What beer are we drinking this week ?

stevenmu wrote: »

Am in Bellevue just outside Seattle at the moment, and it's American beer lover's heaven here. Every bar has a few local brews and they're all top notch. Unfortunately I've lost track of all of the beers I've had, but some of the highlights have been (in no real particular order):

1: Thunderhead IPA: Very hoppy and bitter at first, I suspect there's a better term to describe it, but the best term I know of is almost ashtray-ish. But, it's really worth sticking with, by then end of the first one and especially the second one, it gets really nice. To much drink more than a few of them though.

2: Alaskan Amber: A really nice American style amber pale ale, some good fruity-ness, with a bit of a floral-hoppy finish. Quite mild and easy to drink all night.

3: Mac and Jack's African Amber Ale: Quite thick and almost yeasty, without being actually yeasty, a little like the way way Wells Banana Bread has a kind of thick feel to it, but more yeasty than that. I know I'm contradicting myself on the yeasty-ness, but it does feel like a very yeasty beer without tastying hugely yeasty. Instead it has a deep fruity flavour, and also a light fruity flavour, with a little (but not much) hoppy flavour to balance it a little. ( but the balance lies very much in favour of the deep and light fruity flavours).

4: Manny's Pale Ale: Another amber pale ale, as seems to be the predominant style here. This IMHO is the pick of the bunch. It has both deep and light fruity flavours initially, like M&J's though not quite as strong, and just the right amount of hoppyness to balance it out (I'm guessing citra with some chinook). While M&J's is delicious for a pint or two, Manny's has this perfect balance that you could drink all night, every night, and never stop, ever. If anything it's a little too perfect. If I can't find this one when I get home I'll be hitting up the homebrew forum for tips on a clone. In fact I'll be doing that anyway

5: Elysian: I made a bit of a fool of myself asking for this one. I spotted the tap and said "Can I have a ... I think it says Elysium ... there on the very right", the bargirl said "You mean you want the men's room?", I said "erm, no I want a drink, see that tap on the very right hand side?". She went and poured the drink I was after so I didn't think much more of it untill I tried googling the beer. The brewery is called Elysian, and the beer is actually called "Men's Room" Anyway, another APA, very strong deep fruity flavours, with more hoppyness than M&J's, but not as much maybe as Manny's. This was really nice to have a few pints of, but with the strong fruityness maybe not very many.

6: Rogue's Hazelnut Brown Nectar: This was a really super awesome beer to try. Out of all the beers I've had here it's probably the one I'm happiest I tried, although in saying that it also not one I think I'd drink a lot of. It pours kind of like and APA, but darker. It starts with an almost stout/porter-ish taste, with fairly prominent chocolate and coffee flavors, but quickly followed up with a strong hazelnut aftertaste. I really enjoyed having one of these, but not sure if more than two would be nice. But that could be just because I knew there was lots of other nice beers to try, if there was only this it may have been wonderful to drink all night. Either way I was really happy I had one.

I've had a few others that were more normal and I haven't written down, that were very nice too, but didn't stand out a much as the ones above.

tl;dr the Seattle/Bellevue area is incredibly good for craft/local/nice beers. Every bar/resteraunt here seems to mostly do local brews, with the odd tap for bud/bud light/bud lime present but hidden.

the beer revolu wrote: »

BaZmO* wrote: »

Thought I'd treat myself after a couple of really tough days.

Nooooooooooo:eek::eek::eek:
They've put the name on the bottle!!!!