Beer Coasters Pikes, Peaks And Pints Issue

Did Beer Coaster Toby get lost in the mountains?  On this week's edition of The Beer Coasters Podcast, we send a search and rescue team out to find our fellow Coaster in this, our second installment in our "Wild Card Month".

Chris gets caught skinny dipping in Grand Lakes Brewings' Rocky Mountain Red.  Out Eastward, toward the Appalachians, we find Mike yodeling in Blue Hills' Imperial Red IPA.  We then find Toby, returning from a hike to Pike Brewing in Seattle, Washington.  He gives us a couple samples of the beers he tried there, as well as a personal tour with the owner and founder, Charles Finkle.

Thanks for listening this week and don't forget to sign the guestbook - it'll elevate you!  Cheers!

Beer Coasters Pikes, Peaks And Pints Issue

Comments

[Tom in LA]

I made it down to the Daily Pint last night. It's L.A. Beer Week, and they were featuring Firestone Walker beers for the evening.  I ended up hanging out with David Walker again, this time we chatted for over an hour. Half of our conversation actually centered around Information Security (my new job), but we talked a great deal about the state of craft beer in America and the challenges a mid-sized brewery has to overcome to really gain market penetration.  A lot about distributors and wholesalers, but also just a lot about the craft beer revolution itself; how we're seeing just the beginning of the same kind of transformation that overtook the American wine market in the mid-70s.

It was a great talk.  He also poured for me a robust glass from the last publicly available keg of the Firestone 13 (14 is being released in three weeks).  The Firestone 13 features a blend of 7 amazing beers aged in a variety of bourbon, brandy, and rye barrels, some of which have been aging for over 3 years.  

If you really wanna know what's in it:

28% Parabola ( 13% ABV Russian Imperial Stout) aged in bourbon barrels for over 60 days
11% Parabola aged only 30 days
15% Bravo (Imperial Brown ale, no longer available on its own) aged in bourbon barrels
9% Bravo aged in brandy barrels
15% Velvet Merkin (a low-ABV oatmeal stout aged in bourbon barrels)
6% Big Opal, a wheat wine brewed in February 2008
6% Rufus, Imperial Amber Ale aged in Rye barrels
6% Double Double Barrel Ale (the imperial version of their flagship brew)
4% Saucer Full o' Secrets (a high gravity Belgian Dark Ale), barrel-racked since October 2007

The blend was derived with the help of Paso Robles wine makers, and the assistance really shines through in the beer.  It has a lot of wine-like qualities, being very silky and nuanced with strong congruency throughout.  It had a dark chocolate backbone with a little cherry center and was insanely good.

I didn't pair it with a damn thing, because it really needs to be appreciated all on its own.  

I followed it up with a Double Jack which was a monstrous DIPA with all the right kinds of hops blended together to give you something that punches you in the face while simultaneously being nuanced. I paired it with a Philly Cheesesteak from the food truck parked out in front of the Pint.  Ah, the food trucks; ah, the beer bars.  Life in L.A. is good.

Last Friday, Blue Palm (a great Hollywood beer bar) kicked off L.A. Beer Week by chartering a limo, fully stocked with beer, to go down to Naja's Place (a 68-tap dive bar on the Redondo Beach Boardwalk); the cost was only $25 per person. Did mention that life in L.A. is good?
Oh, correction: the major component (28%) was Parabola aged for over 6 months.

And I forgot a Pint rating.  6 Pints!!  My cup overfloweth.