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Last night I had planned to drink my one lonely bottle of Rodenbach Alexander in celebration of the wonderful news that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been confirmed as NOT extinct. However I was assaulted by a sudden onset cold and so it looks like tonight will instead be Rodenbach Alexander night. I am really looking forward to this one!

Storm King was very dissapointing this year. Just a shadow of its former glory. Not sure if it is due to the new brewery that Victory is using or what. I didn't know that Victory was using a new brewery. I went to the website and just saw a brief mention about it. Is it at the same location, and when did it open? ← The first batches came out of the brewery late last year. I am not sure where it is located. I do however know that many folks have noticed a decline in their overall product since moving over to the new brewery. Personally I have only tried the Storm King and the Old Horizontal recently. As I mentioned before the Storm King was nowhere near what it once was while the Old Horizontal was good though not superb. I think that they are now brewing all bottled product out of the new brewery.

Sites like www.ratebeer.com already allow folks to add their tasting notes as well as scores for the beers they try. I am of course biased since I have about 1430 sets of tasting notes over there! ;) http://www.ratebeer.com/ViewUser.asp?UserID=8263

I would guess the aged BBCS is much better as a float then a fresh one. I wold think that the hoppy bitterness of young BBCS would clash with the sweetness of the ice cream.

Storm King was very dissapointing this year. Just a shadow of its former glory. Not sure if it is due to the new brewery that Victory is using or what.

Last night I had an Oak Aged Yeti from Great Divide Brewing. Far too much green wood flavor for my liking. The original non-oaked version is far better.

While it was a beverage it sure was smokey, meaty and savory. I am refering to the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen that I just finished drinking. Lovely, lovely, stuff. Much better than anything I have eaten all day. [edited to fix silly mistake. what a pedant I am.]

Check out the homebrew forum at RateBeer. I know that some of those folks are from the DC/Balt area. There is also a local homebrew club, cleverly titled BURP (Brewers United for Real Potables). Cheers.

Cruzcampo is brewed by Heineken and looks to be available in the US. Comparing it to Peroni does not say much good about it IMO!!! I bought some at a store in Maryland. I did not like it much (1.8 out of 5.0 per my review). Adjunct lagers are not really my thing though. Hope this helps, even though I slammed your beer! Cheers!

Oh my, I bet it was sublime. I didn't realize he had been making Immort Ale for that long! How time flies when you're having fun in the world of beer. Edited to add: Speaking of aging and big beers, I'm now sipping on a glass of Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout '03-'04.... Mmm-mmmmm good. ← I am fairly certain that it is from 97, at least that is what I wrote on the label when I cellared it. I think it may have been the 1st year it was bottled. BBCS is always good, yum.

Ahhh Brimstone Big Ale. I had some 1998 vintage cellared and it was horribly infected and tasted and smelled like burning band-aids. Yum! I have heard however that the 1999 vintage is infection free. That one is up there at something like 13% abv so it will likely keep for a while more. I have not had it so I can not tell you for sure, though I do think that there is point of diminshing returns for any beer, the trick id to find that point! On a related note, this past December I tried a bottle of Dogfish Head Immort Ale that I have had since 1997. It was sublime.

Tonight I had a good pumpkin beer. 't Smisje Halloween from Belgium. Here is my review My Review at RateBeer.

I am not a huge fan of pumpkin beers. The best I have had was the Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale. Semi-related, one of my favorite breweries is Jolly Pumpkin in Dexter, MI, though they do not make a Pumpkin Ale even though their name might lead you to beleive that. Jolly Pumpkin at RateBeer

It really depends on the beer. Most barley wines will age well. Many Belgian beers age well. Lighter styles IPAs, most lagers, etc... age rather poorly and are best consumed fresh. Generally the higher the alcohol content the better it will age. Hops fade quickly from beer as it ages, thus the most noticeable difference will be the mellowing of the floral/pine/citrus hoppy bitterness (assuming the beer exhibited any of these components to start with). In the beer community there is a bit of an obsesion with aging beers and trying them as they age. I am guilty of this to some extent, but I have found that most beer that the average beer drinker will run across is best when consumed fairly fresh.

Bigfoot is very good young as well as aged. Last fall a friend if mine and I did a 6 year veritcal of Bigfoot vintages. It seems to peak around 2-3 years and starts to fall off after that. I love teh stuff young though. The assault of hops and chewy malts are divine.

Well, unless they start letting customers go behind the bar to pour their own beers, they're going to have to put service issues on that bottom line. Their servers utterly suck, particularly at RFD. ← My experiences at RFD have all been either sitting at the bar or at a tasting in the back room. When I have sat at the bar, it does not take long for the bartender to realize that I am beer geek. The notebook and such give me away. I have found that the bartenders have always been helpful. I have not had table service at RFD so I can not speak to that, but it is has always been mediocre but not horrible at the Brick.

I have not been to the Brick in a few years. Yes the food is horrid (the Steak-umms cheessteak being a prime example) and the service slow. Though I did not have a problem with them being out of things as much as some of you other folks. I have mostly gone to the Brick for the tasting events over the years. Though now it seems that most if not all of these are held in the back room at RFD. The food at RFD is one half step above horrid, but the draft selection makes it a more than worthwhile trip. Bottom-line with both places is beer not food not service.

Put me in the Wegman's is wonderful camp. I went to the Sterling store on opening day last year, that was insane. I have been to that store probably a dozen times. I live in Fairfax City so the fact that the new store in Fairfax is open is really quite wonderful. I have already been to it probably 4 or 5 times. Other than the crowds my only real complaint is the produce section. Here are the issues with the produce seciton: * Just an OK selection given how large it is * Frequently out of things * Blatant hiding of the fact that they are out of things I overheard a produce manager telling one of the workers that he does not want to see any blank spots in the coolers. This has bitten me twice. Both times I was trying to buy fresh cilantro. For you see, when they run out of cilantro they fill up the space with parsley, but leave up the sign for cilantro! Once I bought parsley accidently instead of cilantro! This in my opinion is terribly idiotic. However this is my only real complaint and compared to the competition it is vastly better.