Why I Oughta...

I thought this would look good in our place.  But, alas, it didn't come home with us.  Not sure who John Henniger was, but I love his sign.  This was hanging in the Lake Geneva Antique Mall and it was in great shape! Was "The Best Milwaukee Beer" before the "Champagne of Beers" tagline?  Who knows why it says that because the MillerCoors blog makes it seem like the Champagne line was around since the beginning ?

Saw these at the taproom of the Solemn Oath Brewery out in Naperville on a recent visit.  Added to the Coaster Collection here on the blog.  By my reckoning, this marks the 14th coaster in the collection that you can see here . This isn't the first time I've written about the fine folks at Solemn Oath Brewery.   You can see all the posts here on the SOB tag page .

Another month, another craft beer tasting session with our good friend Dr. Jeff.   Here's the last session he hosted that focused on Sours .  And one from earlier this year where he toured us through various stouts . This time, he took us on a tour of IPAs including a stop at what he called the "OG of West Coast IPAs", this 5th Anniversary Stone Brewing IPA.   This one scored a 93 on Beer Advocate , so he isn't fooling around.   It was interesting to taste a few different versions from Stone being that we were just at the Bavarian Lodge where Stone did a takeover .  Of course, Dr. Jeff was there on opening night as a good craft beer advocate *should* be. Here's the story on the back of the big bottle: After that, he brought out a can of Heady Topper The Alchemist from Vermont.  This one has a score of 100 !  I think that's the first 100 I've ever had.  And, maybe it was the age of this can, but I liked other beers better that night.   However,

Over the weekend, Dr. Jeff brought over a flight of sours for us to taste along with some pizza and besides the nice conversation and friendship, these were the standouts:   Allagash FV 13 , Perennial Von Pampelmuse and Allagash Farm to Face .   He's done this before - here's the series of stouts that he brought earlier this Spring and one of the sours from earlier this summer .  This time....I liked the two Allgash's, but the peach one stood out for me.  I believe that they're brewed with different processes aside from being different fruits. If you head to the links for each of the beers above, you'll see that the two Allgash ones score very high on BeerAdvocate but the Perennial one isn't scored.  When Dr. Jeff brings and shares knowledge around various beers, they're always really good and/or rare ones.  He's pretty passionate about beers and spends plenty of time at Binny's finding interesting things.  Making pizza and sharing some of

A few weekends back, we found ourselves up in the Madison Wisconsin area and decided to take a trip to campus.  And, after drinking a Spotted Cow up on the Memorial Union Terrace, I had to ask myself:  Who know that Madison was so great? I think it was the limited view of the collegiate world that Lincoln-Way gave me:  after all....if you were able to think about moving on from LWHS and think about a big, land-grant, state university, why wouldn't you go to the University of Illinois?  And if not there, it seemed like the other choice was Iowa.  Or...maybe Indiana?    But Wisconsin at Madison?  Nope.  Not on my radar.  Don't actually know anyone who went there from my high school days. Subsequently, have come across some folks who graduated there.  There's a bunch of guys in our neighborhood in Elmhurst who are Badgers.  And, now?  I kinda get it.  Beautiful place.  So alive, too.  Between the campus and the Capitol, and the lakes.  My god...the lakes.  There's a

This Miller Lite pint glass came home with us one night recently and joins it's brethren in the cupboard.  We weren't drinking Lite, but I have to admit that I kinda love the retro logo that they've brought back and this glass has some neat tapers in the front/back (or sides, I suppose??) and sits well in my hand.   We're without much of our kitchen gear as we're living in Equation Boy/Man's place (and quite grateful for it, btw!!!), so we've (well...Nat would tell you that it is the royal 'we' in that it is 'I' doing the ' pinching ') been supplementing our setup with interesting glasses.  I figure it is less pinching and more 'evangelizing'.  Or something like that. I've dug through the archives here and can't find any other pinched glasses featured here, so consider this the first in the series.  More to come in the catalog.  I know you guys just can't wait, right??

I had a few of these Virtue Ciders that are listed here on the menu above at Cindy's inside of the CAA a few weeks back and it struck me funny that they listed the location as "Chicago, IL".  If you go to the Virtue site, it says they're right in the middle of Fennville, Michigan - which we're familiar with being right by Crane's Orchard.  Weird, right? But, if you poke around, you'll see that Virtue sold out to Goose Island last fall .  Which...means, Virtue is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.  Which makes it 'big cider', right?  Doesn't make it bad, but might explain the 'Chicago' address instead of Fennville, Michigan? Also, for the record, I did also have one of the Butterfly Flash Mobs from the fellas at Solemn Oath.  Rootin' for the home team, and all, right?

Came across this Schlitz stein recently and thought the graphics and slogan "World's Finest Draught Beer" were pretty cool.  It is pretty narrow, so doesn't hold a big volume.   This doesn't carry the tagline of "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous", so perhaps this was either before/after that in their brand campaign heritage? Alas, you can add this to the pile of Schlitz 'found' vintage items that I've passed on.   Here's a pitcher .   Here's a set of coozies . If I would have picked them all up, I'd have quite the Schlitz barware collection.    Now that we have a *plan* for our house situation, maybe I can start to dream about a vintage basement bar.  Thinking...a tiki theme, right?

Earlier this month, we got all gussied up in tuxedos and fancy dresses for a wedding and I gotta tell you:  there's nothing I like more than a good wedding reception photo booth.  We had one at our wedding a while back, and I try to make sure we pose for a few sessions whenever we come across one.  This wedding was no different, so we spent some time (well....I actually spent *more* time in there than Nat!) doing our thing.  I don't wear a tuxedo very often (gasp! I know!), so photos please! Btw...for those keeping score at home *this* was my wedding tuxedo!  We're coming up on 8 years of marriage, so having this thing fit (everything!  The pants, the shirt, the jacket) was a nice thing and made me feel good about myself for a minute or two.  Also...this helped me amortize - in my mind - the cost of owning the tuxedo across at least another event. Oh...the wedding?  It was pretty awesome.   Lots of tasty craft beer was served at various locations throughout the wee

I have to tell you:  something just *had* to give in terms of St. Joe's Michigan restaurants.  I mean...the wait at Silver Beach Pizza sometimes gets to be like 2 hours on non-holiday weekends and sure...the pizza is great(!!!), but it also tells me that there's a huge unmet demand for eats in town. Couple that dynamic with the craft beer movement and what pops out the other end is the new Silver Harbor Brewing Company that has opened recently in Downtown St. Joe's.   Silver Harbor has a taproom that opened up in a 100 year old building and is located on the 'other side' of the main drag through town.  You can comfortably park anywhere in town like near the bluff and still walk to Silver Harbor.   We decided to bring all three kids and give this place a try on a Friday night.  They have a system of texting you when your table is ready, so we were given a 45 minute wait and we went to town to walk around and check out the public art.  Once we were texted, we

This Rothaus coaster that we used in Triburg, Germany is the 12th coaster in the Coaster Collection here on the blog .  We enjoyed a Rothaus Pils ( which has a 91 on Beer Advocate ) in the Black Forest right before we went off and checked out the cuckoo clocks all around tow.  We actually came away with one (or...we'll eventually have one), but I'll share that in a separate post later this week. Full Coaster Collection here on the blog.

While in Italy, we had one of these bottles of Peroni at lunch on a recommendation from the waiter.  It was served in this very fancy beer glass: And...it was really great!  But...the snobs over at Beer Advocate only gave it a 75 .

Found a set of four of these Coors chalice glasses at a garage sale.  They wanted $1 for the pair.  But...since we have neither a bar in our basement nor...a house...I had to pass.  Seems like they'd be a welcome addition to Uncle Peter's collection?  Maybe we should have sprung for them after all? They read: Brewed With Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water.

Dr. Jeff brought over this Terreux Fruct Passion Fruit Berliner Weissbier from The Bruery for one of his beer tastings recently.  There aren't enough ratings over on Beer Advocate, so it isn't rated, but based on the other things he brought, I'm guessing it will rank pretty highly.  I tend to like these fruity-wheat beers (that's what this is, right??? I'm *so* not a beer sommelier!), and this one was interesting.  Can't drink tons of it, but enjoyed my half-a-glass.

As you can see, they were asking $12.50 for this beauty of a beer pitcher from Schlitz.  The slogan at the bottom reads - as you know - "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous".  We don't have a house, let alone a place to put big glass pitchers like this, but if it is still around when we go back, I think I might grab this to start our barware collection that could reside in a potential butler's pantry.

Last weekend, we had some friends over and had a little pizza party and beer tasting.  The husband of the pair, is a crazy beer guy.  I mean...like totally a beer guy.  As big of a craft beer expert as I've seen and that says something when you think about Nat's two brothers who are big craft beer guys. Well...it turns out that Natalie likes stouts.  Me?  Not so much.  But...I'm always up for a tasting in a little glass of just about anything.  Above are three of the (I think) five or six stouts that they brought and we drank.  Did I love them?  Nah.  But they were all unique.  And all interesting. On the left is Prairie Pirate Bomb.   Which has a 98 on Beer Advocate . In the middle is Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout.   Which has a 100 on Beer Advocate ! On the right is Perennial 17 Mint Chocolate Stout.   Which has an 89 on Beer Advocate . Despite the scores, I *think* I liked the Mint Chocolate Stout from Perennial the best.  It tasted like - and smelled just

I had one of these tasty cans of Vander Mill Blue Gold Michigan Cider last week and it was a tasty combination of apples and blueberries.  Both from West Michigan.  Vander Mill looks to be from close to Grand Haven on the west coast of Michigan.  Further up the lake than Coloma/St. Joe's is, so I'm not to familiar with them or the place.  I've been drinking more and more ciders and based on the menu expansion, I'm not the only one.  I had this one over ice and that's the way I normally roll with ciders.  Maybe that's why I'm into them?  Can't have a craft beer on ice and not get sideways looks from the waxed mustache'd crowd.  But ciders?  Nobody bats an eye.

 I snapped this photo of the six-pack holder for this year's Christmas Ale from Anchor Brewing the folks who make Anchor Steam.  For 41 years, they've been making an annual Christmas Ale and packaging it up with a unique mix and a unique label featuring a different tree. I posted about the 2010 Ale here on the blog , but my brother-in-laws pick up the beer EVERY YEAR in both six packs but also - on occasion - one of those huge magnum bottles.   They keep one or two from each year and don't drink them so they can plan a 'vertical' session where they pass out little tasting portions of like five years of the beer to a group to note the differences from year-to-year.  If you look at that 2010 post, you'll note that the tree was a Ginko.  ( Here's a really well done catalog of all the trees they've used over the 41 years .)  I think one of Nat's brothers has a poster featuring all the labels.  Like I said...they're REALLY into this stuff - and f

We picked up this bomber of Crispin Hard Apple Cider at Costco recently and Nat broke it out for our block party this past weekend.  It was mighty tasty and I wasn't ashamed to be drinking it out amongst the other folks drinking craft beer from all over the place.  (By the way...Costco has really stepped up their game of craft beer with dozens of bomber sizes of various types.  Kinda neat way to spend a few minutes while Nat looks through the book section.) It is interesting to me that ciders have moved from kind of fringe - almost feminine - beverages (I remember back in the 90's some folks drinking Mike's Hard Cider back in college and me looking down at them while I was shotgunning my Miller High Life Light!) to totally mainstream. For me, Nat has been leading the way for a few years as she's sought out ciders at bars and restaurants while I was sticking to the draft beer menu.  The first time I had a Crispin was a sip of one of Nat's at dinner one night p

Tomorrow over by the Elmhurst History Museum there's what I *think* is the inaugural Elmhurst Craft Beer Fest being put on by the Elmhurst Heritage Foundation and the Rotary Club of Elmhurst.  $35 tickets for 18 tickets that are good for 3 oz samples.  18 x 3 = 54 ounces of beer.  That's 4.5 12 ounce beers for your $35.  Seems like a fair deal. I'd call this a nice addition to the event calendar in town.  Hoping it is a success and that it becomes a repeat event.   There's quite a few breweries represented.  No Solemn Oath, though?!?  But lots of big guys and some interesting ones like Nat's favorite Stone and Revolution from Chicago.  Good job by the organizers to get *so* many breweries/beers lined up.   From the Brew Fest's site: This is the current list logo's of participating breweries. Check back often! We continue to add to the list. Goose Island  Ommemgang  Boulevard Brewing Founders Brewing New Belguim Sam Adams Angry Orch