The Lupulin Reunulin and the Sierra Nevada tasting

Wednesday and Thursday were some great nights of fine beers, interesting stories, and good laughs. At the Lupulin Reunulin we had a group of small brewers talk as we sampled their beer. It was hosted by Daniel Bradford publisher of All About Beer magazine and the brewers were:

• Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing
• Adam Avery of Avery Brewing
• Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head
• Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey & Port Brewing
• Greg Koch of Stone

Kim Jordan of New Belgium showed up and joined the panel as well. Most of these guys know each other pretty well after a trip over to Europe they took to do some “research”. I was surprised how young they all were (except Kim). It was a good time as they joked with each other. It was not a PG rated event. We learned a lot about how they started, their early struggles, their crazy beer ideas, and their current relationships with each other and the rest of the beer industry. Not a bad life they have traveling around promoting their beer. We even talked about the beers a little bit:

• Allagash White
• Allagash oak aged triple w/ Rosalarre culture
• Avery Brewing 15th Anniversary Ale
• Avery Brewing Hog Heaven
• Avery Brewing Samael’s Oak-aged Ale 2008
• Dogfish Head Festina Peche
• Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
• Port Brewing 2nd Anniversary double IPA
• Lost Abbey Isabelle Proximus
• Port Brewing Moon Lit Sessions Black Lager
• Stone Oak Aged Bastard 2007
• Stone Vertical Epic 2007

On Thursday night I went back to hear about Sierra Nevada and sample their Harvest Ale. They are quite the interesting company and one of the pioneers of craft brewing. They are still making great new beers but they don’t go very far from the brewery in CA. They are also doing a lot of innovative things with the brewing process and doing a lot of energy conservation and recycling techniques. The beers we tried were:

• Pale Ale
• Summerfest
• Brown
• Ruthless Hefeweizen
• Porter
• Torpedo Extra IPA
• Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale
• Bigfoot

They were all quite good. The highlight was the Harvest Ale. The hops are from New Zealand and flown quickly to CA for immediate brewing. Its tasty. Definitely not available outside their hometown.