Motley Brüe

More barrel aging

With Joey Schlitz’s arrival in Denver, barrel aged beers are starting to make their way from our basement into our refrigerator.  Pictured below is one of the greatest barrel aged beverages of all time – Firestone-Walker 10th Anniversary blend, brewed once back in 2006.  Seated next to the FW10 is Alesmith Imperial Porter, brewed once back in 2007, as well as the barrel aged version of the Alesmith porter.  Will be interesting to conduct a side-by-side comparison of the two.

Behind the Firestone 10 is a gallon of milk, presumably milked in 2010.

Barrel aged

Andre and Emily came over for dinner last night and gave us an incredible barrel aged house warming gift:  a barrel full of barrel aged products.

Mmmm…barrel aged cabbage…

The whole barrel-aged spread:

Emily is always trying to gank my North Coast Old Rasputin glass, which was the inspiration for her painting of Rasputin, who appears in her work to be furtively eyeing the hidden glassware.  It was only appropriate that we open a barrel aged Old Rasputin.

Brewdog brewery bottles beer in dead squirrels

No kidding.  A ridiculous 55% beer with bottles apparently stuffed into dead squirrels.  Brewery press release here.  Pure marketing gimmickry.  I guess if Coors can fantasize about an ice cold train constructed from silver bullets, then Brewdog can bottle beer inside of taxidermy?

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BA Pabst

Hilarious, apparently Pabst is selling a barrel aged version of Pabst Blue Ribbon in China.  Check out the fancy bottle they sell it in.  Article here.

Mesa Verde National Park

Kristi and I visited Mesa Verde National Park this weekend, a collection of green plateaus around which Ancestral Pueblo Native Americans built their homes back in the 1200s.  Here are some photos from the trip:

This is a view from just outside the park entrance.  To get into the park, you drive up the side of that plateau.

Here’s a shot from up in the park:

Before I forget, here’s a random photo from the drive to the park in the San Juan mountains east of Mesa Verde.  Pretty amazing mountain range.  The mountains appeared relatively unscathed by the pine beetle.  This view reminds me a bit of Yosemite valley.

Back to Mesa Verde.  The main attractions are the buildings in the cliff sides.  Here is a photo of what’s called the Cliff Palace.

A few more Cliff Palace photos:

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Pairing beer with sausage

Customers at Toronado/Rosamunde can attest to the complementary properties of sausage and beer.  Here’s an SF Chronicle article on the topic.

GABF tickets no on sale

You can buy them online here.  Tickets are $55.  Buy sooner than later, as they’ll sell out.

Steuben’s Food Truck at Great Divide

Steuben’s recently unveiled their roving food truck and yesterday they were at Great Divide Brewery, offering up a free beer with purchase of a burger.

The menu, if I recall correctly, was simple but appropriately paired with good beer: burger, cheeseburger, green chile cheeseburger, or pulled pork sandwich.  I think there was something about a salad on the menu too but I didn’t read that part carefully.

Chris Dionne and his friend Josh were also in town en route to the mountains for a long weekend of hikes up 14ers.  There he is, enjoying a burger and Great Divide’s 16th anniversary oak aged IPA!

The Great Divide 16th Anniversary IPA is pretty tasty – lots of malt flavor and oak balance out the heavy hops.  The antithesis of a typical west coast IPA in which hops tend to dominate the beer.

I’ve been on a lucky streak with spotting great vehicles lately.  There was the hooptie with the switches a few weeks ago at Bull and Bush, and last night there was a gorgeous 1988 Fiero parked on Arapahoe.

The vehicle’s owner, who happened to be drinking a beer right beside me as I started photographing his car, offered to give me a more intimate tour of the vehicle.

Extraordinary craftsmanship and gold rims.  Check out the powerful engine, which the owner, Jeff, brushed clean of dust with his windshield scraper for the photograph.

Bull and Bush – Liquid Brain stout

By no means an appetizing name, the Liquid Brain proved to be a delicious beer last night at Bull and Bush.  They were serving five different varieties – four of which were barrel aged, and one sans-barrel.

Craig, Andy, Andre and I agreed: the best version was easily the one on the far left – 2003 aged in Wild Turkey barrels.  Very smooth, well rounded stout with whiskey and vanilla characteristics.  The Pappy Van Winkle version was probably second best.  The French Oak barrel version was probably the least good to me.  It had a somewhat tart oaky quality that I don’t care for in beer.

Well and good, but the highlight of the evening for me was when Craig, Andy and I were in the parking lot and noticed a gentleman operating a 1977 Monte Carlo with hydraulics.  I asked this man, whose name was Randy, if I could sit in his vehicle and test his switches, to which he kindly agreed.  It was awesome.  He had ten switches, and allowed me to operate one that caused the entire rear of the vehicle to bounce up and down.  The interior of the vehicle was covered in a gorgeous red velvet material too.  Randy said that when fully operational, he could make the front of his vehicle bounce two feet off the ground, but that some people he knows can make the front of their vehicles bounce as high as five feet.  Incredible.

Legend of the liquid brain

Bull and Bush has a great barrel aged event going on tomorrow night.  Check out the lineup of different versions of their barrel aged stout, The Legend of the Liquid Brain: