Ben, Nora, and I got together at the Blue Nile for happy hour today. Two-for-ones on drinks under five, patio, good service, no crowd. The food didn't impress, but then again none of us ordered an Ethiopian entrée.

Nora had some decent wine, I don't recall the name, and Ben and I started off with Surly CynicAles — I completely forgot that I actually like that beer, with its fruity peppery flavor, and now I'm really excited for the Saison class we're attending on Friday.

And for maybe getting some delicious Cynic in cans later this summer, once I work my way through all those Lakemaids. Drink locally and all that.

Surly beer roundup: I dislike the Bender, I think I like Furious (grapefruit!), I despise the Coffee Bender, I don't understand the Surly Two, and I love the Darkness and the Cynic. I always mix up the Bender and the Furious, but Ben set me straight tonight, so I'll have to give the Furious another shot at some point. I think I liked it back before I started paying attention to beers, and I haven't really had it since.

My second and final beer was the Imperial Cherry Saison from Southern Tier Brewing. (Incidentally, this is probably the best brewery website I've seen in a while.) The fruit flavor was as subtle as advertised, but it was there, and once again the beer was delicious. Not as peppery as the Cynic, but even I could tell that they were in the same genre.

I see that it's 8% ABV, which would explain how it kicked my ass. That "Imperial" in the name was obviously an important clue.

At Ben's while waiting to watch Project Runway, I had a Paulaner — it's so satisfying to have only delicious beers all night — and he drank a Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse. That beer has a somewhat interesting backstory.

His beer wasn't as tasty as the Paulaner, but it was nevertheless (easily) the best Weizenbock I've ever had. I really, really don't understand that style. I've been wanting to read Garrett Oliver's beer-pairing book for a while; if he was involved with this, I take that as another sign that he knows his stuff.

Labels: CynicAle, Imperial Cherry, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, Paulaner Salvator Thomasbraeu, Saison, Southern Tier Brewing, Surly Brewing, The Blue Nile

Yesterday we had Ben over for a cookout: dinner consisted of very good (if a little overseasoned) steak and porkchops. It was very nice out, so we sat on the deck and had some beers while Matt tended to the meat.

While my beer glasses went through the dishwasher I had a Flying Dog Garde Dog, good as usual. Then: colaweizen.

For the colaweizen, or colaweizens if you're a crazy American, we combined the drinks in a 3/4 beer to 1/4 cola ratio, i.e. one 12 oz. bottle (poured with almost no head) and 1/2 of an 8 oz. pop can (poured aggressively) in each pilsner glass. The beer will darken noticeably as you pour in the coke. Scientists have determined that this is cool to watch.

I tried two American wheat beers, the Sierra Nevada Unfiltered Wheat and the Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat. Both were good (the Flying Dog mix had some leftover Sierra Nevada in it, so I'll forgive for being the worst of the two), but neither could stand up to Ben's colaweizen, which used Paulaner Hefe-Weizen and had a noticeable banana taste. Once I run out of Sierra Nevada, I guess I'll have to get a good German hefe.

It also occurs to me, just now, that I had enough bananas to juice and make bananaweizen (same ratio as a colaweizen). There's a drink I'm curious to revisit...

Labels: American Pale Wheat Ale, Biere de Garde, Colaweizen, Flying Dog Brewery, Garde Dog, Hefeweizen, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, Paulaner Salvator Thomasbraeu, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Unfiltered Wheat