Two Bad Neighbors

Sorry for the day between posts here.  But let's see where I last left you.  Saturday during the day, Liz and I took advantage of the weather and strolled on out to the Gate.  While there I had a Jolly Pumpkin Calabaza Blanca.  You might recall that I went to the Jolly Pumpkin brewery in Ann Arbor a short while ago.  This was the first time I had seen any Jolly Pumpkin outside of Michigan, so that was cool.  Their Calabaza Blanca was, you guessed it, kind of sour, but still super delicious and really, really refreshing.  This got me to thinking: why don't breweries have a signature taste?  I mean I know why, but bare with me for a moment.  I guess this isn't a normative thing, but there are very few breweries that you could blindly taste one of their beers and know it came from that specific brewery.  I mean if you had a super hoppy beer you could maybe guess Dogfish Head or if you had a super thin and water beer of any style you could guess Saranac.  I guess I just thought it would be cool if Jolly Pumpkin made a bunch of different styles of beer but purposefully made each beer nice and sour, or as their website says "refreshingly tart," so when you drank, let's say, a sour Imperial Stout, you'd know it was from Jolly Pumpkin.

Also at the Gate I had a Cigar City Humidor Gruit.  This is going to sound crazy, but that was my first Cigar City beer.  From what I gather, their Humidor Series is a line of their normal beers they age in cedar casks.  Gruit itself is pretty crazy.  It's made with no hops!  I'd go on about it, but just check out this article and inform yourselves!  Suffice it to say, it was also very good and very drinkable.  But then again, I think the weather made just about anything drinkable.  If I had a barleywine at the Gate that day I'd probably be talking about how I could session the eff out of it.  In other news, I like drinking beer outdoors in 72 degree sunny weather.

Then on Sunday I watched football, ate nachos (really!), and drank beer (also really!).  I had a Mother's Milk Stout and a 21st Amendment Back in Black.  Neither day was really a heavy drinking day, but the beer, weather, and football was quality (ok maybe not the football as I was watching the Bengal's game).  All in all, a good couple of days!

Total Beers: 731
Where I Should Be: 698.630