beertastic weekend

more beer this weekend than usual.

friday kicked off with a tour of devil's canyon brewery. to be honest: i'd never had their beers before. but i've been many times to jersey joe's and admired the devil's canyon tap handles. about 20 minutes into beer friday, we happened upon jason, the brewmaster, and struck up a long, wonderful conversation. he revealed many secrets, many not-secrets, and many tidbits of interest. i sampled three beers: the habanero loager: habanero burn: holy crap. otherwise: meh, even bleh. stout: yum! chocolatey and earthy, solid and thick. scotch ale: somewhat meh, but quite drinkable.

overall, a solid 2 outta 3. not bad. the party was good, even though i didnt know anybody. we shouted "freebird" at the band and they played the first 3 bars of "sweet home alabama". close, but no cigar. this was after i and my hetero life mate had sung along, at lung's top, to "southern man". good times.

at some point during the weekend, i got it into my head that what needed brewing was an amarillo lager. so that's what i plan to do: brew me up a decoction mashed amarillo-hopped lager. someday. not sure when.

to assist in this matter, i purchased a sixer of warsteiner. and then a sixer of stone ipa, and a sixer of green flash ipa, since i have had and liked one of the ipas but could not remember which, and they wouldn't let me buy single bottles (the bastiges!).

so: the warsteiner: kinda meh but very drinkable.

the stone ipa: it was my new favorite beer, until....

the green flash: wow! a metric assload of bitterness, with huge hop flavor, tons of aroma. piney, resiney, grapefruity -- balanced, bitter, and huge. my new favoite ipa.

no, that's not so: it's my second favorite ipa. my own "desert heat" beats them all. while desert heat did not have a balance of hops (it was all grapefruit), it did have a huge malt character which the two IPAs tonight seem to lack. still, they are educational, to say the very least ;)