Romey's Beer Blog

It's gonna be gooooooood

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of Avery Brewing in Boulder. Consistently the crew there comes out with some phenomenal brews in one of my favorite tap rooms in the land. For us locals it’s also a great place for some small batch specially brews. In that mold comes one I’ve been liking my chops on a while now… Margarete. According to Avery, Margarete is an already lights out stout combined with sour cherries, turbinado sugar and a near year stay in… wait for it… a bourbon barrel. Sadly for you out of staters I give you the following news from Avery’s newsletter… “All 59 cases of Margarete will go on sale from the Avery Tap Room on Friday, January 28th from 6PM-10PM. Due to limited quantities, each customer will have the opportunity to purchase up to six bottles (12oz) of Margarete at $10 per bottle”

Fear not fellow beer lovers, I’ll bite the bullet and try some for the lot of us! Keep you posted the minute this seemingly heavenly brew touches my tongue!

Until next time beer lovers…

Sad news out of one of my favorite breweries around. Odell Brewing has recalled their Bourbon Barrel Stout released this year due to some problems with the barrels used for aging. No health risks, but it could sour  the beer. Me and my BeerTapTV bros loved this beer when it tapped at GABF this year and it’s sad to see em pulled. However I applaud Odell for seeing the quality problem and taking care of it quickly. It shows why they’re one of the best breweries around. Here’s the press release from their website.

————————————————————————————————————————–

It has come to our attention that some bottles of Bourbon Barrel Stout from the first batch of the 2010 release have the potential to sour slightly. This is the result of a naturally occurring, harmless bacteria present in the beer. For this latest batch, we selected new barrels from a different distillery that were originally used for sour mash bourbon. Different barrels have different micro flora in them. It is clear now that these barrels contained a hearty strain of lactobacillus. Typically this bacterium does not survive in this environment, and we crafted the beer under the assumption that the bacteria could not thrive in a freshly emptied bourbon barrel filled with a 10.5% ABV stout. Each release and bottle is different. We expect the beer to exhibit a bit of tartness, but we did not intend for the dominant flavor profile to be sour. Not all of the bottles are affected, and warm storage seems to have an accelerated affect. We are very proud of the Bourbon Barrel Stout brand and so felt it necessary to communicate this potential sour flavor. We are pulling the remaining bottles out of the market. Moving forward, we have worked to ensure that the beer meets our highest quality standards by stabilizing future releases through filtration and barrel selection. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the brewery at cheers@odellbrewing.com.

Here’ s a story I did for the news on the All Colorado Beer Festival in Colorado Springs. Always nice to see my state represent the craft beer world. Hope you enjoy!

Rick Andrews and your boy chatting at BBC10

What’s up my fellow beer lovers? Haven’t seen you in a while! Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been fully immersed in the craft beer culture to the point that I’ve been neglecting the blog! Just finished up with the beer bloggers conference in Boulder this weekend and IT WAS A BLAST!!!! Met some awesome beer minds like Lauren Polinsky (Durham Craft Beer Examiner), Dan Fisher (Life On Tap), Carla aka The Beer Babe (The Beer Babe), and of course my buddy Rick Andrews (Ales from the Crypt) and (Firkin Around). Sadly I was only able to attend on Friday but to see and hear so many people who are just like me was an awesome experience! We also got to pop open a bottle of End of History from Brew Dog (but that’s another blog in itself). This is a short one but I just wanted to get the word out about some of these great bloggers I met. Check out their sites and show em some love! And I promise I’m gonna post A TON of new stuff in the next week, including a look at the Stoat, an incredible pumpkin ale from Bristol, Black Fox’s crazy good Noche Del Diablo,  a special Wee Heavy from Oskar Blues coming out, the All Colorado Beer Fest and the lowdown on how YOU can become the Beerdrinker of the Year. Cheers my friends!

Until next time beer lovers…

TONS of you raved about Duane Lujan and Rocky Mountain Brewery at GABF. In addition to his awesome porter and alt beers he brought the bakery. Anybody at GABF remembers the cherry pie, blueberry pie and peach cobbler beers. I can honestly say if there was an award from beer drinkers at the event, Rocky Mountain Brewery would’ve won for sure. Erik and I brought John Schneider from Black Fox Brewing on to the set to give the cherry pie beer aka Da Yoopers a try. This beer is beyond nuts! I kid you not when I tell you that you can actually taste the pie crust (cinnamon, sugar etc) in the beer. All beer lovers MUST make the trek to Colorado Springs to get this beer!

Whew! What a great GABF this year! 3 days and 4 sessions was A LOT but it was by far my favorite year so far. Best beer? For me I’d have to say a close one between Buckbean’s Very Noddy Double Black and NOLA’s wheat with lemon basil. Both absolutely incredible and a must try for anyone that can get their hand’s on em! As for my highlight, this is it. We got together with The Happy Hour Guys, the New Brew Thursday crew, Beer Drinker of the Year Bill Howell and Ales from the Crypt writer Rick Andrews for a meeting of the beer minds post GABF. Great group of guys and a great time! Hope you enjoy… Cheers!

ONe of the better beers I’ve had in a loooong time! This week Erik and I give Full Sail’s Sanctuary Belgian Style Dubbel. It’s  part of their Brewmaster’s Reserve Series. If you can get your hands on it I suggest you do it! Perfect of the fall months! Enjoy!

John Bryan with Firestone Walker was nice enough to bring some of the incredible 12th Anniversary along to share with me and the boys. I hear it’s trading for about $150 buck a pop so we were way thankful to get our lips on it. If you can get this beer DO IT!

A bottle conditioned 750ml of Black Fox’s “Don’t Call Me Wit” you say? DOn’t mind if I do! Another great beer from John and Nicole Schneider!

After 2 years I decided it was time for another vacation. Last time out me and my bro Geoff headed out to New York and Boston for a baseball and brewery excursion. This time we took on the Windy City. Chicago was an absolute blast! I love the people, the city and especially the beer! In addition to catching both Cubs and Sox games, we were lucky enough to check out some great beer drinking destinations. Goose Island took us into the main brewery and showed us thier ever growing operation. Brewmaster Greg Hall was also cool enough to grab us some Harvest Ales right of the bottling line… can you say fresh and delirious? We also did a lot of time over at the brand new Revolution Brewing. This place is now one of my favorite breweries around. Matty and the crew out there brew some fantastic beers and they make some damn fine food to boot (try the bacon fat popcorn). All in all a fantastic vacation. Can’t wait to see all of em again at GABF! We took some video at the breweries too, look for those here and at BeerTapTV in the coming days!

Until next time beer lovers…