Local Weekend #101-105

On Friday and Sunday (1/24 & 1/26) we went out in Alexandria and Springfield Virginia.  

On Friday night we visited a couple of places we really enjoy, RedRocks Pizza and Augie's.  Between the two places I had #101-105.  

#101 - Port City Tidings Belgian Pale Ale

#102 - Sycamore Juicyness IPA

#103 - Captain Lawrence Citra Dreams IPA

#104 - Fair Winds Howling Gale IPA

On Sunday we went out to go furniture shopping and decided to eat lunch at Chuy's in Springfield where I had a margarita with a Corona in it..,

#105 - Corona Extra 

10% done!!! #98-100 (and #106)

After coming back from Boston I was closing in on #100 and reaching the 10% mark for the year.  

At home I had #98 and #99 in the afternoon of 1/20 (seen below is also #107)

#98 - Natty Daddy

#99 - Icehouse Edge

#106 - Narragansett Lager

And....drum roll please....#100 on January 20th - 10% down in only 20 days, well on pace for the year!

#100 was a special beer that we got when we visited Tree House Brewing in Massachusetts in November last year!

Image from Insurance Beer Guy Blog

#100 - Tree House Jjjuliusss

More Beers Around Boston #83-97

Well, Boston was quite a fun and yet quick visit.  There was so much to see and so much to try, we will definitely be going back and likely sooner rather than later.

To close out Boston beers on my trek, here is a longer and simpler post with beers #83-96

#83 - Samuel Adams Boston Lager
#84 - Night Shift Whirlpool
#85 - True North Northern Haze IPA
#86 - Lamplighter Blame it on My Juice Gose
#87 - Lone Pine Oh-J
#88 - Oxbow Farmhouse Pale Ale

#89 - Night Shift Awake Porter
#90 - Exhibit A Hair Raiser IPA
#91 - Proclamation Derivative: Vic Secret
#92 - Turtle Swamp Toll Gate
#93 - Mast Landing Gunners Daughter Stout
#94 - Notch Raw Power Session IPA

#95 - Stone Face DDH Pale Ale
#96 - Samuel Adams New England IPA
#97 - Samuel Adams Cold Snap

Trillium #80-82

We have been hearing from friends who live in Massachusetts and Connecticut about how much they like the two favorite breweries there.  In November we were able to visit and stock up on a bunch of beers from Treehouse, though since we hadn't been into Boston, we hadn't tried any Trillium beers.

This trip to Boston had to have a visit to Trillium so we met some friends there and had brunch with the beers! As we had expected, they were awesome!

#80 - Trillium Permutation #6.53

#81 - Trillium DDH Sleeper Street

#82 - Trillium DDH Summer Street

Beers around Boston - #73-79

A week late on this post, trying to catch up a bit...while we were in Boston we did some of the obligatory tourist locations and a couple of famous bars along the way as well.

First we visited The Bell in Hand Tavern - America's Oldest Tavern

#73 - Cisco Crantucket IPA

Then while visiting Fanueil Hall we stopped at Cheers where I sat at the corner of the bar just like Norm!

#74 - Norm's Pilsner
#75 - Lord Hobo 617 New England IPA

Heading back toward the neighborhood by our hotel in the snow, we stopped again at Brownstone.

#76 - Lawson's Finest Sip of Sunshine IPA
#77 - Lord Hobo Boomsauce

Then stopped at the store to pick up a couple to take back to the room.

#78 - Harpoon Nana's Night Cap
#79 - Clown Shoes Space Cake Double IPA

Beers Around Fenway... #67-72

Our first day in Boston we decided to head down toward Fenway Park and kick off our eating and drinking in Boston.  We started at Cask n Flagon and then went on a walk around Fenway and a stop at the Boston Beer Works.

At Cask n Flagon I had #67-70

#67 - 603 White Peaks IPA

#68 - Jack's Abby Smoke and Dagger 

#69 - Samuel Adams Boston Brick Red (only available at about 100 places in the Boston area - formerly only available on the Freedom Trail)

#70 - Otter Creek Berner IPA

At Boston Beer Works I had #71-72

#71 - Fenway Pale Ale

#72 - Contender New England IPA

First Night in Boston! #62-66

After our later than planned arrival and a couple of snafus with our attempts to ride the T to our hotel in the Back Bay we found a place a couple of blocks down called Clery's.

We hoped to get some food but the kitchen was closed so we consoled ourselves with several excellent beers in the bitter cold night.

#62 - Lamplighter Birds of a Feather IPA
#63 - Winter Hill Johnny Juice Bomb IPA
#64 - Cisco Gripah Grapefruit IPA
#65 - Wormtown Be Happy IPA
#65 - Wormtown Blizzard of 78

Flying to Boston #60-61

While heading to the airport last Friday we got a notification on our phones that our direct flight had been canceled.  I quickly rebooked on the next quickest flight combo, which wasn't direct so we lost a bit of our evening we had hoped to have in Boston.  Though this was a bummer, we were able to spend a bit of time in an additional state along the way.  The new routing was a quick flight into LaGuardia in NYC and then an even quicker flight to Boston later.

First, we were leaving from DCA and actually ended up in our preferred departure concourse with our favorite bar at DCA - El Centro.  Here I had #60!

#60 - Flying Dog Snake Bite IPA

With our time in LaGuardia we were lucky to get seats at the only bar in the old junky terminal we were in there….and had #61

#61 - Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA

Mix & Match 6-Packs 2 #51-59

As I mentioned in the previous mix & match post - here are a bundle more singles I tried this week!

 

#51 - Hurricane (not pictured)

#52 - Stone Tropic of Thunder Lager

#53 - Peroni Nastro Azzurro

#54 - Ballast Point Lager

#55 - Sierra Nevada Sierraveza

#56 - Deschutes Fresh Haze IPA

The other day at the store, I found an interesting mixed 6-pack of 2 beers each from Sufferfest Beer Company!  I wish more breweries would create these micro mix packs, rather than just 12-24 pack mixes. 

#57 - Sufferfest FKT Pale Ale

#58 - Sufferfest Head Start Stout

#59 - Sufferfest Repeat Kolsch

#50

Short post here...though on January 13th, I reached beer #50 of 1000 for this year!  5% done - 95% to go!

We went out into Old Town Alexandria and I went to District Taco for the first time.  I enjoyed my very large burrito and I tried one of the beers that they sold there....

#50 - Old Ox Black Ox Porter

Mix & Match 6-packs 1 - #41-49

One of my favorite things in the awesome beer stores in Seattle from when I lived there was that virtually anything you wanted in the entire store would be sold as an individual can/bottle if you wanted rather than only full 6-packs.

Well, I know of a couple of stores in Alexandria and Arlington Virginia that do this with a portion of their beer selections...and yep, that is going to be an important part of a 1000 Beer Year!

#41 - New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA

#42 - Lagunitas Super Cluster Ale

#43 - Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin IPA

#44 - Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA

#45 - Blake's Hard Cider Rose

OK, that last one isn't a beer, though there will be a stray cider along this journey and even though it isn't a beer, I will definitely blog it here and count it for now!

#46 - Deschutes Da Shootz Pilsner

#47 - Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale

#48 - Oskar Blues Can-o-Bliss Tropical IPA

#49 - Landshark Lager

An Alexandria Evening #35-40

One of our favorite things to do is visit nearby Old Town Alexandria restaurants, pubs and bars.  

We have a number of favorites and over the weekend we stopped at two of them (one was mentioned in the kick-off post) 

First we visited Rustico, which always has a great array of beers and has had a few excellent food selections on our past visits as well!

#35 - Bluejacket Essex EKGA Cask

#36 - Aslin Astro Zombie IPA

#37 - Bissell Brothers Lux IPA

#38 - Decadent Guava Sorbet Sour

Second is Lost Dog Café, where we had some great pizza and lasagna that we ate a bit of and then took the rest home! 

Here I had a couple new ones...

#39 - Ardent Blood Orange Cranberry Gose

#40 - Deciduous Blade IPA

Why not finish the post with a fun piece of art from Lost Dog Café!

Keep on Trekking...#29-34

Well, when you aren't traveling or going out to breweries and pubs?

Of course....you keep trying beers along the journey at home!

Not all beers are going to be the craftiest of craft brews on this journey, some will be cheap and inexpensive beers along the way.

Last week at home, I had a few of these including #29-31, pictured above.
#29 - Busch Ice
#30 - Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR)
#31 - Icehouse

There were a few others as well with # 32-34 including a fringe inclusion in my attempt to reach 1000 - the flavored malt beverage.
#32 - Sierra Nevada Hop Bullet
#33 - Dogfish Head Sixty One
#34 - Cran-ber-rita

Delaware Brews Part 2 #24-28

As I mentioned previously we made a couple of stops in Delaware on our return from the weekend on the shore.

This was my first foray into a beer flight or sampler of the year.  I have had literally hundreds and hundreds of these over the last 20 years though when I used to keep track of the over 4000 beers I had "tried" all around the world, I didn't count anything less than a full 12+ ounce serving.

For this 1000 beer year, I have decided to only include servings greater than 4 ounces, which does exclude most beer festivals and simple tastes of a given beer.  If someone feels they would like to argue with this, please bring your thoughts to the comments and discussion.  I expect that these will be only a small portion of my overall 1000 Beer Year!

So....where was this at?   Also in Delaware, in Rehoboth Beach...even just across the highway from Thompson Brewing, there was Iron Hill Brewery.

Here we had a proper late lunch and I had my flight with beers # 24-27
#24 - Orange Creamsicle IPA
#25 - Anvil Ale (cask)
#26 - Perfect Vision Sour
#27 - Spruce Moose IPA

After I finished that I had a full pour of beer #28 - Scrooge IPA