The Session #40: The Session

This months session is being hosted by Erik at Top Fermented.  The topic is session beer, a session about session, it's tripping me out.  Or maybe it's the fact that I just spent the day at the zoo with 5 toddlers and an infant.  Either way, I approve of session beer, and now that everyone is asleep, I'm enjoying a few brews myself.

The Session #37: Breaking out the good stuff

Sir Ron at The Ferm is hosting this months session.  The topic is some what open ended.  When do you break out the good stuff?

I have serveral bottles that I'm aging (Vintage Thomas Hardy, Fuller's, Old Rasputin...).  With the Thomas Hardy it's easy.  It comes in a 4 pack, and I'll open a vintage bottle every 5, 10 ,15, and 20 years.  As far as the other bottles go, I will open them when it feels right.

The bigger question is do you share?  Yes, you should always share your good stuff with friends and family.  However, you should only share with friends and family that appreciate quality beer, wine, and spirit.  In other words, you don't feed your dog filet mignon.  Regular consumers of Milwaukee's Best don't get any.

I think that there is a reason that you age quality beer in a cool dark place. It's the out of sight, out of mind principal. The temptation is not so strong.

Having said all of that, sometimes the moods going to strike you, and if it does, drink away.  After all, you bought it.

Announcing the Session #37: When to drink the good stuff

Next month's session will be hosted by The Ferm.  SirRon has trouble breaking out the good stuff and wants help.  This will be a fun topic, because I love to break out the good stuff.

The Session #36: Cask Ale

This post is a day late.  It's the first time that life has gotten in the way of my posting.  Cask Ales don't fall out of trees, especially in January.  Admittedly, there is a bar across town that serves cask ales on Fridays, but it's across town.

Fortunately, today is Alefest Columbus.  I just spent the day getting crunked on many great craft beers.  Bell's brought two cask beers to the festival, so we'll talk about those.

The first one that I tried was their Cherry Stout.  At first, I didn't like it, it was too smokey.  As I finished my drink, it grew on me.  The sour cherry flavor mellowed out the smokiness and it was a nice drink.

They also had their Best Brown Ale, which was a favorite of my drinking crew (more to come when I actually put up my ale fest post)  It's slightly sweet, mild, and very drinkable.  A very good beer.

So what's up with cask ales?  They are alive!  Oooooh.  The yeast is fermenting the sugar in the cask/keg making more alcohol and CO2.  All of the cask ales that I have sampled are relatively flat.  Which I find odd, because it's never an issue that I have had with the bottle conditioned brews that I make at home.  Maybe our host can explain it in his round up.

Session #36 to be hosted by Yours for Good Fermentables

The topic for February's session is going to be Cask-Conditioned beer.  It's safe to say that Cask aged beers are an obsession for Tom Cizaukas.  He offers serveral suggestions on how to approach the topic.  Here at Two Parts Rye, we're all about the drinking.  I'm heading off to Barley's Smokehouse and Brewpub for a Firkin Friday and am looking forward to downing a few points of cask conditioned heaven.

The Session #35: New Beers Resolutions

This Month's session is hosted by Beer For Chicks.

So we want to know what was your best and worst of beer for 2009? What beer mistakes did you make? What beer resolutions do you have for 2010? What are your beer regrets and embarrassing moments? What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?

In no particular order.

The Best:

• Stone Juxtaposition Black Pilsner  Usually, I find that these odd styles end up being somewhere between meh and a train wreck.  This one was quite nice.
• Leiny's Summer Shandy.  Beer and Lemonade on a hot summer day.
• Columbus Brewing Company Bodhi Double IPA  The most aromatic hops ever!
• Great Lakes Christmas Ale I'm amazed by the popularity of this beer.  I like it.  Everyone else that I know wants to make love to it.
• The honey ale at La Ceversera Artesana  Had this on vacation.  Chances are, I'll never have it again.
• This is non-beer related.  My method for sneaking a flask in on a cold rainy day at Ohio Stadium was borderline genius.  My poncho is in a little plastic bag.  I put the flask in the poncho.  When security asked me what was in my pockets. I handed the security guy the poncho, and by the transitive property of being sneaky, the flask.  Showed them my phone, wallet, etc.  Security handed me back my flask.  I was proud of myself, and when the skies opened, thankful to have a pint of Manhattan pre-mixed.
• The Jimmy Football commercials are works of high art.

The Worst:

• Chateau Jiahu  Tastes like Welch's grape juice.
• Bell's Java Stout  Taste like old coffee grounds.
• Brew Dog Bashah  Just tastes bad.
• Charkoota Rye  Tastes like artificial smoke and salt.
• Michelob's Winter Bourbon Cask Ale  Tastes like artificial vanilla.

What beer mistakes did I make? 

• This has been covered before.  Never drink the 3rd big mug at Bob's.  And if you do, don't hop on a bicycle.
• Avoid any "specialty beer" from the Michelob.  It's always a collection of bad artificial flavors.  The cask ale was awful.  Their fruit infused beers are ghastly.

What beer resolutions do you have for 2010?

• Finally make it to Alefest Columbus.
• Generate enough traffic on this site so that companies will send me free hooch.

What are your beer regrets and embarrassing moments?

• See beer mistakes.

What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?

• This is more about the blogging experience.  I want to get a little bit more entertaining with the reviews.  Let's face it.  Reviews are boring.  At the other end of the spectrum, there are long-winded explanations about some strangers day leading into a review, which is even more dull.   My goal is to find the right balance.  I think that I'm on the right track by giving my friends anonymous identities on the blog .  It also allows me to take some artistic liscence with reality.  For example, it's quite possible that the $6MMm man's arm does not make this noise when he drinks a beer.  I'm just kidding, it does.  It's mind blowing.

Session #35 to be hosted by the beer chicks

Christina and Hallie from Beer for Chicks will be hosting January's session.  They are giving us an opportunity to look back at the best and worst in beer for '09, and to give our beer year's resolutions for '10.  This session will be on January 1. 

My first resolution is to have this post done before January 1st.  Clicking the publish button will be the most complicated task that I will be able to handle as I try to shake off New Year's Eve by getting drunk for the Rose Bowl.

The session #34: Stumbling Home Roundup

Thanks to everyone who contributed.  I feel that Friday is a state of mind and I will accept late entries if anyone else wishes to contribute.

K dub at theferm.org gives us quite a treatise on the art of stumbling home. 

Family life has hindered Jay at Brookston Beer Bulletin's bar life.  He gives a history of his favorite bars from various points in his life.

The Beer Nut tout's Dublin Ireland's best bar for craft beer, The Bull & Castle.  Part of the fun of this subject is that I'm finding good bars from all around the globe.

A post from Pac-10 country.  Mario from Brewed For Thought took the transportation aspect of the session to heart.  He bussed to the "Toad in the Hole" in Santa Rosa, CA.  They serve cask conditioned ales that sound quite tasty.

Erik from Top Femented recognizes that stumbling home is not that great of an idea.  He gives us a tale from his Boston  where he drank many yards of cider and only made it home with the support of the many lampposts along the route.

Devoid from Beer Taster tells a couple of tales, one from the past when small town canadian law enforcement was a bit more understanding.  Fast forward to modern times, drinking and walking can be a challenge as well.

Baltimore Man from A beer in hand is worth two in the fridge tells about Mike McGovern's Irish pub which sounds like a great family/neighborhood establishment.

Jimmy from Hop Wild takes the transportation angle as a challenge.  Sadly, he finds that all the establishments within walking distance of home in North Carolina don't cut the mustard.  Somebody please build this man a decent pub.

Jon from the Brew Site does not have a place that he calls his regular watering hole.  He usually drinks from home or at nearby friends homes.  However, there was that one time...  Be sure to check out the comments section to see what his wife has to say about that one time.

Peter at Better Beer Blog tends to skip stumbling and go straight to crawling.  Atta-boy.  He lives in SF now, but tells us of a bar from his younger days in San Jose.

Alan from a Good Beer Blog was not too impressed with the topic as it has nothing to do with craft beer.  He has posted for every session and shares a series of poems about a passed out friend who was saved by a savory snack.  I disagree with the lack of connection to craft beer.  To prove my point I have crafted two bad haiku's on the subject.

Mrs Rye says you

are drunk.  How many beers did

You have? I say threve.

Craft beer is full of

alcohol.  Makes me crash bike.

Too many ouchies.

Daniel of Endosymbiosis has access to many great bars and microbreweries Kalamazoo.  He instead sings the praises of bars that don't cater to the craft beer drinking, but serve good beer anyway.

I would have never had found this one if it wasn't for google analytics.  Thinking brew talks about some activity in Raleigh

Finally,  Derrick, OSU alum and current Bay Area Beer Runner tells us about a restaurant/brew pub that he visits with his kids.  I can't do this one justice, so please hit the link and read on.

Geistbeer tells us of a place in flagstaff that is like home.

Thanks again everyone.  Who's got #35?

The Session #34: Stumbling Home

This month's session is being hosted by me!  The subject is your favorite local watering hole.

If you have been following this blog on a regular basis, it will come as no surprise that I will be talking about the “Cultural Hub of the Midwest”, Bob’s Bar.

What makes Bob’s so special? The beer folks, the beer. It’s a bit of a hole in the wall, located in a small strip mall on a busy road. What I like to tell people is that they have 30 beers on tap, and their crappy beer is Guinness. It’s only a mile from my house which makes it well within stumbling distance.  Once upon a time, Mrs. Rye's cousin was in town for a visit and I told him that there's a place down the road that has Chimay on tap.  His response was typical.  "Can we go there now?"

The drinking buddies: World-Wide-Kev and the 6 Million Dollar Man. At the end of the '08 church softball season, we decided to do their “world tour” at Bob's  (130 beers are on the tour.  Why, oh why didn't I start the blog last year?). $6MMm and I finished the tour early this year. WWK is pacing himself. He’ll probably finish in 2012, just in time for the Aztec Armageddon.  We call him World-Wide-Kev because he'll say things like" "I can't come next week, I'll be in the Ukraine." or Paris or New York or Seattle...  The 6 Million Dollar Man has had a lot of parts replaced for a 40 year old and I suspect that some of them came from Area 51.  I've been coaching 3rd base and when he swings the bat he breaks the sound barrier.  The ball goes whizzing by, and two seconds later you hear the ping of the bat.  He hits it foul.  But it's still impressive.

Low on decor.  High on beer.

The curse of the big mug: When you finish the tour, you get a 25 oz mug, engraved with a phrase of your choice. You can fill your mug for the price of a pint. It’s a good deal. During happy hour, it’s cheaper to drink there than at home. The downside is that 25 oz of a 10% abv beer will knock you on your butt. Hence, the name of the session and the caveat of no cars allowed.

What did you have engraved on your mug? “STOP CALLING IT A SMALL GROUP!”

Huh? At about the same time we started to go to Bob’s, there was a push in our church for people to form small groups that they could meet with regularly and discuss spiritual matters and what-not. Admittedly, a beer tour was probably not what the pastor had in mind and we are not officially church sanctioned.

Jim:  Honey, I'm off to Bob's to meet my small group.
Mrs. Rye:  “STOP CALLING IT A SMALL GROUP!”

The draft line-up as of 12/1/09

Magic Hat #9
Delirium Tremens
Chimay White
Founder’s Backwoods Bastard Bourbon Ale
Loose Cannon Heavy Seas
Great Lakes Christmas Ale
Stone Ruination
Leiny’s Fireside Nut Brown
Hazed & Infused
Lagunitus IPA
Stone Pale Ale
Dogfish Head Theobroma
Guinness
Bass
Dragon’s Milk
Elevator Brewing Co. Procrastination Doppelbock
Brooklyn Lager
Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
Barley’s Brewing Company IPA
Founder’s Breakfast Stout
CBC Pale Ale
Great Lakes Elliot Ness
Great Lakes Edmond Fitzgerald
Strongbow Hard Cider
Stella Artois
Lindeman’s Framboise Lambic

Announcing the Session #34: Stumbling Home

It's time to give a shout out to your favorite watering hole.  How good are the beers?  Any interesting cast of characters?  What are your drinking buddies like?  They probably need to be embarassed on the internet.  Now's the time.

You don't have to limit yourself to one.  Feel free to reminisce about the good old days if you like.  Maybe you are a shut-in like this guy, and don't get out that much, talk about the home bar.

There is a catch.  This booze stuff has interesting side effects.  That means, you can't get behind the wheel.  You gotta walk, take public transportation, or be a regular supporter of your favorite taxi company.  Bicycles are acceptable but you still need to be careful.  I have the cracked helmet and scars to prove it.  Gotta love the 5 mph one man crash.

Send an e-mail to twopartsrye@gmail.com with your post, or leave the link in the comments section.  Thanks.

The Session #33: Framing Beer

This month's session is being hosted by I'll have a beer.  The idea behind this topic is that one rarely blind tastes a beer.  The label affects your opinion.  The breweries reputation affects your opinion.  It was suggested that we pick a beer that we think that we won't like.  I picked New Holland's Charkoota Rye Smoked Doppelbock Lager.



What role does the label or brewery play in your opinion:  For me, it mostly gets my attention.  More often than not, a craft beer has some type of clever name.  Charkoota is a play on charcuterie, which is the branch of cooking devoted to making sausage, bacon, patees, etc.  That degree in french is finally starting to pay off.  The bottle has a flying pig painted on it.  Normally, I would run away from this beer.  I wish that I had.

Frame this beer:  Don't.  Dont buy it.  Don't pour it.  Don't smell it.  Don't drink it.  Don't ever mention this abomination to me again.

Imagine what other people would enjoy about this beer:  I'm not clever enough to do this.  I found several reviews on the web and it's a love or loathe beer, mostly loathe.  I like to try unusual food and drink, but this is just god awful; one of the most disgusting beers that I have ever drank.  If you are the type who likes bad ideas.  It's for you.

Label stuff:  Charkoota Rye is a Smoked Rye Dopplebock. An homage to all things Pig, including Porkapalooza and the age-old tradition of Charcuterie, Charkoota Rye's malty backbone is derived from a blend of rye and four other malts, including malted barley smoked over cherry wood by our very own brewers, John and Jeff.

Its smoke-forward body is balanced with tones of deep mollasses and caramel, with a crisp, clean lager finish. Delightful by itself, Charkoota is best served with its succulent counterpart, Pork
 
You can see that they are trying to frame it towards folks who think "Pork Fat Rules!".

Grade: F  It's a salty glass of liquid smoke.

The Session #32: The Nation to the East

This is my first session post.  For my regular readers (4 is plural) this will probably be unfamiliar.  It's basically a monthly theme for beer bloggers.  This month's session is hosted by girl likes beer.  The theme is the "nation to the east".

The nation directly to the east of Columbus is the Steeler Nation.  But a review of IC Lite will quickly get me shunned by the other beer bloggers.  The next country over is Portugal, no Portuguese Beers available.  Next up Spain, well Estrella Damm is a damned nice beer, but I want something more exotic.  So I'm going so far east that it is really west.  Japan.  Showing the country's flag was part of the requirements.  Kampai!

Web stuff: Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale

Complex sake like flavors not really with malt sweet notes. yes! Hints of strawberries yes, though I would not have thought of it without the suggestion in the nose and palate. An intriguing mix of sake, malt ,and bitter notes in the finish.

Available both in Japan and U.S.A.
Malts: Pilsner, Flaked Barley

Hops:Hallertauer

Adjuncts:

Original Gravity: 1070

Alcohol Vol: 7.0%

IBU: 11

Color: Hazy Pink  It is pinkish.

What does it really taste like? You know what, it does kinda taste like strawberries. With yeast.
Cost: $4.29 for a 11.2 oz bottle
Grade: B-
Cost Adjusted Grade: C+

They used make a sake cask aged beer that was really good but hard to find. The label looked just like the one above, except that it was green, not pink.  They also have a ginger flavored beer that is ummmmm.... an acquired taste that I have not acquired.