Beer and Nuclear Weapons; A Match Made In Heaven?

According to "Operation Teapot" a government funded study on the effect of nuclear explosions on commercially packaged beverages beer will be drinkable post apocalypse.

Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know anything about nuclear weapons or an impending apocalypse but I sure as hell know beer.  Check out this great blog for the details of the test in a more scientific manner, http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2012/09/05/beer-and-the-apocalypse/.

What we're taking away here at the Tri State Beer Blog though is plain and simple.  Our obsession with drinking and keeping plenty of beer in our "cellars' is now entirely justifiable.  If the world does indeed meet it's end on the 21st of December this year through some means of nuclear war and you happen to find yourself in a bunker made of stolen trailers and food trucks (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-09-12/news/33794904_1_doomsday-bunker-trailer-kissimmee-police) beer must be your drink of choice.

Take this as a sign from the beer gods and go out and buy more beer than you already do, on a weekly or dare I say daily basis.

Pumpkin Season Is Upon Us: Dogfish Head Punkin Beer Review

Craft Beer Pumpkin season is upon us.  Yes it might be a little early, but who am I to tell these breweries to put Pumpkin production on hold until the fall weather has taken over.  It’s a real catch-22, because as much as I’d love to hold off on grabbing and drinking these pumpkins until Mother Nature has given me the okay, they’re fresh RIGHT now.  What’s better than fresh beer? Well nothing obviously.

With that said, I’m going to review our first pumpkin beer of the season or should I say our first Punkin.  It may not be the highest rated Pumpkin brew on Beer Advocate but it certainly is the most reviewed, crushing the competition.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale with a Sandwich

Pumpkin brews can really be divided into two sectors, full bodied and light bodied.  Punkin is certainly part of the former group.  It is a full-bodied brown ale with just subtle hints of the pumpkin characteristics.  Unlike some of the sweet, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar bombs that other breweries produce.

The beer pores a beautiful light amber color with a veracious white head that really sticks around in the glass for some time.  The smell is not a smack in the face of pumpkin but more subtle pumpkin with hints of various spices.  As for the flavor it is a brown ale through and through, far more nutty flavor in this one than most pumpkin ales.  The taste begins with the nutty brown mixed with the pumpkin flavor and some cinnamon, and it finishes off with a slight spice that doesn’t overwhelm the palette as other pumpkins do.

There’s a reason that Dogfish Head is quickly becoming one of the nations largest microbreweries, they make damn good beer in ever sector.  Per the usual they do so with a twist, this is set apart from the others because it’s not your typical spice bomb but a full bodied well-rounded brown ale with pumpkin flavors mixed in well throughout.

Check out last years Great Pumpkin Tasting done by the Tri State Beer Blog right here, http://tristatebeerblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-pumpkin-tasting-results-and.html

Rating:
Dogfish Head Punkin Ale 8.5/10

City Swiggers - Reviewing an NYC Craft Beer Bar/Bottle Shop

City Swiggers is a brand new beer bar that opened it's doors on the Upper East Side of NYC in late 2011.  It has been making waves in the NYC Craft Beer scene ever since.  Over the past few years bottle shops and beer bars have sprung up all over Manhattan but City Swiggers is the first of it's kind on the Upper East.

The Upper East has always had the "ritzy" feel to it and thus most people assumed it was a wine neighborhood.  Due to the explosion of high quality craft beer in the past several years, beer now transcends class levels.

The Upper East Side establishment is multi purposed.  If you're just looking to pick a few up you can do that.  If you're trying to sit down and have a beer off tap they do that too.  Lastly, if you find the bottle you're looking for and simply can't make it home without cracking it open, they do that too.

Now if you're a true Craft Beer Geek you know where all the great spots to pick up your latest Haul in NYC are.  More specifically you sure as heck know which places are going to gouge their prices, and so you don't go there anymore.

City Swiggers has some of the best prices I've ever seen in the city that never sleeps.  I might even dare to say that their prices were as good or lower than prices I've seen outside of the expensive bubble that is Manhattan.

As for the location itself the beer shop/bar has a nice location on East 86th and the setting itself is a great scene.  Beautiful Hard wood floors and pristine white walls littered with paintings, this place is definitely not the beer distributor down the block from your house.

The space is long and narrow with wood shelves in the front full of domestic craft and as you move into the back it changes to steel shelves full of international brews.  I guess they ran out of funding and couldn't afford wood for the whole place?

As for the real meat and potatoes of this joint (the beer).  The selection was rather solid, nothing spectacular but they definitely had selections you can't simply find in your local grocery store.  Some more difficult to come by Sours or Barrel Aged brews would have been to my liking and I'm sure many others.

At least they allow mixed sixers, which is one of my overall pet peeves about bottle shops, making my own sixers is simply a must.  And they also allow you to crack the bottle open right there for a respectable 4 dollar corkage fee, who doesn't want to knock one back while they figure out what they're taking home?

The only other downside was the customer service.  I spent about 20 minutes in the store along side three other customers.  There might have been a total of four words spoken.  This falls squarely on the shoulders of the man behind the counter (the owner maybe? if only he spoke to me I might know).  I made a concerted effort to strike up conversation with the owner and even one of the other customers, no dice.

A knowledgable fellow behind the counter can make all the difference, especially if he's friendly and strikes up conversation with his customers.  I will always prefer a boisterous beer shopping experience full of conversation with my fellow customers and the "craft expert" behind the counter.

All in all it was a good experience, and next time I'm on the Upper East Side I'll be swinging by City Swiggers again, although I won't be heading up there just for the sole purpose of visiting.

For a similar experience well north of the City in Putnam County,  check out one of our  review of The Hop in Beacon, NY.

Stone Collaboration With Stillwater and Evil Twin Brewing Details - The Perfect Crime

Stone, the SoCal Craft Beer giant, has been leaking details of their newest collaboration beer in conjunction with Stillwater of Maryland and Evil Twin Brewing of Minnesota via their twitter feed in the past several hours.

"The Perfect Crime" as it will be called is set to be brewed by Brian of Stillwater, Mitch of Stone and Jeppe from Evil Twin Brewing.  To produce the Smoked Black Saison with Oak Smoaked Wheat they will employ the following hops and malts.  They will be using Cluster, East Kent Goldings and Chinook Hops, as well as Wheat Malt, Oats and Carafa for the malt.

All of this information has been pulled together through Stone's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feed.
The photo below of Jeppe of Evil Twin was found on their Instagram.

Growler & Gill Craft Beer Shoppe reaches it's goal!

Wow!!  We were blown away by the support Growler & Gill Craft Beer Shoppe received on our Kickstarter campaign.  95 people from our community and across the country each donated between $10 and $1000 to see us succeed.  Now we can't fail.  We have begun the process of picking local contractors from Rockland County to begin the hard job of turning our space in Nanuet into a cool, comfortable place to enjoy craft beer.  We will be posting pictures both here and on Growler & Gill's Facebook page as work progresses.  So stay tuned!!