Parkway delivered!! And it's a...

...another amazing brewers night! Of the New Belgium varietal this time. What were you hoping for... a boy? A girl?

The following New Belgium options were on the lineup for our enjoyment, the ones I tasted are in bold:

• Dunkelweiss (cue the tutoring session on dunkels... can't remember how many minutes passed before I started tuning out but I think I learned something)
• Le Fleur Misseur (which got us all speaking with a froggy accent for a half minute after reading the title)
• Vrienden (a collaborative brew with Allagash, means 'friends' in Flemish. DELICIOUS!)
• Trippel
• Abbey
• Ranger IPA
• Trip VII Winter Here, Summer There
• Fat Tire Firkin 

Missing in action were the Fall Wild & Trip VI Fresh Hop. I only did a tiny pout for Parkway Sean since those were my 3rd & 4th choices of the night. Being the nice guy that he is, he gave me a new list with both options crossed off so I would stop asking for them repeatedly.

A tasty little spread!

My top picks for the night were the firkin'd Fat Tire and Vrienden Ale. The Vrienden Ale is very balanced with the perfect amount of dry, sour finish. Very sessionable, I could enjoy a few without having my mouth go into a perma-pucker. Brewed with endive and hibiscus, a lovely ruby color & floral bouquet. I really loved it. Plus I can officially add 'Tasting a Fat Tire on Firkin' to my Bucket List (& cross it right off) because I know my life (& soul) are more complete for having tried it. You have not had Fat Tire until you've had it from a firkin. It's ridiculous.

The Trip VII Winter Here, Summer There was delicious as well. One of my minions in training (also an avid home brewer and Black IPA lova) enjoyed it immensely and enjoyed a nice slap in the head from me when he got a hop leaf in his mouth and spit it out onto the floor. He has obviously not been schooled in the art of ghetto laminating dried hop leaves. I guess certain allowances must be made for those who haven't gone through their full training... sigh.

As usual, the schwag saga continues with a winning ticket for all three rounds. I won 2 Ranger IPA pint glasses, a super sweet New Belgium T-shirt (which I let TPG3 pick out for herself since she was awesome and arrived at Parkway early to get us the good spot I instructed her to), and the grand prize of a Patagonia embroidered New Belgium messenger bag. I didn't realize how nice the bag was until everyone back in my little corner of the tavern got super upset at my ignorance (& 3rd win) and excitement over winning it with my '253' ticket. Hahahaha, suck it bitches! Not to mention my unbridled, genuine, enthusiastic, sound-barrier-breaking yell of 'RIGHT HERE, WINNER!!!!!' every time my number was called. Like I can contain that? Guess I now know why Basil (Minion Edition 1.5) lovingly told me I really don't need a megaphone when I told her I wanted one.

Seat belt strap, cha!

As I left Parkway for the night, I had so much stuff to carry out that I 'accidentally' bumped into a few people. Since I'm a super polite gurl, I felt the need to throw out a 'sorry, pardon my winnings!' and 'oops, did my new bag bump you?' It was a grand evening with a ton of laughs, awesome ales, chats about Teen fiction and beer. Basically a Pissed LiBEERian night made in heaven. Also planned out my next road trip to a few 'must visit' breweries in Bend & PDX.

Stay tuned for more awesome stuff coming to Parkway! They have a host of brewers nights coming up in the next few months and Odin's Freya's Kolsch ale will be on tap soon. Plus... an amazing lineup of Russian River beers will be showing up at an undisclosed date/time. Think all kinds of lovely sours, the Elder & the Younger.

Hardly considered dry and a sour finish you couldn't dream of handling,

the pissed liBEERian

Confused about U.S. things like the rest of us? At least get the beer part sorted out for yourself.

The article below was published in Birmingham Weekly on 10/14/10. It contains some pretty interesting ideas for working your way through a few different styles and brewing companies to get a better understanding for American beer.  I've had 3 out of the 10 beers listed (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Stone Arrogant Bastard & the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA) so apparently I better get busy on the others if I want to round out my beer knowledge.

How to Understand American Beer

"As recently as the 1970s, America was the butt of jokes in world beer culture. There were only a few dozen breweries, all producing little more than straw-colored lagers with minimal flavor. Today, our country boasts over 1,600 breweries leading the world in creativity and quality in brewing. To better understand that transformation, I propose drinking ten different beers that illustrate the nature of modern American beer. Not all in one sitting.

1. The first beer in this round of exploratory drinking absolutely has to be Anchor Steam Beer. In the early 1970s, steam beer was the only style of beer indigenous to North America. I’d argue that in the last few decades Americans have created quite a few new styles, but steam beer is the godfather of them all and today’s craft brewers owe a debt of gratitude to Anchor for persevering through the darkest days of brewing on this continent.

2. Second on your beer tour should be Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the first American pale ale ever brewed. The key point to learn from this beer is that it set the standard for American brewers amping up traditional English styles with extra hops and alcohol. The same pattern would lead to the American IPA, the double IPA, the American brown ale, and the American barley wine. Those categories now boast thousands of examples across the country, and it really all started in 1980 with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

3. After you ponder how three decades ago Americans took UK brewing traditions and created new styles of beer, toast the inspiration coming full circle with a BrewDog Punk IPA. BrewDog is a Scottish craft brewery that is heavily inspired by American craft brewing culture. Thirty years ago it was radical for American brewers to brew traditional Scottish ales. Today it’s radical for a Scottish brewery to produce an American-style IPA. And this influence continues to spread across the world.

4. Not only have we taken European beer styles in new directions, we have also perfected European beers in their original form. A great example of this is Allagash FOUR. It features four malts, four hops, four sugars, and four yeast strains, and it is every bit the equal of any quadruple brewed by any brewer in Belgium. Who needs to buy imports when beer as good or better is being brewed right here in the USA?

5. I’ll tell you who needs imports: me. While Americans have mastered almost every beer style known to man and created more than a few of our own, there are some European beers that we have yet to surpass, and Cantillon Saint Lamvinus is one of them. No one would argue Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River is not a virtuoso in the field of brewing sour beers. But he still has not surpassed the mastery of the brewers and blenders at Cantillon, who have been perfecting the art of lambic brewing for over 100 years. As far as we’ve come, Belgium’s traditional lambic producers still have some secrets Americans have yet to uncover.

6. Next up is Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Not only is Boston Lager at the top of the heap when it comes to sales of American craft beer, the Samuel Adams brand deserves credit for keeping American craft beer alive during the late 90s, when the initial craft boom looked to many to be a fad that had passed. Lots of craft breweries from the first big wave folded, but Samuel Adams continued to grow and proved the segment had staying power.

7. Whiskey barrel-aged beer is entirely an American invention, and the brewery that started it all was Goose Island with their Bourbon County Brand Stout way back in 1992. And it’s still recognized as being among the best there is. Sip this one from a snifter and carefully ponder American creativity at its finest.

8. Although imperial stouts were not invented by Americans, the modern obsession with them started here. The phenomenon of crazed hordes traveling hundreds of miles for a chance at buying six bottles of one beer started with Three Floyds Dark Lord Imperial Stout. The beer debuted in 2004 and has hovered near the top of BeerAdvocate’s list of top beers in the world for most of its existence. It’s only available at the brewery, and only on one day a year. That day has turned into a massive beer festival with thousands of attendees who all bring and share beer. And it has spawned several very successful copycat events all centered around rare, hard to obtain imperial stouts. We have Three Floyds to thank.

9. I think nothing is more emblematic of modern Americans’ perspective on craft beer than our love of absurdly-hopped beers. And the most iconic example of that theme is Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. It was created by Sam Calagione, now the most recognizable spokesman for American craft brewing. 90 Minute is unique in that it doesn’t feature just two or three hop additions that are common for most beers; it is continuously hopped for a full 90 minutes during the boil. It’s nuts, it’s delicious, and no European brewer would ever have dreamed of such a thing.

10. And finally, the last beer you must drink to understand modern American brewing is Stone Arrogant Bastard. It was one of the first beers to defy classification to such a degree that a new catch-all category was created for it, American strong ale. It’s a robust 7% ABV, amber in color with a thick caramel malt backbone, and intensely hoppy. But the most American thing about it is the self-righteous diatribe screen-printed on every bottle, explaining how most drinkers aren’t worthy of the beer because they’ve wasted their lives drinking fizzy yellow light beer. American brewing is dosed with a lot of hubris and attitude, and Arrogant Bastard is the epitome of that."

Learning is growing & variety is the spice of life.

the pissed liBEERian