Ohmigod... oh baby.... So we brewed a stout over at (hey!) Sgt. Stout's house 2 weekend's back and I bottled the sumbitch on Sunday. It's going to be a life-affirming beer, I'm telling you. Kahlua infused coffee beans, darkass malts---this brew smells amazing, and is the color of motor oil. I'm sure there's no way I'll be able to resist cracking one early this weekend, and I'll give a full report when it has been conditioned for 3 weeks or a month or so. Awwwww yeah.

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.

And... yet another deep doff of the cap. What... a... beer. I finally spotted a Sam Adams Holiday Pack the other day and leapt onto it, shattering every bottle and injuring a small Navajo boy. I wept at the lost beer for several hours and then, assured the young lad was resting soundly, went out for another Holiday Pack. And this baby packs a punch. Of great beer. We're talking 2 Boston Lagers, 2 Winter Ales (oh man), 2 Cranberry Lambics (aw yeah), 2 Old Fezziwig Ales (ooh spelling... I really should check that...), 2 Holiday Porters (hell yeah) and 2 of these babies. Or, in latin effin beerum bliss, man. Um.

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All I can think of at the moment is that scene in Dances With Wolves where Kevin Costner is yelling "Tatonka!" and making little horns with his fingers. Always good for a larf. Watch that movie and see how many times he flops onto his back in a comical manner... I believe the count is 4 which may not seem high but when you focus on it, it... is. OK... on to the beer! BJ's, a limited California chain, has some great food and some damn good beer, not to mention excellent prices on their 5 and 7 glass five ounce beer sampler flights. A great way to have a lot of great beer. I could (and likely will eventually) write at some length on each of their 6 standard beers and rotating seasonals, but I'm going to focus on their Tatonka Stout this time. Thus the heading of this review. Yeh...

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Today, I have made the biggest beer I have ever brewed--hence the new name, Bigiz M'cak Imperial Stout*.This desire for a really, really powerful beer entered my imagination when I first tried North Coast's Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. Having had many dry stouts, this thick, gritty, puts-hair-on-your-chest brew became a fixation of mine. How do they brew such a gravity? How can brewers control the balance of bitterness versus full-bodied flavor?

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So it's about time the Sarge came back with a good ole stout...in time for summer, no less. Folks, let's have a quick word about stouts. We know they're ales made from roasted barleys, some good noble hops and yeast, but as I've indicated before, most microbreweries have compromised their craft to appease a wider audience's palate. The folk at at Harviestoun come from good stock, hold themselves to a higher standard, and yes, they really do get it: stouts ain't always sweet.

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Friends, it was a lovely time. A tasty time! A Belgian Beer tasting time! Sergeant Stout, Admiral Ale and Brigadier Bock gathered around with 'ol Captain Beer and we strode over to the superlative Red Carpet Liquors---one of Mrs. Beer's and my favorite haunts!---and reveled in good beer, wisdom and revelry! Yes we... we reveled in revelry. Well, see here, smartass! We did: What tales have I to tell! I mean... what tales have I to tell? Why don't you read on!?!?

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Those there are but three of the many refrigerators devoted to fine beer at the superlative Red Carpet Liquors. I can often be found pacing back and forth before the hundreds of bottles, muttering and plotting. Yesterday, myself and Mrs. Beer went to a stout tasting event at Red Carpet, and it was the cat's pajamas, I tell you. The bees knees. On the menu were 10 different stouts, ranging from Guinness to Lagunitas' Cappuccino Stout to Asahi's take on the darkest of roasted brau and so on. Also presented were many...

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Guten tag, mein dammen und herren. Ich mochten ein friesches gud bier. Or at least that's what I was saying earlier today (except for the first part. And the second was in English). Mrs. Beer and I went for a bike ride to the local purveyor of fine beer and on the pedal-driven journey, I worked up a bit of a desire for a crisp, light brew. Spaten's Pilsner hit the spot. (Those bottles are all drying after sanitation for bottling our second batch of Belgian Wit, by the way. So if you were wondering, you can stop now. Or continue. You monster.)

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Ah, Bill Bill Bill....Not a sonnet nor Lady Macbeth can tame this dark $7 black tar of Gehenna! T'was a mighty dagger I saw before me whence I traversed the Food of Whole to find ye, O pitchmead from the House of William! Yeah, it was a dark, evil-tasting beer. Here's what I thought.

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