Friends, it's a happy time when a Sam Adams mix pack comes out. As you all know, darker, winter beers are this Captain's favorite, but summer/spring beers are wondrous too. The most recent mixed 12er I picked up has 2 of each of the following: Boston Lager, Sam Light, Blackberry Wit (finally!), Hefewiezen, Summer Ale and Pale Ale.

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HOOOOOOOOOOOO doggy! See below for their lovely label. Here's just a quick little note to say that I finally had this beer and it it's amazing. It's everything you'd expect. BIG roasted malt flavors with notes of toasted bread, bitter coffee and a slight almost leathery outside. The hops are a bracing bitterness in tandem with but slightly overpowered by the immense grains. TRY IT! I wouldn't let you down, beer reader.

A  fine young beer, friends! And a Trader Joe's-available (in fact, it may be an exclusive... someone research that and get back to me*) beer at that, so we're talking $5.99 a six pack. Most affordable! But let's not muddle around over who paid what for who when and why and where and let's focus on this very decent brew. Mission Street's Pale Ale defines its category: it has a nice golden-amber color beneath a white, medium-thickness head. The body is light and full of active carbonation. The aroma of hops defines its scent---pine and mildly grapefruit hops, to be precise---and its flavor is a lovely interplay of hops bracing a mildly sweet bready malt. It finishes hop-dry and refreshing.

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There has been a lot of hoopla about this Budweiser / ImBev business recently, huh? Yeah. Great. As this Captain has said before, I care little for who owns Bud. Or any huge brewery, really. Keep Sam Adams and Yuengling and certain others under the same ownership, I implore you, but for the mega fellahs? Meh. I do find it amusing though, that this new pseudo-craft offering arrogantly titled "American Ale" hit the shelves at about the same time as the ownership of the brewery jumped across the pond to Belgium (a country that knows its beer, at least).

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 A great story in the link below, from the WSJ. They predict prices to fall over the next couple of years.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121970968791471283.html

WARNING: This beer should be consumed by someone with a lot of time on their hands. Like, seriously. This was not at all like the beer I chugged over the weekend during a little reminiscent pong action. This was a turn-on-some-light-music, open-a-good-book kind of beer. Indeed, this IPA is among the most extreme of brews--one can argue that the 21% ABV actually places it well into a category all its own. Personally, I am on the fence on its categorization. While brewed in the basic harmony, of an IPA, it falls so far outside the normal ABV range for the Imperial IPA style. Sam Calagione does have his tricks about him to create a unique, enjoyable experience which many (although clearly not all) beer lovers can appreciate.

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Afternoon, beervolk. Just a simple, straightforward review of a simple, straightforward beer today. None of my usual odd, byzantine ramblings about obscure, wacked-out beers. You may notice that I recently passed ONE HUNDRED POSTS in the venerable Hall of Beers. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it* or anything. I'm a humble, beer-loving servant, beer reader. So I'll just carry on. But props, yo. Props.

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So the other night I went to an O.A.R concert with Action Jackson. I knew nothing of O.A.R. other than that "crazy game of poker" song, which is just fantastic... which always makes me thinking of a someone starting a fist fight and flipping up the poker table for some reason. Anyway, since I didn't know the music, we decided to visit the bar. After flirting with a saucy bartender named Jennifer i quickly chose to try a Foster's oilcan beer mostly due to its incredible size (the can itself is quite girthy).

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OK, maybe they're holding onto past glory... maybe the beer's namesake (Blue Ribbon) is in fact based off of an award they won, um, 112 years ago... but the beer is a staple of moderately priced* and refreshing** American lager, it helped a lot of us get through college, and, sadly, from the 18th Amendment on for some fifty years, it was the only kinda beer a lot of Uh'mericans knew. So let's give it a look.

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Sometimes a lot of flavor hides behind pale brau, buddy. I've had many a Shipyard, but most of them were back in the sylvan days of my East Coast youth. I hadn't had one in, say, a year. I'll nary* go so long without one again. This beer is a damn fine balance of crisp-n-refreshing and good 'ol beer flavor.

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