Founders | Kentucky Breakfast Stout

I haven’t had this beer before.

I figured I would try Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout eventually, but I didn’t know when. I’ve heard stories of lines, of drives, of cases purloined from delivery vehicles. No beer should have a story this big. It’s almost unfair for a product’s reputation to balloon like the KBS brand has. Wouldn’t it be too much, almost inherently?

On April 1st, my home-brewing friend sent me a text: “You may want to swing by Liquor Barn on lunch. It’s Founders KBS day.” I looked at my phone, and I dismissed the idea out of hand.

But then I looked again.

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Deck & Donohue: Monk brown ale

ABV 5.3%

Mike Donohue and Thomas Deck are friends who managed to go from drinking the beer they love to making it. Open just over a month, their brewery, Deck & Donohue, is already making waves in Paris. Located in the Parisian suburb Montreuil, the brewery is one of the few close enough to Paris to bike to. I made it out there during a Saturday open house to taste their Monk brown ale and see what else was on tap. Read More

Left Hand Brewing – Black Jack Porter

English Style Porter
ABV: 6.4%

I’ve realized over the past year that porters, stouts and dark beer in general is where my taste buds find their happy place. And Left Hand Brewing seems to have my number as every brew I find from them becomes the liquid heaven we all search for in a beer. Plus, they seem to have more than enough choices in the deep, dark colored arena. So when I noticed this previously untasted option on the shelf, it was an easy choice. Read More

Sol | Summertime Cerveza

4.5% ABV

Mexican Golden Lager

Craft beer has been my pride and joy over the past year and the beers just keep on coming. The only problem with this is that I find myself only buying craft beers – meaning I hit the title of “beer snob”. This is not an entirely bad thing, but I feel like I am not being fair to all the other beer out there – which is just not cool. Now, I do realize that Sol from Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, S.A. de C.V. is not a typical beer that we would write up on PorchDrinking, but it is one that I personally enjoy, and absolutely love on a hot summer day. Sol, which means sun in Spanish, is a Corona-like beer, but is one that not as many people have learned to love and enjoy. For a brief history click here.

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Blackrocks Brewery | Grand Rabbits

ABV 5.9%

Blackrocks Brewery, in Marquette, Michigan, named themselves after the cliffs just north of town that people hurl themselves off into icy Lake Superior. They opened a few years ago in a two-story house with their brewing setup in the kitchen and live music just about every night.

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Rivertown Brewing | Old Sour Cherry Porter

ABV – 9.0%

IBU – 31

I bought a bag of Sour Patch Kids on my drive home from Thanksgiving with my family. Last time I checked, there is about 2/3 of a bag of Sour Patch Kids in the console of my truck. They’ve long since dried out. I’m not a geologist, but if I had to guess, I’d guess they would rate somewhere feldspar and quartz on the mohs hardness scale. While I may not be a geologist, I still remember some of my 4^th grade science fair kung-fu, and through application of a bit of inductive reasoning, I’ve concluded that Sour Patch Kids do not age well. Read More

Modern Times Beer| Blazing World

ABV: 6.8%

Modern Times’ can first caught my eye because it reminded me of a classic baseball uniform, inviting in that vintage American summer day feeling (I guess it’s like that every day in Southern California). This can is beautiful, simple, classic, and awesome. In the beer world, looks can deceive, but Modern Times Beer has it all: perfect inside and out. Read More

3 Floyds | Permanent Funeral

The wolf inside this pale ale is trying to walk upright. This bright and aromatic beer was brewed with our friends in the band Pig Destroyer. Using some minimal marketing speak that could be surmised to posit that even with the first sip, 3 Floyds Permanent Funeral is a werewolf of a beer makes you want to howl at the moon, party your face off and surf on top of your buddies van! I will agree with that 3 Floyds marketing team!

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Short’s Brewing | Huma Lupalicious

7.7% ABV, 96 IBU

The world can be full of happy coincidences. I just made a trip to Michigan to plan my upcoming wedding to a beautiful gal. While enjoying … Read More

Upland Brewing Company | Raspberry Lambic

IBU: 10

I first fell in love with Upland Brewing Company two years ago at the Avery Sour Ale Festival in Boulder, CO.

While, Upland is based in Bloomington, IN … Read More

Bluejacket Brewery | The Betty + Sweet Science

Header image from: dc.eater.com

A rainy, miserable Sunday brought us to the Bluejacket in southwest Washington. It was during that lazy time in between brunch and dinner, when … Read More

Rodenbach Brewery | Grand Cru

This is the second time I have had this beer, and each time I fall more deeply, deeply in love with Rodenbach Grand Cru, a Flanders Sour style beer. I first sampled the Grand Cru at The Crest Gastropub in Columbus, OH. The main reason for trying the beer was that it was the most expensive on the menu ($10 for a 10 oz. pour), so I wanted to see what the buzz was about.  Read More

Epic Ales | The Briny Deep (Ale Brewed with Oysters)

6% ABV

25 IBU

Ale brewed with Hama Hama oysters

I won’t lie. I’ve been intimidated by this beer since I bought it. I love oysters and I love beer… but did that mean I’d love a beer brewed with oysters? As intrigued as I’ve been with the concept of putting animals in the mash since I read about Cock Ale in “The Joy of Homebrewing,” I was a bit surprised at my trepidation. I worked up my courage throughout the day and eventually cracked my 22.  Read More

Stillwater Artisanal Ales |Existent Ale

ABV: 7.4%

Let me tell you about an unusual beer that I love, Stillwater Artisanal Ale’s Existent Ale.

The bottle describes Existent Ale as an American Farmhouse. However, the “American Farmhouse” moniker wholly belies the character in the bottle. In general, this situation isn’t rare in such an oversized category of ale. But in particular, this brew is an easy-drinking porter/saison mash-up that has no idea what it wants.

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Brew Dog – Hardcore IPA

When I think of India Pale Ales, I don’t think of The Subcontinent, I’d venture to guess that most of you don’t either. Maybe California or Comstock, MI, but probably not India. The IPA is a British invention that is as tired as that other big British invention: Watt’s steam engine. America does IPAs the right way – the American IPA is the Saturn V rocket to the paltry British IPA. Or at least so I thought. Read More

Boulevard Brewing Co. – 80 Acre

To be honest, the prospect of drinking American wheat beer seldom fills me with excitement and anticipation. I’m not happy to admit this personal bias, but I usually think of those insipid, often fruit-laden wheats some brewers feel compelled to keep around in case some poor soul who “doesn’t like the taste of beer” is dragged in to the taproom by their friends. For every Oberon or Gumballhead, I’ve suffered a hundred headache-inducing raspberry wheat coolers. Fortunately, Boulevard crafted just the beer to convert a hardened cynic like me. Read More

Bison Brewing | Organic Chocolate Stout

Bison Brewing’s Organic Chocolate is one of my favorite stouts, and has been for the last few years or so. It is rich in flavor without being heavy in the body, and low enough in alcohol to be sessionable. This is definitely NOT a sweet stout. (If sweet is your thing, check out Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate stout.) Brewed with Peruvian cocoa and roasted barley, this beer boasts big coffee and dark chocolate flavors.

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Bell’s Brewing | Oberon Ale

In Michigan, Bell’s Oberon Ale means summertime. All over the state, there are parties and midnight keg-tappings on Oberon’s early spring release date, which this year fell on March 24. In Bell’s Brewery’s hometown of Kalamazoo, Oberon Day is nothing short of a holiday.

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SweetWater Brewing – Happy Ending

As confusing as the weather is right now for us Ohioans, I felt this beer would be perfect to drink and talk about. SweetWater’s Happy Ending is an Imperial Stout that possesses a much different taste than most others of it’s kind. It is dark in body, has a creamy mocha head and a hoppy citrus nose with light coffee notes? What? That’s right, not only do you get the full body of a stout, but also the hoppy bitterness of an IPA. Now this is not crazy punch you in taste buds hops, but enough to make you do a double take on the beer you just drank.

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Lost Abbey | Deliverance

ABV: 12.5%

This week I woke up and it felt like somebody just emptied a fistful of quarters into a Magic Fingers bed. Only I’m at home in California, not in a South Dakota Super8 circa 1978, and that means… earthquake! I’d never felt a quake before, and really it was over as soon as it started. Nothing cracked or fell, and even my pictures stayed straight on the wall. So it was mostly an excuse for folks to go all Chicken Little all over Twitter, but it was a little unsettling to think about the ground opening up and swallowing us all. What better beer to mark a “near death experience” than Deliverance from Lost Abbey.

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