I thought about this earlier this week, googled for something about it to see if it had already been covered, didn’t immediately see anything as obvious as what I was thinking and decided to go ahead and post about it.
I’m clearly not very good at regularly posting. The last one was a decent one, I think, but that was 10 months ago.
Unrelated old beer photo from a pre-Untappd world
Here’s what I was thinking: the explosion of craft beer and social media at roughly the same time has culminated in me being able to relatively easily find any beer that I’d like to try if it’s available locally. Untappd makes this possible. I’ve been a member since the summer of 2012. It’s pretty great. I also recently passed 1000 different beers. So it took me five and a half years to remember to check-in with each beer that I’ve tried. I’m sure I’ve missed some but I’ve been pretty good about recording them. I’m typically too lazy to write any comments unless the beer is particularly good or bad. I think my ratings are relatively consistent.
As far as finding a beer (or two) that I want to try, here’s what happened this week. I know that Celis had the first release of Grand Cru last weekend and that’s one of the recipes from the original brewery that I’ve been wanting to see return. I had Friday off for Veteran’s Day. I had also seen via Easy Tiger’s Instagram feed that they’d tapped an intriguing barleywine from Dogfish Head called Puddin’ Wine. A quick couple of searches on Untappd showed that I could probably get both at Bangers. Sure enough, I was able to sit down outside on Friday afternoon and order both, one right after the other.
While I was there, I requested an Untappd API key so I can show check-ins as a feed, similar to the Twitter and Flickr posts. So there it is over there on the right as well.
I mentioned the ratings on Untappd earlier, that’s the other benefit: remembering that I’ve already tried something and that maybe I wasn’t a huge fan.
I was at Lazarus a while back and ordered the Amandus. About two sips in, I thought, “Wow, I really don’t like this. It’s way too heavy on the banana esters.” If you look at their description, it says “Strong Belgian Golden Ale”. I do not expect banana esters with that description. I think something more along the lines of Duvel or the Grand Cru that I mention below. However, if you read the full description, it says:
St. Amandus was a Belgian monk famous for his hospitality: he became the patron saint of brewers, bartenders, and innkeepers. With hints of banana, pear, and cloves, this beer is our toast to a great man in a great beer-making region!
Hints? It’s more than hints. Here’s what I said back in January. Clearly, I should’ve paid attention to that last bit. As an aside, beware of the descriptions at Lazarus. They tend to add a flavor that you don’t expect to a beer style that you think you know. I’m not saying is good or bad, it just means that you end up with something you don’t expect.
Since the Lazarus visit, IÂ was at WhichCraft Mueller where I had the Founders Nitro Oatmeal Stout. Again, I should’ve paid attention to my past self. It wasn’t following the Bible Belt that made it forgettable. It’s just weaker than I generally want in my stouts. That disappointment was more than made up for by the Black Butte XXIX that I had after it.
