Bought three 6-packs of New Belgium this weekend, and over the course of the week (particularly on Wednesday, when Markie and Matt came over to assist me with my Winterfest training) I've tried all of them.

I'm not a big fan of the Abbey, their dubbel. I'm generally lukewarm towards that style in general though.

Tripels are always at least "good," but their Trippel was great, very fruity. Deceptively drinkable as well.

The Sunshine Wheat beer is pretty close to a Witbier. I don't know why Beer Advocate has it as an American Pale Wheat Ale, but I tried to have this alongside pepperoni pizza and it may have been the worst beer-and-food pair I've ever made.

(Well no, the worst was when I had that Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter, usually one of my favorite beers, with my brother's famous crusted prime rib.)

By itself or with cheese, however, the Sunshine Wheat is delicious. And the bottles! The label design on New Belgium beers really classes up our fridge.

Labels: Abbey, Dubbel, New Belgium Brewing, Sunshine Wheat, Tripel, Trippel, Witbier

So, OK. I've been burnt out on blogging in general lately (somehow I've become "busy" — but mostly I just feel like I have nothing to say) and that means that I've drank a lot of great stuff that I don't have the space to mention (and tag, and thereby remember, which is the whole point) here.

Standouts include Surly Darkness (at the Pig with Barry and Jess), New Glarus Spotted Cow (at Jonas' wedding, which also featured some Ben-on-Meghan-on-Dan drinking) and Fire, a doppelbock from Capital Brewery of all places. I have never before had a Capital Brewery beer that I liked (and their Munich Dark is one of my least favorite beers) but doppelbock is a fantastic beer style so there you go.

I substituted my last bottle of Fire for the port wine in this duck recipe, and while my duck was meh, the reduced doppelbock sauce was fantastic over rice. I'm going to play around with drunk rice, see if I can duplicate the sauce without marinating a duck in it for 24 hours beforehand.

Last night Jess, Barry and I went to Grumpy's, where we'd had terrible service (that is to say: no service) last time and gotten a gift certificate for our trouble.

I'm trying so hard to drink seasonally because I think it will really pay off in the long run... but I started off with a light, delicious Ommegang Hennepin and was a huge snob about the pronunciation for some reason. Kinda an ass thing to worry about.

I had a Maredsous 8 after that (mispronouncing "Maredsous" spectacularly, for those of you keeping score at home) and I don't quite know what I thought of it. It didn't seem as good as I remembered, but that may be just because it was following an Ommegang and a fistful of French fries. A server was walking around offering up Maredsous samples.

It was randomly "Keep the Glass" night, so each of us got a Ommegang Hennepin glass to take home, and when we found out that Duvel glasses were also available Barry bought a round so we could all have one. We migrated outside with our new treasure and stood around a burning barrel, which is why every single one of my coworkers has commented on the smoky smell in my cube today.

Barry left and back at my place for Girl's Night, I mixed Jess a Colaweizen and had a Flying Dog Golden Ale, which was pretty pointless after three beers. I definitely need to switch to cheap beer after three, and I probably should just stop there anyways, outside of drinking games. No sense buying fancy beer if I'm going to be drinking it when I can barely taste it.

Labels: Belgian Strong Pale Ale, Brewery Ommegang, Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat, Dubbel, Duvel, Grumpy's, Hennepin, Maredsous 8, Saison

Yesterday after work I met up with Ben and Nick at Glockenspiel for some cheap drinks. I had two delicious Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse Dunkels — for all my adventurous beer mixing of late, I wouldn't recommend using the provided orange slice in any way — and one Maredsous 8 dubbel (also good) that completely kicked my ass. This should have been obvious, but I probably shouldn't have dubbels and tripels after work, when I've yet to eat anything.

Labels: Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat, Dubbel, Dunkelweizen, Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse Dunkel, Maredsous 8, Spaten-Franziskaner-Brau