World Beer Cup 2008 Winners Announced

The winners have been announced for the World Beer Cup 2008, which happened this past week.

Here is a document which gives some news highlights. It says that Illinois ranked fourth among U.S. States for total awards won, behind perennial leaders California, Colorado, and Oregon.

Here is the full list of all the winners of the World Beer Cup 2008. This year, 644 breweries from 58 countries and 45 U.S. states vied for awards with 2,864 beers entered in 91 beer style categories. I haven't had most of these beers, which is good. This means that there are many great beers for me to possibly try for many years to come.
The beers on the list that I have had and agree that they are good are:
(To save time, I will just list the name of the brewer and beer and the category #, and you can look them up if you want to.) I've "starred" the beers that I especially like.

Dogfish Head Midas Touch (Category #10)
Samuel Adams Black Lager (Category #29)
Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber Lager (Category #36)
Brooklyn Lager (Category #36)
Hoegaarden (Category #41)
Ommegang Witte (Category #41)
Mill Street Belgian-Style Wit (Category #41)
Goose Island Matilda (Category #42)
**Allagash Dubbel (Category #46)
Emmett's Belgian-style Dubbel (Category #46)
Allagash Tripel (Category #47)
Westmalle Trappist Tripel (Category #47)
**La Fin du Monde (Category #48)
Goose Island "312" (Category #51)
**MacTarnahan's Amber Ale (Category #52)
Bass (Category #52)
**Elysian The Wise ESB (Category #56)
**Left Hand Milk Stout (Category #62)
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (Category #65)
Great Lakes Blackout Stout (Category #65)
Schneider Weisse Original (Category #73)
**Schneider Weisse Aventinus (Category #74)
Samuel Adams Irish Red (Category #75)
**Three Floyds Dreadnaught (Category #82)
Rock Bottom Terminal Stout (Category #87)

Three Floyds has awesome coasters/labels

I have been writing quite a bit about Three Floyds lately. I recently enjoyed the excellent Rabbid Rabbit, and have also become very fond of the great Gumballhead, which I used to not be so crazy about. In general, I am a big fan, and I'll just say that I really like most all their beers, so there's no need to list them all here.
I also like collecting cool beer coasters that I find when I go out to different places.
So far, I have made one "beer coaster poster" that you can view down on the right sidebar of this blog. Since making this last year, I have obtained several more coasters that I guess I will save up for a second beer coaster poster.
The other week I was at my local (and one of my favorite) beer drinking establishment, and they had a bunch of these new awesome Three Floyds coasters. Shown here, are the four sides of the two Three Floyds coasters. Click on the pic to make it huge.
Not sure what's up with the winged-skull one that says "Crush your enemies, to see them driven before you", but it looks pretty cool. The two sides of the other coaster, was actually a label for their Fantabulous Resplendence X Anniversary Ale to celebrate their 10th anniversary, which I had last year when it was only brewed once. You can buy a poster of it on their website store.
The label/poster contains all the characters from all their other awesome beer labels, in a sort of Last Supper painting type of setting, with some other weird stuff in there. I don't know who is the artist for these labels, and I tried looking it up, but didn't find anything.
Here is what the whole label/poster looks like.














Three Floyds' wildly popular DarkLord Day will happen this upcoming Saturday April 26th. More info is here on Beer Advocate. I am not planning on going, because I have a lot of work to do. It always sounds like a lot of fun, but it sounds like it will be very crowded too!

Shiner Light Light

My girlfriend's parents gave us this. I just realized that it makes for a cool bedside light.
And of course, I could even fill it with Shiner Light beer. Or water. Pretty much the same thing.


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Weird Beer Thursday - Three Floyds Rabbid Rabbit

Three Floyds Rabbid Rabbit

Why it's weird:
Besides the Three Floyds Brewery stating on their beers "It's Not Normal", and each of their beers always having strange and fun labels (click on the photo to enlarge), this beer has some unique ingredients. The description on their website states that "corriander, lavender, chamomille, and rose hips, and 3 different Belgian ale strains of yeast are used in the brewing process". On the bottle, it also mentions that rock candy is added to the brew kettle.

What's up with this beer:
This was technically my second time having Rabbid Rabbit. The first time was the other week, when I had a 3 oz. sample of it at Clark Street Ale House downtown Chicago. I was very surprised that I liked it so much, because some beers of this style I haven't liked that much in the past. It had delightful spice flavors. So, after this sample, I was looking forward to trying the bottle that I had in my fridge at home.

Rabbid Rabbit is a deep golden, complex, spiced Belgian style ale. The slight haze is from bottle-conditioning, where yeast is added to the bottle for a secondary fermentation. The specific style is Saison / Farmhouse Ale. I didn't used to be that fond of this style, but I think I am starting to like it more now. I have had other saison style ales such as the well-known Saison Dupont from Belgium, and Hennepin from Ommegang Brewery in New York.

Like most of their beers, Three Floyds' Rabbid Rabbit had more of a heartiness/hoppiness than other saison style ales and I enjoyed this. Also, it may have been a little sweeter, and the other unique ingredients and the three types of Belgium yeast must have given the other nice complex flavors. It was such a great combination of flavors. A little spicy, a little sweet, a little fruity/citrusy (coriander), and a little hoppy all brewed together. Delicious! Now that I know how excellent this beer is, I will definitely be having it next time I have the chance. The bomber bottle was a little expensive at $10, but it was really worth it.
Come to think of it, I haven't really had a Three Floyds beer that I didn't like. They are all good to great! I have actually been to the Three Floyds Brewery. I will have to create some sort of section on this blog for the breweries that I have visited.

"Saison" is the French word for season, and real saison ales are brewed in the French-speaking region of Belgium, and have now become popular in the United States. Although these ales were traditionally brewed in the Autumn or Winter for consumption during the late Summer harvest, they also make great ales to have during Spring. Saison style beers are usually refreshing yet complex, with some fruit in the aroma and flavor, can be peppery and floral, and are now usually bottle-conditioned, with an average alcohol by volume range of 5 to 8%.

Details:
Rabbid Rabbit
Three Floyds Brewing Company
Munster, Indiana, United States
Season: Easter
Style: Belgian Saison “Farmhouse Ale”
ABV%: 7.4
IBUS: 45
Color: Light tawny

My Rating:
The glass is full.

Fruit Beer article from Chicago Tribune

Article titled "Fruit Beer, Redefined" from the Chicago Tribune, Good Eating section, April 9, 2008.

Click on the picture of the article to see very large view, so you can actually read it.

In general, I have not been into fruit beers very much at all. I may have to start exploring more fruit beers. I am really not a fan of Belgain-style lambics, such as framboise and kriek beers, though.

I was actually thinking about having Dogfish Head's Aprihop as the April Beer of the Month for this blog. I think it's really good.

There is another fruit beer that I want to try, but can no longer find it anywhere. I guess it was only around for the Winter and I missed it, or maybe it wasn't distributed here in Chicago. It is Dark Horse Brewery's Tres Blueberry Stout. I really like blueberries. Blueberry and stout just sound like a good combination to me. And I just saw they have a Raspberry Ale which sounds pretty decent from their description, which says that it is well balanced.

I have, in fact, seen Atlantic Brewing Company's Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale (from Maine) at my local liquor store, but I have always been skeptical of buying a 6-pack, with the thought that I would not like it. Maybe I'll give it a try soon.

I would, of course, very much like to try Three Floyds Behemoth Barleywine. The only problem is that it is so darn expensive. A bomber bottle (22 oz.) was like $16, I think.

Revolution Brewing Company gets new brewery equipment

A new brewery/brewpub is being started up in the neighborhood where I currently live. It will be Revolution Brewing Company.
Today, there was a post on their blog, showing the process of obtaining brewery equipment from a former brewery in Michigan, and moving it to their location in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago.
Check out the short story and all the interesting photos in their post "How to Move a Brewery in Three Days".
I will likely not still be around here when this place officially opens up, which not until next year. But it is interesting to follow the progress of this brewery planning and building.

Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer - Update and Rating

Last week I picked up a bottle of the Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer at Binny's (South Loop Chicago). There was small display there and one pint bottle was $2. I tried it the other day. I thought about having it during a time that I was actually eating pizza, but then decided that it would be better to try it on its own, to only get the flavors from the beer, for an honest tasting. I have to say, it was much better than I had expected. I liked the overall texture/mouthfeel of the beer. It poured with a nice creamy head, too, which surprised me. You can see from the picture that the color of the beer is a hazy orange. Again, it is described as an ale brewed with oregano, basil, tomato, and garlic. I did taste and enjoy the distinctive herbal flavors from the oregano and basil. The aroma was strong with the herbs too, but I liked this. At first, it was fun and refreshing to drink. After I drank about half the pint, there was one thing that I started to not like so much. It was the garlic. The garlic flavor became overpowering, and I realized that I personally don't really like having garlic in my beer.
I do like the idea of a Pizza Beer and I very much like the originality of the brewers of this beer. I'm glad I got to try it. It was quite interesting.
After doing a quick internet search, I learned, not surprisingly, that there are many other sites that have written about this beer. And in a very similar fashion to this post! So, I will just list some of those here.

1) Looks like I agree with this first one about the garlic taste, but I definitely do not agree with their extremely low rating of 0/10.
http://beerlibrary.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/mamma-mia-pizza-beer-sprecher/

2) This next blogger's post is very similar to my review.
http://orbitalr0x.blogspot.com/2008/02/mamma-mia-pizza-beer.html

3) Again, I also agree with this blogger's post.
http://bierjournal.blogspot.com/2008/03/mamma-mia-pizza-beer.html

4) "Suburban Hobbyist Puts New Spin on Beer and Pizza" - CBS2 Chicago news article and video. Definitely gotta check out the video - they first brewed it in their garage, and they throw real slices of pizza into the beer mix!!

5) Style Clarification for Mamma Mia Pizza Beer and Rant - written by the actual brewer (and now owner of Pizza Beer Company) Tom Seefurth, from St. Charles IL, and posted on Beer Advocate. Provides some helpful and interesting insight into how they started brewing this beer and getting it mass produced, first some by Walter Payton's Roundhouse, and ultimately now by Sprecher.

6) And of course, on the official Seefurth's Mamma Mia Pizza Beer website, they have tons of additional info and links, including a section with lots of informative, funny, and entertaining videos (many of which are about different cooking recipes using the pizza beer).
Also, there is a list of all the places you can find Seefurth's Mamma Mia Pizza Beer. Looks like it is even offered on tap at several places in Chicago and nearby suburbs.
So, go try some for yourself and see what you think!

My Rating:
The glass is half empty.