cloves in this recipe. I don't have cloves in mine. I may have to steal that one.

This is mostly a re-run; I redacted the original press release at the request of the agency that sent it out due to erroneous information. But I've since received a six-pack of Newcastle Brown that I'll be reviewing, and I figure it's fair to run this updated press release.

#1 Imported Ale Partners with Popular Consumer Brands and TV Chef “Sam the Cooking Guy” to Launch a National Grocery Store Campaign

Slaving over the bird, dressing and gravy. Shopping in vain for the right gift for that special someone – and then having to wrap it. Those darn icicle lights. If there’s one thing thousands of men across the country share in common during the holidays, it’s overcoming these and other maddening, yet traditional, to-dos. Newcastle Brown Ale to the rescue. The leading imported ale will introduce a complementary guy’s guide to entertaining in style, dubbed the “Man-ual” and slated to hit supermarkets nationwide in November.

Read full press release

Going back through the various links and PR that I was sent and didn't get to for a week while I was Halloween blogging, and I see CHOW has an article on canned beer. It fits nicely with what I was writing about earlier this year when I did Canned Beer Week.

It's a good, informative article that covers the angles. For instance, here's the history of craft canned beer in a nutshell:

A major impetus behind the recent microcanning trend is a change in canning technology, which for decades was geared toward large producers. The Buds and Millers of the world utilize massive industrial canning machinery and purchase blank aluminum cans by the billions every year, according to Hoover. The landscape changed, however, in 2001 when Canadian company Cask Brewing Systems began offering a manual, two-at-a-time canning system designed specifically for small brewers.

(Oskar Blues was their first customer.)

And they have a nice summary of the advantages of canned beer:

Cans are much lighter to carry around, which means less gas used during shipping; plus they require fewer resources to manufacture, they’re more commonly recycled (the Container Recycling Institute claims that the can recycling rate is almost twice that of glass), they’re quicker to chill, and they can go places bottles can’t (beaches, parks, stadiums).

(Not to mention they completely protect the beer from being lightstruck.)

Overall, it's a fairly quick read, and worth it.

Even though these beers and this type of post isn't really a Halloween thing, receiving beer is sort of like trick or treating so I thought I'd include them in Halloween Week, what the heck.

The first is a six-pack of Newcastle Brown Ale. You may remember I ran the press release a while back about Newcastle's "Holiday MAN-ual" for apparently clueless men around the holidays. Here's the beer I received:

The MAN-ual excerpt I received contains, among other things, a recipe for a "Beer-nog Shooter": fill a clear shot glass half full of Newcastle, and float eggnog on top of that. Then shoot it. I don't know, it sounds interesting.

I'll be writing up my thoughts on Newcastle Brown sometime soon.

The other recently-received PR beer is Redhook's Double Black, for which I posted the press release here. For this one I received a single 22-ounce bottle and—get this—a bar of Dagoba dark chocolate. Trick or treat indeed!

I'm thinking the proper way to review this one is to pair it with the chocolate.

Moorhouse's Black Cat is an English Dark Mild style of ale, and lives up to its Mild promise: it's only 3.4% alcohol by volume, the truest kind of session beer one could ask for.

It's certainly an about-face from the trends in American microbrewing, where (generally) bigger is thought to be better. There aren't many Milds available these days, so this is definitely a treat. (As is "trick or treat." Har.)

Appearance: Mostly black though there's deep, translucent ruby when held to the light. Light brown head looked nice but didn't last long.

Smell: Roasty, with a touch of sour and nice dark fruity character. Some nutty brown notes, too.

Taste: Dry, with roasted malt notes—a touch of burnt wood and smoke—but not unpleasantly so. A Schwarzbier-ish character but not thick or heavy like a stout or porter. Definitely "black."

Mouthfeel: Light-bodied and clean and dry, with a mellow, flavorful roasty aftertaste.

Overall: Very nice for such a lighter, low-strength beer. (Is this my first real Mild?) Well done.

On BeeAdvocate, it scores an overall grade of B+. On RateBeer, it scores 3.2 out of 5, and is in their 62nd percentile.

After all this time writing this blog I can't believe I've never reviewed Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, but Halloween Week is as appropriate a time as ever.

By and large, I consider this to be Rogue's flagship beer, and certainly one of their best-known. It's a 6.5% alcohol beer, brewed in the style of a Maibock. Here's Rogue's own history of the beer:

In the early 1990s Dead Guy Ale was created as a private tap sticker to celebrate the Mayan Day of the Dead (November 1st, All Souls Day) for Casa U Betcha in Portland, Oregon. The Dead Guy design proved so popular with consumers and especially Grateful Dead fans, that we made it the label for our Maierbock ale. Even though the association with the Grateful Dead band is pure coincidence, we have gratefully dedicated Dead Guy Ale to the Rogue in each of us.

Earlier bottles had glow-in-the-dark labels, but I'm not sure why they discontinued that. The current growlers, however, are advertised as glow-in-the-dark, which makes for a great, spooky Halloween appearance.

Appearance: Appropriately orange in color, with an ample dense head that's tan and with what I'd swear to be a tinge of orange.

Smell: Malty sweet, almost sugary. Rich and mouth-watering.

Taste: Sweet and rich with roasty malt overtones and a touch spicy. Dry with a clean bit of bitterness in the back. Honey, toasted biscuit, green peppercorn, a hint of Belgian candi sugar.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied and nicely chewy with a pleasant dry and clean bitterness at the end.

Overall: A great beer, eminently drinkable; an American microbrew classic.

On BeerAdvocate, it scores a grade of B+. On RateBeer, it scores 3.47 out of 5 and is in their 83rd percentile.

Rogue Dead Guy 22 oz

No mention of Halloween could pass without the topic of costumes coming up. Unfortunately, most beer-themed Halloween costumes are—I'll say it—stupid.

The three men's type costumes you see in the store most of the time? The beer bottle, beer keg (or can), and (increasingly) the beer pong table. Ugh.

Among other things, they seem like the type of costumes that basically say, "I didn't put much thought into this."

Take a look to see what I mean:

That last one there—the "Beer Hero"—is a bit more creative, and you'll see variations (all along the "Duffman" theme). But it's not that much better.

Women fare little better, though at least the usual Oktoberfest/St. Pauli Girl/dirndl themed costumes are based on actual garb (though usually overly skimpy).

There's also a female version of the "Beer Hero" costume which is not much better.

Unfortunately, there's really not much more out there in the way of beer Halloween costumes... I suppose you could go for an Adolphus Busch or Frederick Pabst costume, but those figures aren't exactly as well-known generally as, say, Colonel Sanders—no one would get it.

Other ideas:

• Trappist Monk (with an authentic bottle of Westvleteren or Chimay)
• Beer God(dess): Dionysus or Byggvir (men), Ninkasi or Yasigi (women)
• Saloon bartender (thinking along the lines of the Old West)

 Anyone else have any ideas that doesn't involve dressing like a giant can?

I should be getting to some reviews later this week. In the meantime, here's a list of Halloween-themed beers to start with.

BridgePort Raven Mad. This one's gotten some play in the (Oregon) beer blog world lately; it's a bourbon barrel-aged Imperial Porter, with a 3D label (inspired by Hitchcock's "The Birds"), specifically themed for Halloween. Jeff has a bit on it, and Beer Northwest has a longer piece. Should be released Thursday in limited 22-ounce bottles.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale. Even though I'm listing it second, to my mind (and Jeff's, from the piece I linked to above) it's the original Halloween beer. (So much so, that you'll notice I used it in the Halloween Week graphic there.) Originally brewed to celebrate the Mayan Day of the Dead on November 1st, the original bottles (and current bombers) featured glow-in-the-dark labels.

Gritty McDuff's Halloween Ale. With name like that, you can't go wrong. This ESB has been brewed each year since 1990 by the Portland, Maine brewery. As they note, it's "the beer so good, it's scary!"

Moorhouse's Black Cat. This English Dark Mild will slow things down a bit at only 3.4% alcohol by volume. Moorhouse's in fact also brews several different beers based on that most-appropriate theme of Halloween: the Witch.

Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale. A pumpkin beer and a cool owl on the label, both work for Halloween for me. Plus, it's one I've already reviewed—and it's the best pumpkin beer I've yet had.

Skagit River Brewery's Sculler's IPA. I would have preferred the spelling to be "Skuller's" to match the skull-and-crossbones theme of the label, but beggars can't be choosers. Plus, I figure no "beer trick or treat" list such as this one would be complete without a Northwest IPA hop bomb in there.

Avery Mephistopheles' Stout. Talks about bombs—this Imperial Stout is an insane 16.1% alcohol by volume—NO, that is not a typo! With an ABV that high this could easily be the scariest beer on this list but at the same time their description is awesome: "Amazingly complex, coal black, velvety and liqueurish, this demon has a bouquet of vine-ripened grapes, anise and chocolate covered cherries with flavors of rum-soaked caramelized dark fruits and a double espresso finish."

It wouldn't be much of a Halloween without ghost stories and haunted places, so naturally—being a beer site and all—I'm wondering about haunted breweries.

I know several of the McMenamins locations are purported to be haunted; Pacific Northwest author Jefferson Davis has documented a number of them in his books. The Edgefield is the first one that springs to mind, but the Kennedy School and others are all supposed to be as well.

There's a discussion thread on Yelp about the McM's too.

Moon River Brewing Company, in Savannah, Georgia, is reportedly haunted; not only do they point to a feature article about the haunting, but I dug up an investigation report and log hosted on the "Historic Ghost Watch" site.

There's not much else that I can turn up from a cursory search; either those breweries that supposed to be haunted aren't publicizing it, or what information exists is more obscure than my initial dig turned up.

So let's hear 'em: Any good haunted brewery stories? Share!

The third Monday of the month kicks off Theme Week here at The Brew Site, and this month I've chosen Halloween to blog about all this week—fun, whimsical, and a topic that you could apply to beer in many ways.

And it's a subject I've blogged a bit about before: first back in 2005, then again in 2006. Those posts revolved Halloween-themed (or nearly so) beers, naturally, but there are other things too.

Like this Slashfood post about Pint Pots "beer candy"—basically gummy beer bottles. Beer flavored candy for trick or treat! Yum!

Pumpkin beers would naturally fall well into this category, too, but remember that I did a Pumpkin Beer Week last year around this time already—so while I might point to some of those, don't expect too many.

This week while I was elsewhere, a package containing three bottles of Widmer's new seasonal, Brrr, arrived:

Brrr is the winter seasonal version of Widmer's W'06 Northwest Red Ale (read the comments from my earlier post), and I'm looking forward to reviewing this one.

It also came with a press release, which I'm duplicating here:

Widmer Brothers Brewing says “Baby its cold outside!” with its first new winter ale in four years: Brrr. The highly anticipated brew, perfect for winter, is a moderately strong dark red ale that embodies the notable “Pacific Northwest style” citrus hop aroma and flavor.

Continue reading

It's utterly apropos that I drank and am now reviewing the Flying Dog Dogtoberfest that I received the first part of the month: the beer won the Gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in the "German-Style Märzen" category. Congrats guys!

This year's version is slightly less in alcohol than last year's (my review here) by half a percentage point to 5.3%. Flying Dog strove to use authentic German ingredients in the beer and they brewed a solid Oktoberfest.

Appearance: Pretty clear, reddish-brown with a light tan head, which fell quickly.

Smell: Malty, with rich caramel notes and a hint of roasted malts; some nuttiness in there too.

Taste: Very tasty—malty-sweet, caramel and a touch buttery, very rich. It's full of the malty tasty character that I really enjoy and look for in Oktoberfest/amber beers.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied with a sweet presence, very pleasant.

Overall: I really like it.

On BeerAdvocate, it scores an overall grade of B. On RateBeer, it scores 3.13 out of 5, and is in their 54th percentile.

This week I'm out of town for the first half of the week, with limited computer access, so don't expect too many updates (if any).

Next week is Theme Week here at The Brew Site, and since it's October, I'd thought I'd have fun and go with an appropriate topic: Halloween Week. I'll be blogging about whatever tickles my fancy that I can connect the dots to Halloween and beer.

The Great American Beer Festival held their coveted awards ceremony yesterday, and by afternoon had the list of winners online; you can view the page here. They have the complete list in PDF format, but I like the searchable format they have on that page too; it makes it easy to pull the list of Oregon winners.

All in all, Oregon brewers brought home 19 medals: 9 Gold, 3 Silver, and 7 Bronze. Here's the winners list:

All three Central Oregon breweries who sent beer won medals this year: Deschutes Brewery, Bend Brewing Company, and Cascade Lakes Brewing. Kudos to Cascade Lakes in particular, on their first-ever win! Both Deschutes and BBC have pulled down medals before.

(Deschutes also won the "Festival Flair Award" for "Best Brewery Booth"—which I imagine is largely because they had Woody there.)

Congrats to everyone involved!

I posted last month about this year's Fresh Hop Tastivals, and the Hood River one took place on the 4th, last weekend. The next two are coming up the 18th and the 25th, in Portland and Eugene, respectively.

Ironically, on the 18th I'll be attending Deschutes Brewery's Fresh Hop Beer Tasting.

Here are the details on the upcoming Tastivals, along with a lineup of the beers:

October 18 at Hopworks, 2944 SE Powell Blvd. in Portland, and October 25 at Ninkasi, 272 Van Buren St. in Eugene. Admission to the events is free; glasses/mugs cost $5, and are required for tasting beer. Tastes of the individual beers are $1 each. Hours are Noon to 9 p.m.

Here is the lineup of the freshest beers on tap that will be available at both events. These two festivals will be the only place where hopheads can find all these beers in one location!

Astoria Brewing Co., Hoptimus Prime, Fresh Hop Ale
BridgePort Brewing Co., Hop Harvest, Imperial Pale Ale
Cascade Lakes Brewing Co., Warrior Fresh Hop Ale, Fresh Hop Pale
Deschutes Brewery, Sodbuster, Golden Ale
Deschutes Brewery, Mirror Pond made with Fresh Hops, Pale Ale
Deschutes Brewery, Hop Trip, Pale Ale
Double Mountain Brewery, Killer Green, IPA
Eugene City Brewery, Fresh Hop Pale, Pale Ale
Fort George Brewery, Ft. George Cohoperative, Pale Ale
Full Sail @ Riverplace, Lupulin, Fresh Hop Ale
Golden Valley Brewery, Tour De Willamette, Pale Ale
Hopworks Urban Brewery, Fest of Fury, Organic Oktoberfest
Hopworks Urban Brewery, Parsec Pale, Strong Pale
Laurelwood Brewing Co., Hop Bale Pale, Pale Ale
Laurelwood Brewing Co., Fresh Nugs, Pale Ale
Lompoc Brewing, Proletariat Red, Organic Red
Lompoc Brewing, Octobock, Bock
Lompoc Brewing, Hop Press, Organic Pale
Lucky Labrador Brewing, the Mutt, Fresh Hop Ale
Ninkasi Brewing Co., Mt Hops, Pale Ale
Pelican Pub & Brewery, Elemental Ale, IPA
Rock Bottom Brewery, Hop Harvest, Fresh Hop Ale
Rogue Ales, Independence Ale, Pale Ale
Roots Organic Brewing Co., Hoppapotamus, ESB
Widmer Brothers Brewing Co., Teaser, Xtra Pale Ale

I'm thinking it might be worth a trip to Eugene on the 25th for this. Any beer named "Hoptimus Prime" pretty much cinches that up for me, I think.

November 29 date for one of Cornwall’s biggest parties of the year

Real ale and music lovers are gearing themselves up for one of the biggest and best parties of the year as the St Austell Brewery Celtic Beer Festival prepares to celebrate its tenth birthday.

The hugely popular event takes place this year on Saturday November 29th, when the unique surroundings of the old wine cellars and vaults beneath the Victorian brewery will play host to hundreds of revellers, a fantastic line-up of live bands - and of course a selection of more than 100 great beers.

Read more

The Great American Beer Festival started today. I've been following the ramp-up among the bloggers as they've been getting ready and traveling to it... this year likely would've been the year I'd have gone, had I not been affected by the economic downturn.

(Don't worry, everything turned out fine—but you can't leave when you've only had a job for a month or so.)

As of now the GABF is sold out and everyone is partying it up in Denver. Don't worry, though, there's plenty of virtual GABF going around:

• Photos realtime-ish on Flickr
• My Beer Pix (Sage and Molly) is planning a Live Video Beercast Friday and Saturday
• Beer Utopia is teaming up with Flying Dog to livecast Flying Dog's FBAG party on Friday

I'll be keeping an eye on the awards handed out, too—watching those Oregon brewers, natch.

Next month's Session is the 21st Beer Blogging Friday since it all started—which might be more of a milestone than #20 since, as I'm shamelessly lifting from someone else, 21 makes it "legal."

The topic for the next Session (which is November 7th) comes from A World of Brews:

When looking at the past topics I felt that they were all a little to easy. They weren't loaded enough for me. No one has asked the the one question that I am guessing all of you have heard. This question has probably come from friends, family, strangers from the bar, etc everytime you bring up you are really into beer.

That question is: What is your favorite Beer and Why?

Before you say I don't have a favorite beer or how do I pick just one. I say BS everyone has a favorite. There will always be a beer that you would grab above all others, your go to beer per say. The one beer you will almost always choose over the others. When I get asked that question I almost always say I don't have one but then when I came up with this topic I realized I did and I know you do too.

Bonus points for reviewing your favorite beer as well.

Though it's the "favorite" part which is hard: the concept of a favorite beer can be a moving target—which is true for many of us, I suspect.

Somehow between last month when I blogged about receiving Kona Brewing's Pipeline Porter and now, I forgot to actually post, you know, the review. (I also missed two others I needed to post, but that's another time.)

Pipeline Porter is the seasonal from Kona that (you may recall) is actually brewed here on the mainland but with 100% Kona coffee, imported from Hawaii. It sits at 5.4% alcohol and is available from September through March.

Appearance: Dark brown-black, opaque, with a light brown head.

Smell: Nice blend of roasted coffee and malts. A bit of dark chocolate—a cocoa powder thing going on—and a sense of smokiness.

Taste: Coffee (no surprise), roasted black malts that are dry but without any astringency. Creamy and slightly chocolaty... nice bit of bitterness from the malt. Hops are very low-key.

Mouthfeel: Smooth, dry, medium-bodied. A "soft water" feel.

Overall: A very nice porter, creamy yet dry and rich with coffee. Well done and enjoyable to drink.

On BeerAdvocate, it earns a solid B+ overall. On RateBeer, it scores 3.5 out of 5 and is in their 84th percentile.

To spoil things right away: this year's version of Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale that I received is much better than last year's.

Jack's is brewed by Anheuser-Busch under the Michelob label, and it's brewed with "farm-grown pumpkins, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves" to a 5.5% alcohol beer.

Appearance: Clear, bright orange, a thick off-white head.

Smell: Smells good—sweet and pumpkin pie spices, but not harsh.

Taste: Tastier than I remember—there's a sweet malt base (Crystal malts is what I'm thinking, though there's some hard candy sugar thing maybe too) and the spices accentuate it well—it seems like they've really dialed in the recipe. Not artificial like some I've had; well-balanced.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, very clean (like all A-B products). A bit of a crisp edge.

Overall: Better than I remember, and a solid contender in the pumpkin beer category this year.

On BeerAdvocate, it scores an overall grade of C+. On RateBeer, it scores 2.67 out of 5, and is in their 22nd percentile.

Late last week—but in time for the last few days of Oktoberfest—I received a Flying Dog beer care package. Inside: their seasonal Dogtoberfest.

This Märzen-style fall seasonal is 5.3% alcohol by volume and brewed with 100% German ingredients (imported); they're aiming for authenticity.

I received a bottle last year as well that I reviewed here; I found it to be good and solid Oktoberfest-style beer.

Look for my review on this year's edition to be forthcoming.

I remember this beer, back in the day. Pretty hefty stuff for its time.

Redhook Ale Brewery Revives Cult Craft Brew Classic

After hearing numerous requests from craft beer drinkers across the country, Redhook Ale Brewery (Nasdaq: HOOK) will reintroduce the cult classic craft brew Double Black Stout for a limited time.

Originally created by the brewery in 1995, Redhook stopped producing Double Black Stout in 2000 and craft beer enthusiasts have been reminiscing about it ever since. This fan favorite is coming back as a limited release and will be available nationwide beginning early November 2008 through February 2009, or until supplies run out.

Read full press release

Today is the first Friday of October, which means it's time for The Session—the group beer blogging event that brings together bloggers of all stripes to write about a common topic or theme.

The theme for this month's Session—the twentieth, which I'm sure has to be some sort of milestone—is brought to us by Bathtub Brewery: Beer and Memories.

For the 20th Session, Bathtub Brewery threw our hats in the ring (our hops in the fermenter?) to host a Session topic you might not expect. I’m sure you were figuring we’d quiz you on the best pumpkin brews to pass your lips, or ideas for wild and crazy ingredients for a harvest ale. Well, that won’t be the case. Instead, I pose this question for you to ponder:

Is there a beer that reminds you of a specific memory?

If you’re thinking, “Huh?” then you might want to craft your response along the lines of “Whenever I drink [insert brew here] it reminds me of that day …” Or perhaps it’s the reverse. Oooooh.

I love this month's topic, but I have to say that there's no particular beer that makes me say, "This reminds me of..." in the same way that, say, a particular aroma will trigger a memory or a snippet of music will evoke nostalgia. That is to say, there's no one specific memory attached to a beer that I can point to as a definitive example.

The thing is, I have a wicked good memory for various minutiae like TV (used to drive my wife crazy when I could recall all the details of any "X-Files" episode after watching a ten-second snippet), comic books, movies, science fiction, and beer. So I tend to remember the beers themselves and the circumstances involved in trying a beer for the first time, and a lot of the trivia surrounding that.

Right now this is probably best represented by the bottle collection I have going—one which I weeded out earlier this year, in fact, because I was out of room. Currently, the bottles I have "on display" are all either beers that were given to me as a gift or beers that were sent to me as PR for The Brew Site (and I'm running out of room again). I can (and do) point to any one of those bottles (or cans, in a few cases) and recall where it came from, roughly when, how good (or bad) it was, and so on.

But that's not all; I can point to the bottle of Deschutes Hop Trip in my collection and tell you that the first year it was released, the label on the bottle had a different truck than subsequent years—as well as describing how I think the beer has changed each year with each new version.

Or I can pick a certain beer, or beer-related event, and recount in various detail what was going on at the time—for instance, the first time I ever had Arrogant Bastard was at the 1999 Oregon Brewers Festival and my friend Justin and I were walking along the northern tent when I spied the sign (the first I'd even heard of it), turned to Justin and said, "I feel like an arrogant bastard!"

(Yeah, as beer-related one-liners go, it was pretty lame. But we'd already been drinking and it was hot out.)

And I would subsequently spin out anecdotes of that trip to the OBF and then other such trips which would at some point naturally segue into stories and trivia about other beers of and beer trips to Portland.

So no, I can't really say there's a beer that reminds me of a specific memory—rather there is a lot of stuff rattling around my head and a lot of ways I can connect the dots from that stuff to beer. That's how "beer and memories" works for me.

Update: I removed the press release at request of the agency who sent it out; it contained erroneous information, apparently. Though another one should arrive soon.

This is another one of those press release pitches that strike me as daft and surreal—like something out of a Ren & Stimpy cartoon—therefore I must run it. Seems kind of odd to be something from Newcastle, but what the heck. Here's the pitch that preceded it:

The holidays are just around the corner, which means your days will quickly fill with stressful chores and obligations. Newcastle understands the frustrations that men experience during this time and has created a holiday "MAN-ual," for those holiday-challenged fellows who can't seem to pull it together.

The MAN-ual features tips on entertaining toasts, the perfect gift to reflect your relationship (i.e. Airline tickets signify you're worth the pain of a trip through airline security) as well as easy to make recipes designed specifically with men in mind.

In celebration of the season, we would also like to send you a six-pack to test out some of the MAN-ual's seasonal recipes. Or use it to chill out and toast the holidays - it's up to you!

I can also request a copy of the MAN-ual itself. Yeah!

Here's the full press release: [redacted]