Pats Preseason 2011 and Dogfish Head? 8.11.11

So, Dogfish Head ain't your usual football game beer, but here's the thing: this amazing girl bought it for me!  Add that onto a Patriots preseason spanking of the Jags = one awesome night!

International Beer Day!

Last week was a great week to be a beer drinker!  Thursday, August 4th was IPA Day and Friday, August 5th was International Beer Day!  For IPA Day I enjoyed a lovely Stone IPA, to be reviewed a bit later on, and got to check out the Chihuly exhibit at the MFA Boston...  here's a little sample of his stuff:

It's all hand-blown glass, assembled piece by piece.  Unbelievable!  If you ever get the chance to see any of his work, highly highly recommended!.  As for International Beer Day, I got a BRAND NEW beer from Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.  

GROUNDSWELL!

Spring Beers....

Yeah yeah yeah...SUPER late.  So throw me in a barrel and cover me in honey!

Life's been busy and I'm starting to crack into my stockpile of beers, get over it!  It's nice to have seasonal beers off-season anyway, so suck it.

Samuel Adam Longshot Category 23 Sampler Pack!

So each year for the past 15 or so Sam Adams holds a Longshot brewing competition in which amateur homebrewers from across the country brew and submit their own beers for judging.  A recently created category (23) was developed for brewers creating a beer by "thinking outside the box"...creating a unique beer.  The 2 finalists from 2010 in won the chance to have their beer brewed and released nationally in this 6 pack, along with the employee winner.  There is a Blackened Hops Ale, Friar Hops Ale and Honey B's Lavender Wheat

Stanley Cup Finals and Some Special Sam Adams

A while back was a damn good Wednesday, let me tell you!  First, I had finally gotten a job offer for a position I had interviewed for!  BAM!!  Secondly, the Bruins were playing in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1990 and were aiming for their first cup since '71-'72.  This totally justified finally breaking out one of the bottles of Infinium I had gotten over the holidays and a friend coming to watch the game happened to score a bottle of the 2011 Utopia!  Fuck. Yes.  The only thing that would've made that night better would have been a Bruins win...BUT in the end they took the cup and it. was. GLORIOUS!  (side note: got the job offer the same day as game 1..was supposed to start the 13th of June, but that was pushed back to the 20th..thankfully because game 7 ended up being on the 15th and if I had started that week I would not have been able to revel in the glory that night in Boston!  AND on the 4th week of the new job..yep.  Stanley Cup!  Got my picture taken with that big, shiny piece of epic wonder!  Awesome job I got, eh?)

Two Italian Reds

MORE WINE!!!  So about a week ago, my liquor store had a tasting of new Italian wines that we just got in, and get this...the rep from the distribution company..yeah, his name was Jim Guido.  LEGIT Guido..  looked the part and his actual name was Guido, kid you not!!  And of course, I got to bring some home!  I forget what the whites were, but they weren't bad at all.  Took home two reds: a Barbera D'Alba and a Montepulciano D'Abruzzo.

Finally Wine!

DEAR GOD!  It's finally happened!  I'm reviewing WINE!  The perks of working at a liquor store is that I get to take home the half open bottles that are left over from wine tastings!  Yeah yeah..I've brought some home before..but housed them before I had the chance to review  haha!

A college friend and the Asgard

So about a month ago a friend from college was in town for training for her job and wanted to meet up.  Took her to the Asgard in Cambridge for dinner and some drinks.  She's not really a beer or whisky drinker (as the Asgard is known for) so only had a glass of wine, but I took the opportunity to try two new beers of course!!

Wailua Wheat!

So around Christmas time last year I bought a friend a bottle of wine as an early present and was given a bottle of this out of the 6pk she got as a semi-gift!  I've had the Kona Pipeline Porter and turned a lot of people onto it, so might as well see what else Kona has to offer!

Dark Horse Winter Stouts collection

The last of the winter beers...I think...  So a while back at Sunset, I tried a Dark Horse Tres Blueberry Stout and it was awesome!  Come to find out, Dark Horse does a collection of stouts starting in November for 5 months, releasing a new one each month designed to " to help ease you through the cold and grey midwestern winters. " Unfortunately, by the time I found out about this, the only place I could find any of the stouts just had 3 of the 5 types in stock..One, Tres and Fore.  And do you think I'm actually gonna pass up getting them just because they don't have all five?