I am moving to Kansas soon so my beer adventure will take on a whole new direction. Recently been brewing with my friend Boris Zee on his set up.

Been drinking a lot and got more new nips, will try to keep this updated.

Finally got around to bottling my cranberry cider a few nights ago, it only took me almost 2 months to do so. But it seems to be coming together very nicely. The O.G was 1066 and the FG was straight 1000, so that was nice. For those that do not want to do the math that means a abv of about 8.7%, very nice. I used a Trappist Ale yeast, which really did a number on the cider. It's really not sweet and became nutty but the cranberries were wunderbar. Very acidic and tart, no alcohol presence at all. I ended up with 3 gallons of straight cider and I bottled half still and primed the other half with more cider.



I also did a little experiment I burrowed from someone on the ratebeer website. Got half a gallon of unpasteurized cider from a local orchard and added the dregs (the settled yeast) of a nicely sour beer (Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza). It took a bit of time for activation to start but then it EXPLODED with fermentation. Depending on how this works out I have a few possible routes to take:
A) take what happens and drink it
B) add more sour yeast, particularly from a geuze
C) and possibly if it is going well get a whole 3-5 gallons of unpasteurized cider and use this as a starter

The great thing about beer hunting is visiting breweries in small cities and Keegan Ales happens to be one of this small cities. Located in Kingston, NY it is over two hours north of New York City and about an hour south of Albany, pretty much making it in the middle of no man's land. I finally decided to drive out there because of some special treats the brewery's restaurant had on tap, but I will get to that later.

Keegan Ales shares a lot of history with Long Island, particularly the name of a beer. Keegan Ales makes an American style IPA called Hurricane Kitty, which also happens to be the name of an IPA made at the BrickHouse Brewery, a small brewpub in Patchogue, NY. A little more than a year ago I stopped by there and ordered the Kitty and as I did a man next to me said "nice choice." Long story short, I was sitting next to Tom Keegan, the son of Hurricane Kitty, the craziest driver in Patchogue. Also, his son Tommy was the Keegan of Keegan Ales.

Now back to the point, I made a slight trek to Kingston to visit a recently opened restaurant and bar at the Keegan brewery, but more importantly they had 2 beers on tap that are not easy to come by. First and most important was the Super Kitty, a supped up version of the regular Kitty that weights in at 12% abv, is hand bottled, and released in a super small quantity during the holiday season. I got to try a draft version and, as a nice bonus, a brand new beer, a White Ale, the first Belgian style beer from this brewery.

The experience was a ball and I fully enjoyed both beers, reviews can be found here. The bar is beautiful decorated to fit the old town and the youthful brewery. The free peanuts were a kick. Outside of the house beers there were also 2-3 guest taps. The restaurant is original, not really a sit down order kind of place but more like order at the counter and the lady will bring it over to your picnic table or couch. But the food was great actually. Live music on the Saturday I was there, think hippie (the name of the band is IS, yeah, I know). Definitely recommended for anyone in the area.

I recently held a small impromptu blind Flanders Red tasting for a few people. If you ask, what is a "blind" tasting, well its when individuals sample beer without knowing what brand/brewery it is (and in this case also rate it). What is Flanders Red? Well the BJCP has it's own way of describing it but basically I will say its a Belgian red ale that is barrel aged with bacteria for a long period to provide sourness and acidity and is often blended with an older beer to cut down the sour aspects. The most famous and widely available example of this beer is Rodenbach Grand Cru. This also happens to be one of my most favorite styles of beer. So, I decided we needed to have a blind tasting to see what people really think is the best, unfortunately I played host and poured all the beers but the other four people had no idea. I was also able to acquire various Flanders Red from America and Europe, in all i believe I was able to serve a nice array of takes on the style. Actually, I serves 10 different beers (3 of which were provided by another person) . The list:

American:
New Holland Moxie - New Holland Brewing Company, Holland, Michigan
New Glarus Unplugged Enigma - New Glarus Brewing Company, New Glarus, Wisconsin
New Belgium La Folie - New Belgium Brewing Company, Fort Collins, Colorado
Russian River Supplication - Russian River Brewing, Santa Rosa, California
Jolly Pumpkin La Roja Grand Reserve - Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, Dexter, Michigan

Belgian:
Rodenbach Grand Cru - Brouwerij Rodenbach (Palm), Roeselare
Bios Vlaamse Bourgogne (labeled as Monk's) - Brouwerij Van Steenberge, Ertvelde
Zoetzuur Flemish Reserve Ale - De Proefbrouwerij, Lochristi

Other:
Mestreechs Aajt (5% ABV, unsweetened) - Gulpener Bierbrouwerij, Gulpen, Netherlands
Friend's homebrewed, 5 year old, straight from the barrel, uncarbonated, Flanders Red

All 10 were served blind in a random order, 1 person knew of 3 of the beers otherwise no one even knew what beers are being served, the results were interesting.

The Rundown

4 Blind raters + me
La Folie 3.98

RR Supplication batch 2 3.92

Rodenbach GC 3.82

Zoetzuur 3.76

homebrew 3.625

La Roja GR 3.56

Moxie 3.4

Monks 3.32

Mestreechts Aajt 3.22

Enigma 3.2

Minus 1 "against the grain" rater

La Folie 4.15

homebrew 4.03

Rodenbach GC 3.975

RR Supplication batch 2 3.925

Zoetzuur 3.725

Moxie 3.35

Monks 3.325

Enigma 3.125

Mestreechts Aajt 3.1

OVERALL: Either way you cut it La Folie scored best, it was also the one most recognized. No other beers were recognized except one person narrowed down the Rodenbach to 3 choices. The homebrew was spectacular outside of the one rater who hated it extremely (the HBers ratings were never used to calculate these numbers). The Enigma consistently scored badly, the La Roga was consistently just average and the Zoetzuur was consistently above average. All in all the RR was most globally liked.

A truely sad day for all beer lovers, one of the first and greatest beer pioneers has passed today.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52716.asp


Some kind words from another beer writer.
http://lewbryson.blogspot.com/2007/08/michael-jackson.html


Michael Jackson's last article
http://www.allaboutbeer.com/

Really Really Old Beer. Have you had some? The oldest beer I have tried (before this weekend) was around 15 or 16 years old and I have a bottle of something that is 18 right now (but I am waiting for its 20th anniversary). Not all beer is of course going to last decades and be anything close to drinkable, really only two kinds; an over the top, super strong barleywine or a sour, yeast beasties, who will consume ever last bit of sugar, beer. However, either way I never fathomed in my wildest dreams I would get to try something this old. I have heard others tell of similar experiences with really old beer, but I never, even for a second, thought I could at some time drink a similarly old beer. However, this weekend I was treated by a very generous beer lover (BTW, biggest thanks in the world for opening this up) to a... guess... a beer that is... over 100 years old!!!! To be precise it was brewed in 1869, it is 138 years old. Can you believe it? It was a big deal actually, a stash was found hidden in a brewery in England. Here is a nice article on the beer.

So not to burst anyone's bubble but it actually did not taste like anything. The aroma was decent enough, some cider aspects, very faint malt. Taste was completely water (pool water, as one person described it). So, I wont expect much from 100 year old beer but it was cool in itself.