Well, nothing ever goes quite as planned. My wife and I stopped by Beer Nuts Friday evening, intent on purchasing the winter beers for our taste-off.
We had planned on purchasing:
• Alaskan – Winter Ale
• BridgePort – Ebenezer
• Cascade Lakes – Santa’s Little Helper
• Deschutes – Jubelale
• Full Sail – Wassail
• McTarnahan’s – HumBug’r
• New Belgium – 2 Below
• Pyramid – Snow Cap
• Redhook – Winterhook
• Rogue – Santa’s Private Reserve
• Sierra Nevada – Celebration Ale
• Widmer – Brrr
Unfortunately, we could only find five of the twelve beers we were looking for. Beer Nuts had changed their selection quite a bit since I last stopped in a few months ago. They were no longer stocking any beers from BridgePort or Redhook. Pyramid/Mac’s, Alaskan and Sierra Nevada were also no-shows. While they did stock Widmer, they did not have Brrr. We ended up grabbing every winter seasonal they had in stock.
The beers we took home were:
• Big Sky – Powder Hound
• Cascade Lakes – Santa’s Little Helper
• Deschutes – Jubelale
• Dogfish Head – Chicory Stout
• Full Sail – Wassail
• Golden Valley – Red Thistle Ale
• Lost Coast – Winterbraun
• New Belgium – 2 Below
• New Belgium – Frambozen
• Rogue – Santa’s Private Reserve
If you are thinking, “Red Thistle isn’t a winter ale,” congratulations keen eye; 50 Beer and Coding points for you. I swear I picked up a bottle of Tannen Bomb, but when we got home, it had somehow transformed into Red Thistle Ale.
So, minus the Golden Valley beer, we ended up with nine winter ales for the first round of our taste-off. Initially, we wanted to do the tasting Saturday night, but had to push it back. We are hoping to get a chance to do the tasting tonight or tomorrow. Either way, I’ll post our results soon after.
I am also thinking ahead to round two of the winter ale taste-off. For round two I want a selection of 5-6 winter bombers; all from Oregon and a variety of styles.
So far, my list consists of:
• Full Sail – Wreck the Halls – IPA
• Heater Allen – Sandy Paws – Baltic Porter
• Ninkasi – Sleigh’r – Double Alt
• Oakshire – Ill-Tempered Gnome – Winter Brown Ale
• Lompoc – C-Son’s Greetings – Imperial IPA
If you have any suggestions on ales that should be added or dropped, let me know. I won’t be purchasing them for a couple weeks.
Cheers!
Kevin