First Meeting

The theme of the first meeting was California beers that aren't distributed in MN. I brought back 6 bottles to share from my weekend trip to San Diego, and a 7th one that went to Brent as a special present.

The first beer we tried was the Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye. It's an American IPA brewed with rye. I found it to be pretty good, but it didn't knock my socks off.

The second we tried was Stone Double Bastard. An American Strong Ale that comes in at 10.5% ABV, DB was well received by all the Brothers.

The third sample was Port Brewing Hop 15. Port Brewing is the distribution name for Pizza Port, which is a chain of 3 brewpub/pizza places in the San Diego area. I managed to make a stop at the Solana Beach location and get far too drunk for a Sunday night in public. As for the Hop 15, I thought it was one of the best Double IPAs I've ever had. It was really citrusy, and didn't taste like 10% of it was sweet, sweet booze. Need to get me some more of this, mm hmm.

Our fourth beer was a break from the Cali theme. Brother Brent brought a bottle of Steenbrugge Tripel to "challenge our palettes," as he said. I thought it was a pretty good tripel. I have a special love for tripels, so even a pretty good one is much better than most other beers. It seemed to go over well with the rest of the club members.

The next Cali beer we tried was Firestone Walker's Pale 31. It is a session Pale Ale, which turned out to be pretty good. It featured light hops and a light flavor. We were in agreement that we could drink 15-20 of these in one session, preferably in the summer.

The sixth beer we tried was AleSmith Speedway Stout. It's a highly regarded imperial stout on BA that came in at 12% ABV. We all thought it was a really good IS with a heavy coffee flavor- moreso than Darkness or Dark Lord. High marks from the whole gang.

The last beer is the famous Russian River Pliny the Elder. It's #5 on BA, and is another Double IPA. It's citrusy, hoppy, and needless to say, delicious.

We all agreed we gained some insight on delicious west coast-ian beer and more than a slight buzz. We'll have some more specific reviews on the next meeting report.