Friday, March 13, 2009

No Dogfish/Three Floyds collaboration beer for you, sister, at least not today!


So yeah, I had a really good beery day.  I had lunch with my good friend Karl Braun from Unibroue, then I had most of a Merchant Du Vin training meeting at the warehouse with Brian Van Zanderpants, but I had to leave early because I had to do a tasting at Galleria Liquors at Wells Street just south of North Avenue.  The tasting went great, we tasted out Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde and Ephemere White ale with apple.  I love both these beers!  I think Ephemere is such a great beer with food.  It is a white ale, it actually is their Blanche De Chambly ale with grannysmith apple added.  So it is light, but not too light, and very refreshing.  All Unibroue beers are made with Belgian yeasts.  Back in the early 1990's, Andre Dion decided he wanted to brew Belgian style beers at the brewery he had just purchased in Chambly, a city of about 20,000 just outside Montreal.  He went to Belgium and brought back not only the techniques used by Belgian brewers, but also several strains of Belgian yeast, and a real Belgian brewer, Paul Arnott, who had brewed for Chimay.  Unibroue beers are frequent go-to beers for me.  
After the tasting, Shelley and Johnny and I were hungry so we all went to Charlie's Ale House down the street.  We wanted some protein.  AND -- they were having a Sam Adams promotion!  $3.00 pints!  And with every pint you get a chance to win a TV!  And you can shoot baskets and win prizes!  So I won a Sam Adams T-shirt, which I gave to Johnny.  
We then walked down to In Fine Spirits, which is a place we love to go.  The beer list is excellent, they have real ale from firkins (usually Three Floyds), the drinks are good and strong and the food is excellent.  Earlier tonight, they had had a kick off party there for the Dogfish Head/Three Floyds collaboration beer, POP SKULL.  Anyway, long story short (too late), the celebration started at about 4:00 pm, and the staff said, they ran out of beer by about 5:30.   Ah well.  We had some Brian Boru on cask, absolutely delicious, I have never enjoyed Brian Boru (which is Three Floyds Irish Red ale) as much, it was great.  
It was a lovely day.  I shared some beers with some of my favorite people, I had a tasting where I introduced many people to some of the best beer in the world which they may not have had a chance to taste otherwise, and I had lots of really satisfying food.  My favorite kind of day!!
It's late -- I better go to bed before I start buying stuff off infomercials.  Good night everybody!  

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