Friday, March 20, 2009

The Road to 500 - 498

Marston's Oyster Stout. According to Michael Jackson's Great Beer Guide: "This does not contain oysters, but is offered by the brewery as the perfect accompaniment to the shellfish". To be honest, I am not a huge oyster fan, but this beer is excellent. I found it had a slight hint of chocolate, and Sith@Heart liked it too.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

The Road to 500 - number 497

Number 497 was Gouden Carolus Classic, from Belgium. And excellent brown dubbel style Belgian beer. I am rarely disappointed by Belgian beers, and certainly was not this time.

The Road to 500 - number 496

My friend Doogie and I are on a quest to be the first to try 500 varieties of beer. Well my good friends, I am a mere 5 beers away, so I will keep you posted on the glorious countdown.

Beer number 496: Baltika.

A Russian beer. It doesn't say whether it is an ale or a lager, but I suspect the latter. Pale amber coloured, and about what you would expect from a Russian beer, which to me is not much. A decent beer, but certainly nothing to write (blog?) home about.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

BeerFest! (the 2 sweetest words in the English language)

Well beer lovers, yesterday I attended BeerFest at Bottlescrew Bills (http://www.bottlescrewbill.com/u/events.html)

20 brewers, over 50 beers. I was like a kid in some kind of store. Lars (another beer afficiando) came with me. Although I had had most of the beers on offer, I will admit I was pleasantly surprised to try some new ones. The biggest standout was Samichlaus, a Swiss lager that is apparently the strongest lager in the world. At 14% I am not surprised. It packs quite a whollop. I was also quite impressed with the beers on offer from the HalfPints brewery (out of Winnipeg I believe). Worth looking into some more!