Moo Better Brews

Utah Counties worst nightmare has been realized. Beer and ice cream, packaged together in a handy-dandy little paper pint. Those dope smok'n (alegelly) hippies from vermont have come up with yet another original ice cream to pacify your endorphin production as you veg on Dr. Phil. Ben & Jerry's Black & Tan takes on the long known notion of mixing stouts with ice cream. Traditionally a stout float is two scoops of vanilla ice cream with you favorite stout. They're twist on the old favorite is, Cream Stout ice cream swirled with chocolate ice cream. Beware Utah County, the Rapture is upon you!!!

Bye-Bye Black Beer

A very sad thing thing is about to happen. Beamish & Crawford makers of Beamish Irish Stout quietly decided earlier this year to pull the plug on Beamish exports to America. The Irish Brewery says it plans to concentrate on sales of it's Newcastle Brown Ale. It will also axe U.S. exports of John Courage Amber Lager and McEwan's IPA. The companies McEwan's Scotch Ale, is still alive and well. As it's one of their better sellers in the states. Why is this sad? There aren't many real Irish Stouts available around town. Most of the Guiness consumed in the states is made domestically. Murphy's Irish Stout, is made in Ireland, but owned by Heineken. That leaves us with Beamish. It's the only real Irish Stout available in town, and it will probibly dissapear from pubs in town by the end of the year. If you havn't tried it, do so soon. If you like it get your fill, while you can. We bearly knew ye....

Mountain Brewers Fest

Utah's best beer festival is back!!! Well... actually it's Idaho's, but we Utahns love it just as well. If you've never attended this festival, you've really missed out. It's located in Idaho Falls, a quick three hours from SLC and will host 80+ brewers from the western states and beyond. This is an outdoor event held beneath giant tents with tons of food and music. This is a one day event, scheduled for June 4, 2005 at Sandy Downs (the city's horse track and rodeo grounds) and will run from noon to 6 pm. Click on the title for a link to their site.

We Are Not Alone

I like a good cigar now and then, but I wouldn't consider myself a smoker. To be honest, I hate cigarettes. I hate going to the pub or club, then going home hours later, saturated with the stench of cheap, chemicaly treated tobacco. So, I guess i'm for the ban. Well I guess we're in good company for a change. British lawmakers voted by a huge margin on Tuesday to ban smoking in every pub, club and indoor public space in England.
The law will now pass to the unelected upper House of Lords, where it is also expected to pass. If so, it will become law by mid-2007.
Ireland banned smoking in restaurants, pubs and workplaces in 2004, and six countries imposed bans on smoking of varying severity in 2005. But these counties don't opperate under a private club system. If they do away with smoking then this whole 'private club' thing is a farce and should be eliminated all over the state. Because it appears there's nothing private about them.

St. Valentine's Day Beers

Dear Dumbass, I need a gift idea for my gal Lerlene.
She has more refined tastes than me and she said she'd leave my 'ape drape' wearing ass if I repeated the pork wrind/Bud Light debocle of '05. Can your wookie ass help???

Dear Ape Drape, my "wookie ass' is at your disposal(wait, that didn't sound right). Although pork wrinds are an exellent form of protein, your squeeze should be getting it from somewhere else today. That being said, women do love their chocolate. And fruit is a much healthier option than fried pig hide (i think). So, my advise to you would be to find a nice chocolate stout or porter like Rooster's or Rouge's Chocolate stouts. Combine them with a nice plate of fresh raspberries. Voila! your ass is out of hock and your cousin love may resume.
-Dumbass

Deja Brew

Are there any Corona swillers in the house? I don't normally drink it... maybe a few, during the summer, or when vacationing south of the border. Well, if you are a fan, you may have noticed the very subtle migration of Corona Extra from the State Liquor Stores, to your local convenience/grocery stores. It used to be that if you wanted a Corona, and there wasn't liquor store near-by, you settled for the watered down Corona Light from the local "Gas 'n Sip". Well, for the most part CL brand has gone the way of Brigham Young's Distillery (yes, he owned one) and replaced with the marque brand.
But, did you know the differences between the two were very minute. Corona Extra weighs in in at a hefty 4.6%abv. Corona Light 4.0%abv. So, since the king is dead. Long live the king! Even though his rule has been somewhat lessend.
So, I wanted to through it out there. Is a 0.6% deficit enough, to make you drive to Wyoming or Nevada for "Full Strength Coroana". Fuck No! and... do you even give a rats fart???

Adventures in SLC

My new pal and Philly beer geek, Brendan recently shared the adventures of he, and his mates in the land of Zion. Here's an exerp from his Blog 'Brendan Calling from the Underground"
Check out his Blog. He seems harmless enough. The photo above is a reenactment of they're visit.

We played in Salt Lake City, as boring a fucking place as I have ever been. all the beer in Utah is half-strength, and the state makes it so hard to go to a regular bar that there's hardly any point in going out anyway.
Ah yes, that low alcohol beer.... We were done with our part of the show when we heard the news about the beer. To make up for the low alcohol content, Boogie began to drink twice as much beer as anyone else, following it with hard liquor, which is sold at full-strength in Utah. The result was that he hit Defcon 5, and was helped out the the van where he passed out in the front seat. It had begun to rain, and we had a long drive ahead of us: there is no straight shot from Salt Lake City to Denver, and it's a LONG drive that cuts through Utah's mountains northeast into Wyoming, crosses that flat state and then heads south through the Rickies into Colorado. "With this rain you better get a move on," said one of the guys helping us to load out. "If it's raining here, you can bet it's snow squalls in the mountains." I crawled into the back seat of the van to get some sleep. Jack was driving.
I guess it was about 1:00 AM when we pulled over to get gas and I heard Jack and Jamie yelling. "Jesus fucking Christ, what's wrong with you... put that away, put that away..." and something about pee. Great, I thought. Boogie fucking wet himself. With this thought in mind, I fell back asleep. Around 3:00 AM, Jamie gave me a poke. "Dude, get up. It's my turn to get some sleep." Reluctantly I traded places with him. Boogie was still passed out in the front seat, so I sat behind Jack, talking periodically to keep him awake. I peered out the window into the black, and all I could see was flatland. I smoked some more pot, dipping into a $60 bag of Mexican dirtweed my friend Phil had gotten me in Arizona. Jack pulled over and napped for twenty minutes or so, then began driving again. After an hour or two, the sky began to grow pale in the east. Watching a sunrise is a lot different than watching a sunset. Both are beautiful in their own way, but I usually prefer sunset. Usually when I'm seeing a sunrise, it's because I never went to bed to begin with, and there's something rock-bottom about that. I was able to see more out the windows: western Wyoming is flat and empty, great brown fields that stretch far and wide.

It must have been about 5:00 or 6:00 AM when the sun began to rise over the hills, and the sky changed from light purple to baby-blue, streaked with clouds that reflected the earliest of early morning light. I had developed a nice hemorrhoid on tour, and my asshole was itching like crazy. I was shifting in my seat when I noticed in this twilight hour that one of my CDs was sitting on the dashboard, out of its case. "Motherfucker," I muttered. "It's not enough that you fuckers broke the cd player I brought on tour, now you can't put my goddamn cd back in the case? What the fuckin' fuck?" I reached for the disk, "You fucking assh--- what's THAT?"
Both of the dashboard cupholders were filled with liquid.
"You didn't hear?" asked Jack.
All of a sudden, things clicked into place. "Ummm... did Boogie.. uhh?"
"Oh yes," Jack replied. "All over everything."
"Oh my God," I moaned. "I heard something but I tried to sleep through it. I thought he had just wet himself."
"No, not exactly," said Jack. What had happened, he related, was that Boogie had sort of awoken from his stupor at the gas station. "No that's not right... he AROSE," said Jack. In a complete blackout, Boogie had unzipped his pants, taken out his penis, and peed on the dashboard, in the cupholders, on the floor of the van, on Jamie's hats, and on Jack himself. The only reason the van didn't smell like piss was that Boog had drunk SO much beer that his urine was largely water. I dropped back in my seat, stunned and disgusted. The sun still hadn't quite crept over the horizon. We drove in silence for another 20 minutes before Jack pulled over behind a dozen tractor trailers along the highway and shut his eyes for a nap. Two crows perched themselves on a dumpster next to us and began eating garbage. I was the only one awake. I had to pee so I got out of the van, and hopped over the barbed wire fence into a field partially covered in snow. I'm a little on the modest side, so I walked out of view of the highway beginning to fill up with morning traffic. As I stood in the still, frigid air draining my bladder on the frozen dirt, I watched the first golden rays light up the east. That's pillar one of our demise.

I bet they wish they'd read my rant on ABW vs. ABV. Thanks again to Brendan for letting me use his words.

Leffe Blonde Abby Ale

There's a great treat available at the Bayou for a short time. Mark scored a couple of cases of Leffe Blonde Abby Ale. It's not normaly available in slc. This shipment made it's way here for The Sundance Film Festival. This is a nice ale. It reminds me of a low alcohol Belgium Tripple. The nose is of sweet malts, candi sugar, pear, spicey yeast and clove. The taste starts honey-esque with fruits, strong yeast and spice, with a lightly hopped peppery/floral finish. I'm a "brunette" guy, but I'll drop my droors for this blondie anytime.

Here's to Beer

If you were watching the Super Bowl last Sunday, you may have noticed a commercial that featured different cultures "saluting" with beer. This wasn't an ad for one particular brand in general. It was put out buy the beer industry. It's a campaign to give beer the same respectable image that wine has long enjoyed in the US. They will be encouraging food pairings and the finer aspects of beer. It's a great educational site. Click above for the link.