Top 5 Beers for the Weekend

As I rambled about in my last review, I love three day weekends. Who doesn't? But Memorial Day weekend is special, because of it's usual events of camping and drinking beer. So here are my top five beers I will/want to drink at some point this weekend:

1. Laurelwood's Hop Monkey IPA: This bad boy is pure spring. So fresh, so crisp, so hoppy, so damn good.
2. New Belgium Brewery's Might Arrow: This pale ale goes along with the theme of spring, crisp and fresh that just makes everything so much better.
3. Amnesia's Copasetic IPA: Going to be up in P-twon later, gotta stop by Amnesia. If only I could remember how to get there...
4. Mac and Jack's African Amber: A very hearty dark amber, that's surprisingly smooth considering the color. P.S. Maria if you're still reading this site, I'm still looking for some bottles!
5. Henry Weinhard's Blue Boar Pale Ale: The ultimate throw back beer will be needed as a certain Lauren will be up in Portland, and will bring back nostalgia of river kick its.

Have a safe weekend everybody,

PROST!

Pelican IPA

Ladies and gentlemen, what we have upon us a a very rare occurrence that must be taken advantage of to the greatest ability of your inner soul. I am talking of course, about an up coming three day weekend. There are very few holidays were it seems to be more appropriate to drink beer than this weekend. I know when I think about Memorial Day weekend, I envision camping which is clearly associated with campfires, hotdogs, and beer. Enjoy it regardless of what you do.

Any-hoo, this fine crafted IPA was created by Pelican Brew Pub in Cape Kiwanda. I've sampled some of their beers before, the cream ale is ridiculously delicious, and was excited to see this beer at Bierstein. The India Pelican Ale, as they call it, is considered one of Oregon's best made beers. This bad boy came in a 22 oz bottle and was an IPA fan's type of beer. Very bitter (85 IBU's) with Cascade hops dominating the bitter taste. A twinge of malty sweetness started the taste, but unless you have an appreciation for hops, and bitter beer, I would not suggest this one to you. However, if you do enjoy hops, this baby is jam packed with them.

Beermigos Rating: Onesy Brew. This beer is not for every one. But as I said before, for the IPA fans it's pretty darn good. A very nice spicy aroma, with a light white head to start, very crisp and Cascade hop dominant. 7.5% ABV so a 22 oz bottle can get you pretty buzzed.

Oakshire Amber

Good afternoon to all of the beermigos out there, sorry for the couple of weeks hiatus, there's been some nice weather making it a little difficult to sit inside and write. Excuses be damned, I've got to step my game up along with my two compadres. Anyway, recently PJames came back from his Spanish excursion and it's been very nice having one of the other Beermigos to consistently enjoy a beer with. One of those times happened to be a week ago at the fine outdoors store known as Back Country Gear Limited. They hosted a professional rock climbing lady to come show some slides of insane routes she had completed recently. You can see some of the pictures here, I highly suggest it. There were two great things about this event; free beer and Pat found the love of his life.



Yes I know, free beer is an amazing thing. But it's even better when the beer is high quality local brew. Oakshire used to be known as Willamette Brewing Company, and while the name may have changed the good beer hasn't. This amber was a very dark and had a nice hearty filling. The malt was the strongest taste, but there was a bit of hops that finished out.

Beermigos Rating: A Dinner at the In Laws Brew. A very solid amber that could really go with a lot of different foods. On the maltier side with only a 30 IBU so keep that in mind, but average alcohol content at 5.4%.

Hop Monkey IPA

One of my favorite parts of the arrival of spring, is the similar change in beer styles that become available. Don't get me wrong, I love a good stout, but after a long winter with plenty of chocolaty, creamy stout (OK I kind of want one now, damn it) it's nice to start turning to the citrus smelling perky IPAs that come with spring. I was at the favorite watering hole with some buds, kickin' back with some beers and testing each other with trivia quizzes we had made for each other. All of my questions had to do with sports, Seinfeld, or Arrested Development seeing that those three things with beer are all I need in life, it was a pretty damn good night. Then came the beer selection of Hop Monkey. My goodness, did I make one hell of a choice.

The fine folks up at Laurelwood Brewery up in Portland blessed me with this beer, and I can't thank them enough for it. It's color was of a lighter yellow, not quite lager yellow, but a couple of shades above. The head was pure white as to be expected, and the smell was simply fantastic. A very citrusy, alive smell that had me giddy to begin drinking the beer. The taste, oh the taste, was quite possibly the best balanced IPA taste I've had in a long time. A quick punch of hoppy bitterness, with a slight twinge of malt, and then finishes concisely with one last burst of hop goodness. This beer was so crisp, I feel like I could drink this beer after a marathon and quench my thirst. I could not put this beer down, I drank it so damn fast I went and got another one just to experience it all over again.

Beermigos Rating: Pondering the Meaning of Life with your Beermigos Brew.
I absolutely love this beer. From the first sip to the last gulp, the Hop Monkey is in my top 5 beers of all time. I would highly suggest it if you come across it. It is so crisp, complex, and finishes so clean it is perfect for getting one in the mood for good weather.

Fun Fact Friday!

Good Friday to you readers (literally) hope all is well. My bad about two FFFs in a row, I've been meaning to review this fantastic IPA I had the other day, but haven't got around to finishing the review. Anyway seeing that it is Good Friday, making Sunday Easter, I figured I would drop some knowledge about a mythical creature that seems to have very little to do with the actual holiday. I am speaking of the Easter Bunny.

While the early Christians were trying to spread their religion through out Europe, their biggest opponents were the Pagans. In efforts to ease the transition from Paganism to Christianity, many Pagan holiday dates were kept around the same time, but were given different Christian meanings. The Pagans would celebrate natures re-birth with a festival that appreciated the Goddess of fertility and spring, known as Eostre or Eastre. Two prominent symbols of fertility were the egg and the hare. The first documented appearance of an Easter Bunny like character was in Germany around the 1600's, when the character Oschter Hawes would deliver colored eggs to well behaving children. Eventually when settlers came to the US, so did the Easter Bunny.

Interestingly enough, the Easter Bunny isn't as popular in every Christian state as it is in the US. Australia didn't have any rabbits in their natural habitat, so when they were brought from Europe, they destroyed many crops and other wildlife making them a complete pest. So instead the Aussies have the Easter Bilby, which is an indigenous marsupial.

Enjoy the weekend,

PROST

Fun Fact Friday!

Happy early April to everyone, we're getting closer day by day to warm weather full of hikes, swimming and bike rides and I'm sure you're all as excited as I am. Anyone in the US, and in many other countries, over the age of five will know that the beginning of April is a fun day for those merry pranksters inhabiting the world. This particular April Fool's day I was neither duked, nor did I play any sort of prank. It's a big stepping stone in my maturity level, NOT. I figured I would search the interwebs to find a good prank that is worthy of special mentioning. There were plenty of good ones from the BBC doing a special report on Swiss Spaghetti trees, to finding the corpse of the Loch Ness monster, and the left-handed Whopper Burger King was releasing for their customers. But being a blog about beer, I decided that this story was best:

In 1998 the good folks at Guinness issued a statement that they were going to be the official sponsor of the Old Royal Observatory's Millenium celebration. The Observatory is located in Greenwich, London, and had agreed to change England's name of time from the Greenwich Mean Time to the Guinness Mean Time. The Observatory would recognize this change, start counting seconds in "pint drips," and it would all go back to normal at the end of 1999. Apparently The Financial Times didn't find that appropriate, and criticized the beer makers, until they realized it was a joke and retracted their statement in the next issue. Oh those wacky beer makers, you just never know with those guys.

Enjoy your weekend,

PROST

Raison D'Extra

Enjoying the company of the special lady friend for the first time in about five days, I felt I needed to run down to the best watering hole in all of Eugene, possibly Oregon, the Bierstein. It not only has eight or more beers on tap at a time, but three hundred different bottles in their refrigerator. A Beermigos' dream. I picked this brew from Dogfish Head because I was in an adventurous mood, and I know what you're thinking, picking a beer to be adventurous is semi-lame but give me a break, it's a monday night.

While the girls were watching their Gossip Girl, I needed something high in alcohol to make it through the pain that is that horrible TV show (I try not to be negative, but it's just sooooo bad). Well I definitely picked the right beer. According to their website, it's at 18 ABV thus only needing one of them to effectively block out the TV while playing Bubble Spinner. It was incredibly complex, as to be expected of a Dogfish Head creation. It's a fairly traditional brown ale with a slight nut taste, but then out of no where, an extreme sweetness takes the tongue hostage via the raisins they used in the wort. RAISINS? Are you kidding me? These guys can find a way to mix just about anything with malt, hops, and yeast.

While the raisin taste comes crashing in out of no where, it fades away very comfortably and leaves nothing nasty hanging. The only thing this brew left was a fantastic buzz from it's high ABV.

Beermigos rating: Onesy/Contemplating the Meaning of Life Brew: This one is so very unique that it can only be created by Dogfish Head. It really shocks you at first, but the taste becomes very comfortably sweet once you know what is coming. With the high ABV, you definitely don't want to be pounding these away, and could start some epic conversations because of it's complexity.


P.S. The Special Lady Friend didn't like it, but I did.