REVIEW: Revolution Mother of Exiles

If you rely on my facebook or twitter to be notified when new content goes up on here it may have seemed like I was conspicuously absent. Well, I suppose I was, but I did not shirk my duties as far as sharing you my inane babbling about beers. If you look back I talked about Two beers from Sun King, Osiris, and Bourbon Barrel Wee Mac, and Frankenmuth's Hefeweizen. Go check those out. Good stuff. The reason I wasn't posting those reviews to facebook or twitter is that I was out of the country and well outside of cell service. My travels will also be responsible for vastly aesthetically improved bacgrounds for the photos on the blog for the next month or so as well as a dearth of Canadian craft beer! We'll get to those in due time. First I have a few beers that I brought up with me that we need to run through before we can get to the Canadian ones. At the top of that list is Mother of Exiles. A pilsner from one of my favorites, Chicago's Revolution brewing. I'm getting a bit of a Daenerys Targaryen vibe from the name of this beer. I guess she's the Mother of Dragons, rather than the Mother of Exiles. Athough, I suppose all of the slaves that she freed in Mereen and Astapor and such would qualify her as the Mother of Exiles. In actuality the name comes from the poem The New Colossus that is famously emblazoned upon the Statue of Liberty. So the Mother of exiles isn't Daenerys Targaryen,  but Lady Liberty! You learn something new every day. But I digress, to the beer!

REVIEW: Stone/ Aleman/ Two Brothers Dayman

I enjoy It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It's never really been appointment viewing for me, but I enjoy it whenever I watch it. That's a long way of saying that I quite enjoy the name of this beer. I remember hearing about this beer quite a while ago when I watched this video from the Iron Brew Homebrew competition back in December. Well, I didn't have that video in my mind when I bought this bottle, but once I read the back of the label which talked about the origins of the beer I remembered back. So anyway, the guys at Aleman won the Iron Brew competition with their coffee IPA. Which combines two of my all time favorite beverages and sounds just bizarre enough to work. I'm very excited to try this one out. Let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

REVIEW: Revolution Very Mad Cow

More beer from Revolution Brewing. I know, I'm getting to be a bit of a broken record at this point. These guys are good and I really like their stuff. Their Third year Beer, the rum barrel aged barleywine that I looked at a few weeks ago was one of the best beers I've had in a good long while. Today's beer, Very Mad Cow is another entry in the same Deep Woods series of barrel aged beers that brought us the lovely Third Year Beer. I had to give this one a try. Very mad Cow is a 9.7% ABV, 30 IBU milk stout aged in Woodford Reserve barrels. Sounds delightful, right? To the beer!

REVIEW: Revolution Repo Man

So Chicago's Revolution brewing has very quickly shot up the ranks of my favorite breweries. Not only are their core canned offerings very tasty, but they have a whole array of bottled beers that are just a bit more out there. As is the case with today's beer. Repo Man, a 6.2% ABV Rye Stout. Which, kind of shockingly, is a style of stout I don't believe I've ever come across. Sounds pretty tasty! Let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

REVIEW: Finch's Secret Stache Stout

So, My plan to do three English nitro ales backfired when two of them tasted eerily similar. But I've got content to create and I can't let a small setback like that deny you fine folks my thoughts on beer. So I soldier on. Next man up, as they say. That said, today's next man is Secret Stache Stout, from a brewer I have some affinity towards, Chicago Illinois' Finch's. A 5.3% ABV stout, brewed with vanilla. Sounds good to me. To the beer!

REVIEW: Revolution 3rd Year Beer

Here we are, at the end of my little barleywine week. But we're going out with a bang. The first two barleywines I looked at this week were a little bit similar, both very hop forward. This one breaks the mold. 3rd Year Beer from Revolution Brewing is a rum barrel aged wheat barleywine. Honestly, how could I walk past this beer and leave it on the shelf? It came in a box and everything! I've been excited to get to this beer from the instant I bought it so let's not waste any more time. To the beer!

REVIEW: Revolution Anti-Hero IPA

Another new beer from Chicago's Revolution Brewing today. This time their Anti-Hero IPA. Let's just take a moment to appreciate the terrific art on that can. A four star hop general with an eye patch, and hop paratroopers! Add to that the lovely, limited color palate and big chunky typography. I love it. To the beer!

REVIEW: Revolution Bottom Up Wit

So the week before last I took a look at a few beers that are new to Ohio.  This week I'm doing the same. And while we're done with Uinta, for now, these beers are from Chicago's Revolution Brewing. And joy of joys! They're in cans! Which, to be honest, at this point, I prefer to bottles outright. Today's beer is their Bottom Up Wit. Perhaps, not the optimal beer for freezing temperatures and a few inches of snow but pitchers and catchers report in just over a week so I'm feeling a bit spring-y. Bottom up clocks in at 14 IBUs and a very sessionable 5% ABV. To the beer!

REVIEW: Finch's Threadless IPA

Today's beer is a collaboration, but a bit of a different collaboration than we're used to here. This one is a collaboration between Finch's Beer Company and Threadless, an online artist community and purveyors of fine graphic tees and other cool stuff. Some more info on the birth of this beer can be found here. Also, Threadless held a competition to design the can. All of the different submissions for the can art can be seen here. There's some gorgeous design work going on in there. I love the one that they chose. This can absolutely jumped off of the shelves. We know the outside of the can is getting it done. Does what's inside match the awesomeness? Let's find out. To the beer!

REVIEW: Goose Island Bourbon County (2011)

This is an elusive beer. It's in a class with beers like Russian River's Pliny the Younger, Three Floyd's Dark Lord, and Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout. These beers are produced in extremely limited quantities and therefore demand is incredibly high. Fans of these beers will wait in line for hours to grab a bottle. My girlfriend, Meredith, was able to track down a bottle of the Bourbon County for me and gave it to me for Valentine's Day. Who needs Chocolates?! So yes, she is awesome, and now I have this insane bourbon barrel aged imperial stout to review. Will it live up to the hype? To the beer!

REVIEW: Goose Island Demolition

 

I've talked about Belgian beers on the blog before. Mostly about my trepidation in reviewing them. I don't know a ton about these Belgian styles, but I do quite enjoy the Belgian style beers from Goose Island. You may have had Sofie, Matilda, Fleur, or Pere Jaques. They are just a few of their very tasty Belgian style offerings. All of them are worth checking out. So that gave me a bit of hope that this other Belgian style ale would be just as good. Also, I had read online that Demolition had been discontinued. So when I saw this bottle at my local Kroger's I knew I had to grab it. Who knows if i'd get the chance again? To the beer!