New Beer Friday 5/26/17

Happy New Beer Friday! I hope you all have a safe and long weekend. There's a lot of tasty stuff out there to help you kick off summer right.

Cigar City: Jai Alai - This IPA pours a very clear, golden copper color with a nose that has pine and citrus. The taste follows the nose, with some pine up front, followed by a huge wave of malts. The finish is full of bitter citrus and pineapple.7.5% ABV @ Dick n' Dixie's, DABC, Bayou

Perrin: Black Goat Lager - Not tried this one yet. 5.8% ABV @ Bayou, DABC

Payette: Aura: Guava and Hibiscus - Not tried this yet, sounds interesting. 4.0% ABV @ Beer Bar

Firestone Walker: Luponic Distortion #6 - It has a nose of pine and citrus - a wee bit of pepper too. Big earthy bitterness dominates the taste with grapefruit peel and pine backing up some crackery malts. Not my favorite version of Luponic, but it's still pretty great. 5.9% ABV @ Beerhive, Beer Bar

Firestone Walker: Leo vs Ursus - The nose has mango, pineapple, vanilla and caramel. The taste starts with apricot, pineapple and orange peel. Sweet caramel malts come next with tropical and earthy hops backing it all up. finishes slightly sweet. For a DIPA it has a great balance - not too cloying and easy to drink. I liked this one a lot. 8.2% ABV @ BeerHive, Beer Bar

Laughing Dog: The Dogs of Helles - The nose has apple sweet grains with floral hops. The taste has a bit of creamed corn and nutty caramel. Finishes with grassy/floral hops. 4.0% ABV @ Harmons

Laughing Dog: The DogFather - The nose has chocolate, roasted malt, plum and bourbon. The taste starts with molasses, licorice, fudge abd wood. Vanilla, raisin coffee and bourbon. A bit of ash in the finish. Nice barrel aged stout. 11.0% ABV. @ Slackwater

Proper: Hop vs Hop 7 - This is being released today. This version is hopped with Eureka and Simcoe hops. 8.2% ABV. @ Proper

Avenues Proper: New Zealand Lager - This version is hopped with Dr. Rudi and Rakau hops. Not triedit yet. 4.0% ABV. @Avenues Proper

Cheers!

Cigar City Beers are Coming to Salt Lake City

Yup, my jaw hit the floor too when I heard the news, but all that slack jawed excitement aside, It is the truth - Cigar City's beers are on their way to the SLC. How could this be, you ask? Cigar City Brewing Company has until now never distributed outside of the east coast. Well you can thank a little entity called United Craft Brews LLC. A brewery group owned by Fireman Capitol out of Boston. If Fireman Capitol sounds familiar it's because it is also a controlling owner of our own Utah Brewers Cooperative (Squatters/Wasatch), along with Oskar Blues and Michigan's Perrin Brewing Company. Are you starting to see the connection?

United Craft Brews inked a deal last week that would bring Cigar City's brews to Denver and Salt Lake City, beginning in the first quarter of 2017. Utah and Colorado will be the only states west of the Mississippi to carry Cigar City's beers. SLC's M & M Distributing will be the Utah distributor. Availability will be limited at first, don't expect cases of Hunahpu probably ever. but some fun stuff may find its way here eventually. Stay close for Cigar City's arrival date.

You may have noticed I mentioned Perrin Brewing earlier. Their beers are also coming to the SLC market in the same time period as well. I'm not sure what beer they're sending, but I am sure it will be a welcome edition to our local line up.

If you come across M & M's Scott Stiltz (Helmut VonSchmidt) thank him for going above and beyond to help grease the wheels on this deal for we local beer nerds and on behalf of M & M.

Any thoughts on this crazy news? We'd love to hear from you!

Cheers!