Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there.

My mom and I headed over to the liquor store earlier today to pick up some beers for quality father-son bonding.

My dad is a self-described "locovore", so I decided to go with some beers that have more of a local flavor to them.  Unfortunately, none of the great breweries in Madison sell beers that he doesn't get regularly, so I had to stretch it a little bit.  I'd say that New Glarus is close enough to Madison to count that as local, so we got him a 4-pack of their Imperial Weizen, as well as a bottle of their Belgian Red.  We finished it off with a beer that was local to me while I was living in Milwaukee, Lakefront's Bridge Burner--seriously, I lived a few blocks from the brewery.  That was awesome!

Dad and I split the Bridge Burner and each had an Imperial Weizen.  He definitively told me that he preferred the Bridge Burner.  Frankly, that surprised me a bit.  He generally prefers beers that are more like the Weizen, though he isn't huge on higher alcohol stuff so I guess it makes some sense.

I'm not really sure which one of them I thought was better.  I love weizens and I definitely have no issues with higher alcohol, but the Bridge Burner was a very good beer.  To be honest, I'm not actually a huge fan of a lot of the stuff at Lakefront (it's not bad beer, it's just generally not my style) but this was a very nice one. The Belgian Red is an entirely different experience, as it's a low alcohol cherry beer.  I actually got it for him on his recommendation, and we split it.  I'd agree with his initial take: it's absolutely phenomenal.

Did you give/receive any Father's Day brews this year? If so, what?

Cinco de Mayo (Part 2)

While the Whole Foods down the street has been pretty good to me in terms of my beer purchases, it also poses a major problem.  Namely, you have to read the hell out of the labels if you don't want to sit in line at the register for a beer that winds up being much more expensive than you thought.

I can't find my camera, this is not Bohemia

Back in November, Phin and I went to Whole Foods because he saw a 6-pack of Bohemia for 4.99.  We had no idea what Bohemia was at the time, as we were really just starting to get into beer, but we hadn't heard of it being a notoriously bad beer, so we decided to give it a shot.

We grabbed it and went to the cash register, where the cashier told us we owed over 7 dollars.  Turns out the 4.99 beer we thought we found was stocked where some mini-bottles of Corona were supposed to be.  Sadly, it took me about a dozen more incidents like that before I made it a point to look closely at the labels.  Yeah...I can be a slow learner sometimes.

Anyway, a few weeks later I was at Woodmans and found the six pack for 5.99.  It's still not as good as the price we originally thought we had found, but for basically a dollar a bottle, it worked for me.  I brought 3 of the Bohemias back to Milwaukee and we had them with what I'd call homemade "street tacos".

Of all of the Mexican beers I've had, Bohemia is one of my two favorites (the other being Dos Equis Amber, which I'll review shortly).  It goes down easy and tastes pretty good.  While it doesn't have the flavor that a lot of beer reviewers look for, I find it to be pretty solid, with the flavor that it does have being good, unlike a lot of other cheap beers *cough* Tecate*cough cough*.  Add to it the story about how we went about getting it and I'd give it a solid B.

Have you had Bohemia? Do you agree with my take? Let us know in the comments!

Beer of (NFC) Champions

My first experience with Blonde Doppelbock occurred when The Wall was in its infant stages.  I saw a couple in the fridge at my parents' house, and figured that I'd grab one and try it when I got to Milwaukee.  My dad told me that "it was one of his favorites, but it would probably be too strong for me."  He couldn't have been more wrong.

The first beer I truly loved

This past Halloween I went to State Street and made a stop at Opa, a little bar that's a favorite of a few friends of mine in Madison.  After that visit, I have my own reasons for loving the place: Capital Blonde Doppelbock for four dollars.  Up to that point, I hadn't really had beers that I felt tasted good enough that I would drink them even if they were non-alcoholic.  Capital Blonde changed that.  Getting it for 4 dollars (the same price that they sell Blue Moon for) was a ridiculous steal by bar pricing standards.  When I've seen Blonde in other bars it's typically between 5 and 6 dollars.

The bottle I got that night is the one on display on our wall (although according to some bartenders, taking the empty bottle might've been against the law because of open bottle laws? Oops)

After that, I had my dad keep an eye out for it at Woodman's (where Capital is far cheaper than any other beer.  He bought a six pack, along with what he thought was his house beer: Hacker Pschorr Weisse.  Unfortunately, it turns out that it was actually Hacker Pschorr's Oktoberfest.  He swapped four of the Blondes for Oktoberfests, thinking I wouldn't notice.  If he weren't helping me get through college debt-free, that might have been an unforgivable offense.

My favorite memory with Blonde came Sunday shortly after the NFC Championship Game.  Those two bottles that my dad was kind enough not to switch out for beer he thought sucked? I've been saving them since I got them in November.  I wanted to keep them for a special occasion, and I can't think of many days coming up that would be better to drink one of the bottles than in the aftermath of the NFC Championship.

All in all, Capital Blonde is my favorite beer.  I give it an A+

Next up? The Super Bowl.  Then (with a little luck) Bockfest 2011

Have you had Blonde Doppelbock? Do you agree with my take? Let us know in the comments!