Road Trip #3 is happening on Saturday May 30th! This one is going to be a blast; we’re headed to Jester King, Last Stand Brewing & Strange Land Brewing. Event details and tickets are on sale here.
Sahara’s latest blog post (#4 in the series if you’re counting) is all about saisons, a perfect springtime beer as the temperature outside steadily climbs upward. Read more here and pick up your curated 6 pack in the shop during the month of May.
Last week I completely forgot to thank everyone for coming to our awesome anniversary party on the 26th as well as the Hops & Grain crew for being wonderful hosts. Thanks for turning out! We had an incredible time and hope you did too. Tyler Malone shot some fantastic photos… feel free to peruse them here.
Free In-Store Tastings 6-8pm
New Beers This Week
Back in stock: Destihl Here Goes Nothin’ (arriving Friday), Stone Chai-Spiced Imperial Stout.
Prairie Noir* – Prairie’s ever popular Noir is a bourbon barrel aged imperial oatmeal stout. It features a ton of oats which provide a silky smooth mouth feel. Noir typically gets aged in other barrels for other special releases, but it has been a while since we’ve received the original version. 11% ABV/Krebs, OK/Ratebeer 99/*Arriving Friday/Availabililty: limited
Karbach Hop Delusion – One of Karbach’s most sought after IPAs, this is a 100+ IBU beast that is dry hopped with a heap of simcoe & mosaic hops for a big citrusy punch. 9% ABV/Houston, TX/Ratebeer 98/Availability: decent
Four Corners Local Buzz – Four Corners out of Dallas just recently started delivering down to Austin, so we’re excited to have their 4 and 6 pack cans readily available now. The local buzz uses local TX honey for a crisp & sweet floral aroma. 5.2% ABV/Dallas, TX/Availability: decent
Four Corners El Super Bee Saison – El Super Bee could be described as a stronger version of the Local Buzz with Belgian yeast, rye malt and also dry hopped. 7% ABV/Dallas, TX/Beer Advocate 86/Availability: decent
Four Corners El Chingon IPA – Four Corners’ IPA features a nice balance of citrusy hop aroma with a bit of piney hop bite. In 6 packs. 7.6% ABV/Dallas, TX/Beer Advocate 85/Availability: decent
Four Corners Block Party Porter – This robust porter is smooth, chocolaty & sessionable. Medium bitterness, mild hop flavor & layers of malt. 5.7% ABV/Dallas, TX/Ratebeer 91/Availability: decent
Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin – Your favorite grapefruit IPA bomb now comes in 6 pack cans! Talk about a river beer.
New Belgium Pear Ginger Beer – The latest in New Belgium’s Lips of Faith series is a pear ginger beer that has a spicy and citrusy flavor that pears well (get it??) with the pear flavor. New Belgium recommends trying it in combination with your spirit of choice for a boozy pear ginger cocktail. 7% ABV/Fort Collins, CO/No ratings yet/Availability: plenty
Anderson Valley Boont Barl Bourbon Barrel Amber Ale – The six month aging process in third-use Wild Turkey Bourbon barrels imparts flavors of coconut and vanilla and subtle bourbon aromas that are enhanced by a noticeable oak character in the finish. 6% ABV/Boonville, CA/Ratebeer 92/Availability: plenty
Stone Pale Ale 2.0 – Stone recently rebranded and wrote new recipes for two of their old standby beers – the Ruination and Pale Ale. They’re attempting to modernize each recipe and with this one in particular they use tons of Mandarina Bavaria hops which impart a very citrusy orange flavor. 6% ABV/Escondido, CA/Ratebeer 93/Availability: decent
Left Hand Great Juju Imperial Ginger – Good Juju’s voodoo goes imperial with a spicy ginger aroma and a mischievously balanced potion of sweet heat and caramel candy. A pungent ginger beer with a spicy aroma and noticeable ginger heat. The spicy heat is balanced out by a slight candied ginger sweetness with light caramel notes. 7.2% ABV/Longmont, CO/Beer Advocate 86/Availability: plenty
Smuttynose Kindest Find Imperial Red – A clever play on words from their year-round IPA Finest Kind, this is a malty & sweet imperial red ale with some big piney hops to balance out the malt. 9% ABV/Hampton, NH/Beer Advocate 89/Availability: plenty
Victory Kirsch Gose – Aroma of fresh sour cherries with flavors of tartness, intense rounded cherry character, and a refreshing salty character. Crisp carbonation and light body are both combined into a thirst quencher. 4.8% ABV/Downington, PA/Ratebeer 95/Availability: limited
Stone Imperial Mutt Brown – The latest in the in-house brewing competation at Stone is a big imperial brown ale with a grain bill made up of Victory, chocolate wheat, Vienna and Honey malts. Fruity and bread-like aromatics are joined by subtle coffee notes. Magnum and East Kent Golding hops offer a restrained, balancing bitterness to a strong malt backbone. 9% ABV/Escondido, CA/Ratebeer 96/Availability: plenty
Squatters Bumper Crop Honey Ale* – Like summer in a bottle, Bumper Crop starts with the gentle aromas of freshly gathered lavender and features local honey for a soft, slightly sweet finish. 5.5% ABV/Salt Lake City, UT/Ratebeer 84/Availability: decent/*Arriving Friday
Destihl Counter Clockweisse* – This reverse engineered, wild Berliner-Style Weisse is a German-style sour that is very pale in color and is the lightest of all the German wheat beers. The unique combination of wild yeast and lactic fermentation yields a beer that is acidic, lemony-tart, highly attenuated and very light bodied. The carbonation of this Berliner Weisse is high, and hop rates are very low. 3% ABV/Bloomington, IL/Ratebeer 94/Availability: plenty/*Arriving Friday
Destihl Tripel* – A very pale Belgian Abbey ale finishing lightly sweet with medium body and nice malt/hop balance, mainly characterized by a complex yet mild spicy character with yeast-generated fruity banana, pineapple and tropical fruit esters being present. 9.7% ABV/Bloomington, IL/Beer Advocate 82/Availability: decent/*Arriving Friday
Destihl Antiquity* – A beer style perhaps lost in antiquity, rye wine closely resembles an English-style barley wine but with a spicy/peppery note from rye. This beer is dark copper in color with a full body, high residual malty sweetness, high complexity of alcohols and fruity-ester characters balanced by low bitterness and high alcohol content. Some English-variety hop aroma and flavor is present, and caramel, dark toffee and vinous/sherry-like aromas and flavors dominate. 12.1% ABV/Bloomington, IL/Ratebeer 92/Availability: decent/*Arriving Friday
Destihl Dosvidanya* – A double-mashed, bourbon barrel aged American-style imperial stout with opaque/black color, very high alcohol content, robust, roasty, rich & sweet malt flavor and aroma balanced with assertive hop bitterness, flavor & aroma and fruity-ester characters. 14% ABV/ Bloomington, IL/Ratebeer 99/Availability: decent/*Arriving Friday
Destihl Le Diplomate* – Another in the Saint Dekkera sour series from Destihl, this one is described as a sour ambelgo double pale ale. Now if that doesn’t sound interesting I don’t know what does! 7.3% ABV/Bloomington, IL/No ratings yet/Availability: decent/*Arriving Friday
Destihl Clarice Grand Cru* – This dark and eerie Belgian Strong ale is brewed with dark Belgian “candy” sugar, raw sugar and dark, special & aromatic malts. Full-bodied, rich & sweet maltiness, low hop bitterness, flavor & aroma, fruity complexity, deceiving alcohol strength and some phenolic spiciness. 9.5% ABV/Ratebeer 87/No ratings yet/Availability: decent/*Arriving Friday
Free Weekend Tastings, 6-8pm
Friday
Stone Imperial Mutt Brown
Four Corners El Chingon IPA
Left Hand Great JuJu
Destihl Counter Clockweisse
Saturday
Victory Kirsch Gose
New Belgium Pear Ginger Beer
Smuttynose Kindest Find Imperial Red
Martin House Pretzel Stout