The Journey Progresses

Ok, so last time I was 33% of the way through and as of this moment I am just over 40% of the way there. My original goal was to make it around the world by the end of the school year, but given my progress to date I'm shooting to be 50% by the end of this quarter and to finish up by the end of winter quarter. As anyone who has been around the world at Suds invariably knows the first 65-75% is made up of tap beers and the remainder are out of the bottle. I've had trouble diverting my attention from the taps, just so alluring, except for the giant Steinlager I had two Sundays ago. So, the bottles could add a level of complexity to Winter quarter completion, but I'm up to the challenge.

The real point of these progression posts is to talk about the beers I am trying; given that I'm 21 beers into this I must be dropping the ball somewhere. So here goes. I recently tried Calapooia's winter brew called Kringle Krack. As any self respecting beer connoisseur knows now is the time the winter brews start rolling out from all the big names, so I thought I'd try the local guys' take on the season. I think they're off to a good start. The hoppiness of your typical winter brew was there, but it lacked a crispness that you would expect from a Bridgeport Ebenezer Ale for example. It was good, but not as satisfying as you'd hope. This is the first time I have seen this brew, so I hope that over the next couple of winters they can hone the skills. Calapooia definitely has a quality track record and a more than serviceable foundation with their Kringle Krack.

Cheers,

Alex

Making Progress

In my last post I talked about the Suds beer trip around the world and now I'm back to talk about my progress. As of this writing I am about 1/3rd of the way through my trip (16 out of 50). The majority of the beers are on tap with just a few bottled selections. I have yet to try any of the bottled beers yet and I haven't really ventured too far from beers that I know. But there are a couple that I wanted to mention:

1. Hop Lava from Double Mountain Brewery - As the name suggests this is a hoppy brew. It is extremely crisp and was very refreshing (especially after an exam). This brewery has only been around for a short time, but if this is any indication of what they have to offer I think they'll be around for quite a while.

2. The Dissident from Deschutes Brewing - As they say themselves on the website this is a sour, Flanders-style brown. I would suggest to anyone that they should try a pint of this beer once (because unless you have a full pint you haven't really tried a beer), but after that continue at your own risk. This beer is definitely made for someone with unique tastes. I made it through, but the beer really is sour and was a little bit distracting. After every drink that I took I had to stop and really think about what exactly I was tasting. A well made beer, but just not for me.

Stay tuned here and I will try and provide more details about any new exciting beers I come across. Given the time of year they have a lot of winter beers on tap, should be a refreshing season.