Beer and Wine Weekly Update, March 30, 2015

By Joey Bowling, Beer and Wine Manager

Hello suds-heads and vino-philes! This time around I just wanted to highlight some new adult beverages to the Beer and Wine Department; I think there are additions suited to every pallet and taste. Here’s a quick rundown:

  • Zestos Garnacha: an excellent little Tuesday night wine
  • Long Trail Triple Bag (barrel aged, 22oz)
  • 21st Amendment’s Down to Earth: a crushable session IPA in cans, featuring Ham the Space Chimp
  • Victory’s Dirt Wolf: an incredible double IPA from Pennsylvania
  • Redtail Ridge Good Karma: a nice Finger Lakes region Reisling whose proceeds go to good causes
  • Domaine DuPueble Beaujolais: one of my all-time favorites (try it with a slight chill on the bottle)

There is more! But the list is too extensive to mention everything.

For some humor:
I just came across a little piece on the USA Today website that had Matt, Alli, and me giggling for a good 15 minutes: Craft Beer March Madness Brackets! The good humored editors of the newspaper used I-don’t-know-what criteria for seeding the tournament, but they took 8 craft beer breweries from four different regions of the country and put ‘em head-to-head, mano-a-mano.

Here is the beakdown.

The Western Region:
1.    Lagunita’s
2.    DeShutes
3.    Russian River
4.    Oskar Blues
5.    Stone
6.    Sierra Nevada
7.    Ballast Point
8.    New Belgium

The Midwestern Region:
1.    Bell’s
2.    Founders
3.    Three Floyds
4.    New Glarus
5.    Boulevard
6.    Great Lakes
7.    Jolly Pumpkin
8.    Dark Horse

The Southern Region:
1.    Cigar City
2.    Prairie Artisan
3.    Starr Hill
4.    Jester King
5.    Sweetwater
6.    Terrapin
7.    Foothills
8.    Devil’s Backbone

The Eastern Region:
1.    Dogfish Head
2.    Victory
3.    Ommegang
4.    Alchemist (Yes!)
5.    Southern Tier
6.    DC Brau
7.    Flying Dog
8.    Evil Twin

As in any “One and Done” play-off system, the 8s squared off against the 1s, the 7s against the 2s, the 6s against the 3s, and so on. Whichever brewery received the most votes from the readers moved on to the next round. So far, they have reached the “Elite Eight”, where there are only 2 breweries left from each region. Unfortunately, The Alchemist was knocked off in the first round by Southern Tier. And while S.T. makes a great brew, methinks The Alchemist got hosed on this one. Here are the survivors so far:

In the West: Stone vs. Sierra Nevada
In the Midwest: Bell’s vs. Founders
In the South: Cigar City vs. Terrapin
In the East: Victory vs. Southern Tier

My money is on Sierra Nevada to win the whole thing - stay tuned…

Until next time, Qapla’! –jb.