Episode #3: Port City Tidings

Episode #4: Brasserie Dupont Avec Les Bons Voeux

Long Trail Imperial Porter
Easily one of the hoppiest baltic porters I’ve ever had, this beer continues to make an appearance in my fridge.

Mikkeller Nelson Sauvin Single Hop IPA
This was the first of many single hop beers that I enjoyed this past year. Unfortunately, I haven’t run into any of the other releases in this series from the gypsy brewer.

Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze
It may not have been my first gueuze, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t end up my favorite. After trying this beer, I revisited the shop where I purchased it and bought out their remaining stock.

Nøgne Ø Red Horizon
Of the two Nøgne Ø “horizon” beers I had this year, I expected the darker variety to be my favorite. Who knew? This was a tasty, tasty brew.

Sierra Nevada Hoptimum
As one of the more hyped IPAs released this year, Hoptimum certainly lived up to expectations. I was only able to grab a couple of bottles of this treat, but I enjoyed both of them probably a bit too much.

Le Saint-Bock Sacrilège
This beer came out of no where and surprised the hell out of me. Billed as an Imperial Stout, the beer ended up that and more with complex flavors that drove my tastebuds crazy. Sadly, I was only able to find the one bottle.

Karl Strauss Blackball Belgian IPA
The first of two beers to from Karl Strauss to make the list, this Belgian IPA is one of the better of the style that I’ve had the opportunity to drink through the years.

Crow Peak Pile O’ Dirt Porter
As much as I enjoyed the Long Trail porter, this offering from Crow Peak was my favorite porter of the year. Rich, earthy and in a can no less, this roasty brew more than hit the spot.

Firestone Walker Parabola
I’m a huge stout fan and have had my fair share through the years, but this barrel aged phenomenon from Firestone Walker shot to the top of the list with it’s full flavor and smoothness. I loved this beer!

Shipyard Smashed Blueberry
Who would have though that combining a porter and a scotch ale with fresh Maine blueberries would have created such an amazing beer? If you’ve got your hand up and your name isn’t Pugsley, you’re a liar.

Ommegang Gnomegang
Duvel Mortgat, the owners of the Ommegang and Chouffe brands delivered the perfect marriage of two of my favorite brews into this one, singular release. I just hope they make it again next year.

Flying Dog Imperial IPA (Simcoe)
As far as single hopped IPAs go, this one was other-worldly. It wasn’t in the least bit one-dimensional, instead bringing a myriad of flavors to the table all from a single hop variety.

Odell Brewing Woodcut #5
Not only was this beer tasty as hell, but it also highlighted just how cool Odell Brewing is as a company. Two bottles, two separate experiences, yet one amazing outcome.

Weyerbacher Insanity
I’ve had a couple of barrel aged barleywines and, aside from Firestone Walker’s Abacus, none of them has shined quite like this one from Weyerbacher.

Odell Brewing Friek
The only brewery to garner three spots in this list, Odell was more than kind enough to share this GABF gold medal winning sour.

Odell Brewing Bourbon Barrel Stout
Aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels for four months, this stout served me well on the first ever International Stout Day.

Karl Strauss Two Tortugas
Two Tortugas is part of the brewery’s “12 Days of Christmas” series and ended up winning bronze at this years GABF in the Belgian-style Abbey Ale category. Oh, and it’s tasty too.

Flying Dog Kujo Imperial Coffee Stout
I actually got to try this one out twice this year and both times it was beyond delicious.

So there are my favorites for 2011. Parring down 183 official reviews was daunting, but I think this list summarizes the year up nicely. Any one else enjoyed one of the above beers or have one I should look out for next year?

At the time of this post, there were 278 total posts with an average of just over 23 per month. Looking at last year, that’s only an increase of five additional articles. Of the posts for this past year, 183 were beer reviews (just over 15 per month) — that’s an increase of 48 over 2010. I don’t feel like I’ve increased my drinking, but I have been more adventurous in my beer searches as I’ve gotten into sours and krieks, plus I’ve been working with a few more breweries and PR companies.

If those numbers tell me anything, it’s that I’ve been consistent in my posting habits. That said, I think we can do better and have set the personal goal of 300 total posts for 2012. I’ve got the review process down, but, as usual, am completely lacking in the original content posts. It’s something that I’ve always struggled with since the inception of this site back in December of 2006.

Before we get into some numbers, I wanted to mention a trio of big site updates that occurred this year.

• First up and probably the most fun I’ve had developing this site is the mobile friendly version that was unleashed back in March. Using media queries and specific CSS, the site is more digestible on much smaller screens.
• For the longest time, I’ve been hunting for an alternate domain name for the site and in September, through auction, I was finally able to procure barleyblog.com (without “the”). Talking to folks, I hated specifying that they had to put that “the” into their web browser to access the site. Well, that’s no longer the case.
• Related to that second item, I also procured the short URL of brly.co for those of you on mobile phones. I hate typing in lengthy domain names on my iPhone. Hopefully, for those of you out there like me, the shorter URL will be of some help.

Now let’s get into some numbers. In 2011, The Barley Blog was visited 31,412 times by 26,342 unique visitors. Both of those are big increases over last year: that’s a 37% and 36% increase respectively in both areas. After struggling with boosting traffic in years past, I’ve finally got some traction and will hopefully continue the trend in 2012.

Google Analytics view of the site in 2011

I’m not entirely sure why, but the site gets more and more popular in Malaysia. Over the past couple of years, visits from that area have continued to rise. Here’s how the site stands across the globe in terms of visits (only top five regions listed): United States (83.7%), Malaysia (3.73%), Canada (2.01%), United Kingdom (1.33%) and Sweden (0.94%).

As far as site content goes, the same two pages from last year continue to garner the majority of traffic on the site:

• Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy (beer review)
• Blue Dog Wild Blue Lager (beer review)
• Leinenkugel’s to Introduce Summer Shandy in Cans (press release)
• Thirsty Dog Old Leghumper (beer review)
• Shipyard Smashed Blueberry (beer review)

Only the Shipyard brew is from this past year. That damned Blue Dog review just won’t die, even having five more comments added to the post. It also appears that people are still really excited over Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy.

So there you have it. 2011 was a good year for The Barley Blog in all aspects. Traffic was up dramatically as were the number of posts. I cannot wait to see what 2012 has in store.

• Starr Hill Brewery Jomo Lager: Gold for Vienna-Style Lager
• Blue Mountain Brewery Summer Lovin’: Gold for English-Style Summer Ale
• Mad Fox Brewing Co. Kolsch Kellerbier: Gold for Kellerbier/Zwickelbier
• Starr Hill Brewery Monticello Reserve Ale: Silver for Indigenous Beer
• Blue Mountain Brewery Blue Reserve: Silver for American-Belgo-Style Ale
• Starr Hill Brewery Smoke Out: Silver for Smoke Beer
• Devils Backbone Brewing Co. Tommy Two Fists: Silver for Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest
• Mad Fox Brewing Co. English Summer Ale: Bronze for English-Style Summer Ale

That’s a darn good showing for Virginia craft beer! Also a big congrats to Maryland breweries Rock Bottom Brewery (Bronze for Scottish-Style Ale), Flying Dog Brewery (Gold for Barley Wine-Style Ale) and Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant (Bronze for German-Style Sour Ale) for their wins, as well.

There’s been one major issue with this site as we slowly approach it’s fifth birthday this upcoming December. The problem has been there from the very moment I registered the domain name. And it’s confused people that I’ve shared the website URL with over the years.

“The”…

That damned “the” in the domain name was, at first, a necessity to get the name I wanted — barleyblog.com without “the” was a parked domain. It’s been the bane of the site’s existence from the get go, but no more. I was finally able to procure barleyblog.com through auction the other week and it now happily redirects traffic and visitors to this here beer blog.

So now you have three ways to arrive here:

1. the traditional thebarleyblog.com which will remain the primary domain name
2. the shiny, new alternative barleyblog.com (YAY!)
3. the shortened, mobile-friendly brly.co

I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be able to just tell people that they can check out the site without re-iterrating that they need to type in “the” into their browser. Oh happy day.

Running The Barley Blog is a hobby — a tasty, tasty hobby. The full time job has me fully immersed in Web design and development. As much as I enjoy coding around Internet Explorer’s faults, it’s the design aspect of my job where my heart lies. So, it’s fairly understandable that I am drawn to beer whose label art is eye catching or original.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written a beer review for this site that started off with my describing how the colors and lines on its label drew me to it. I’m a sucker for a good loocking label.

In trying to think through all the beer I’ve consumed in my lifetime, the following selection are those that immediately jumped to the front of my fogged cerebral cortex with the greatest of ease. The breweries below have produced and utilizes labels that are unique, attention-grabbing and/or just plain bad ass.

Left Hand Brewing
The very first label that came to mind is from Left Hand Brewing. Their Fade To Black series has produced some tasty beer, but also one of the more mesmerizing labels I’ve seen in quite some time. Though, Left Hand’s label artwork isn’t always all that stellar the did follow up the FTB series with the terrifically designed and colorful label for Good Juju.

Odell Brewing
A relatively new-to-me brewery that has some interesting art work adorning their product is Odell Brewing out of Colorado. With a style that is similar to Left Hand’s Good Juju, Odell’s Double Pilsner is not only a tasty brew, but one that also has some great art on its label, not to mention the use of typography that matches well. The brewery’s Woodcut #5 doesn’t have an outrageous label, but it’s refined nature fits the beer wonderfully.

Shipyard Brewing
Maine’s Shipyard Brewing has always had decent label art (Old Thumper, Blue Fin Stout), but it’s the brewery’s Pugsley’s Signature Series that really stands out for me. The artwork isn’t intricate or wild, but it’s stately, yet simple layout and use of color (across the series) is head and shoulders above many of their peers. From the red of the Shipyard Imperial Porter to the vibrant blue of the wonderfully tasty Smashed Blueberry, Shipyard Brewing has maintained the minimalist and upscale design that fits the product quite well.

Honorable Mention
There are so many more wonderfully designed labels out there that I am sure I have missed. Here are a few other that come to mind:

• Anything by Flying Dog Brewing, but more recently their Table for Two
• The wild colors that Narragansett chooses for their cans. For instance Narragansett Fest
• More can design from Crow Peak: Pile O’ Dirt Porter
• The great art on Iron Hill’s Winter Wheat Wine-Oh!

Like I said, there is so much more amazingly designed and packaged beer that I missed, that one could probably build a whole blog solely to showcase it alone. Hmmm… I wonder…

I love finding photos like this on the Interwebs. Above, we’ve got a great shot of a few hard working gentlemen loading up hop vines for stripping in Zgornje Grusovlje, Slovenia — it’s the beginning of harvest season in the region.

Any guess as to what hop variety it may be?

At any rate, upon seeing said new glasses, the wife simply asked, “Really?” Which brings me to the point of this quick post. At what point, is too many glasses really too many glasses?

Shakers, vases and mugs, oh my…

I suppose all you really need is one or two (for sharing) pieces in any given style to accommodate the variety of beer styles and how they should best be enjoyed — tulip for Belgian Tripels, etc… But I have more. Hell, some glasses haven’t felt the cool sensation of a beer along their walls in years. I’m sure that there are those of you that have plenty more pieces of glassware than myself, but I figured I’d share what I have and see what interesting pieces or how many pints you all my own, as well.

Tiptoe through the tulips…

When all is said and done, I have roughly 64 individual vessels for enjoying a tasty brew. That can be further broken down to: 20 shaker pints, 2 English tulip pints, 12 mugs of varying size and 13 Belgian tulips/chalices of various shape and branding. The remaining number of glasses is a menagerie of Weissbier vases, tapered pilsners, and snifters. Not included in the overall count are a handful of tasting glasses from beery events and the bourbon/whiskey glasses seen in the photo above.

Again, I know my collection might seem obscene to a couple of you and really paltry to many more, but I figured I’d share anyways. Now I just have to wait until after work to get one of them dirty.

The decision was made swiftly to purchase a chest freezer. I spent a good couple of days researching and pricing (there are a ton of options and models available), but ultimately settled on a 14 cubic foot GE that Home Depot had on sale (with free shipping no less) for $375. But the freezer wouldn’t be fine as is. It would still get way too cold for my purposes. I don’t want any “beercicles” on my hands.

It was recommended by my father-in-law that I pick up a Johnson Controls regulator from a home brewing shop. He uses one with his own chest freezer to maintain serving temperatures for his homebrews.

The device essentially overrides the freezer’s own cooling mechanism by cutting power to the appliance when the desired temperature is attained. All you have to do is plug the freezer into the Johnson Controls and then plug the regulator into a suitable power supply. Pretty darn easy. I picked mine up at NorthernBrewer.com for about $65 (shipping included).

Everything finally came together late last night after a couple of hours for the freezer to reach a desired temperature of 53°. I spent about an hour transferring and organizing the bottles of beer. You’d be surprised how quickly the freezer filled up. I pretty much only have room for 2 more 750ml bottles and maybe a handful of 12oz bottles. The photo below was taken right before moving a series of vintages of Anchor Brewing’s Our Special Ale from its cardboard box.

With so little space left, it appears as though I’ll have to maintain a system of rotation as I add more to the freezer — one in, one out sort of thing. It’s not that bad of a problem to have, I suppose, but it just means that I may be drinking a bottle or two before I would ideally like to. At any rate, that’s the new set-up. I think it is for the better. The temperature in the storeroom hit 73° yesterday afternoon when the freezer arrived.