Utopias

So we went and gosh darn did it. We got the Utopias by Samuel Adams Brewing. That beautiful bottle sat on the shelf for almost a month maybe more, just sitting there staring at me. It's glossy glass look glimmering orange and pearl as you walk by against a bright white shelf. The little metal door that my young daughter loves to open and close knowing she can't touch the bottle. In conversation it would come up, how can you pay so much for a bottle?

Well it's not a open and done bottle, so it will last. You're only supposed to drink about two ounces at a time so it will last... Then the questions, won't it go BAD? How do you know it will stay GOOD? Well because we've done research on the internet and it's more similar to a port wine when stored than a carbonated beer. Well this flew over most and honesty the internet wasn't 100% sure. So A decided to settle this once and for all. He was going to the source, there would be no doubt any longer. He emailed Sam himself. The old guy that's been dead for generations and couldn't convince of the internet and its awesomeness. When he didn't respond he decided to email the brewery.  Here is their response:

December 27, 2017

Dear A... ,

Thank you for your message and your interest in Utopias.Using processes that we learned in making the not-currently-brewed Triple Bock and Millennium beers, the brewers at Samuel Adams have created a truly unique brew.

Because this beer is un-carbonated and high in ABV, it can be opened and closed to be enjoyed when you want to enjoy it. However, you won't want to store this beer in the fridge- a cool and dark place is ideal. And don't be afraid to hold on to the bottle, the liquid will only get better with age!

Our brewers recommend serving Utopias as an ideal after-dinner drink or toasting a special occasion at room temperature (about 70 °F) in 2oz pours.

I hope this answers your question. Thanks again for contacting us and Enjoy!

Cheers...

There you go, the facts, the DL, the meat of the pie. Ohh and the first 2 ounces, wow. You want to try it. I hear folks are selling it for 20.00 an ounce, I think it's worth about 15... Hit me up I may have some left, just know it's a sipper and you should have a great cigar to go with it.

Visit Dog Rose Brewing

In September the wife and I (J) visited the Ancient City of Saint Augustine Florida. We stayed at the Saint Francis Inn and did the whole walk around town thing. Pretty much hop from bar to bar to distillery. You know had a good time. The we were walking down Bridge Street, there it stood a big redish building with the word Brewing inscribed . I was excited, mouth salivating with anticipation of new never before had brews.  I walk briskly up the steps grab the handle of the door and look through the glass as the door doesn't open. Dust, unfinished bar top, paint in progress. It isn't open. Disappointment rushes over me like a kid opening an empty box on Christmas. I walk on and enjoy the rest of the trip with an emptiness inside that I must shelve for next time.

Since we come often I knew it wouldn't be more than a few months before I could walk up those steps again. So yesterday while coming for the city in lights show I decided we had to try again. After a nice dinner downtown we started the walk to Bridge Street. The anticipation mounting with the slight memories of failure from the last trip melding in the back of my mind. We walk closer this time child in tow. She's jumping on an do the crooked sidewalks laughing and singing. I think she's displaying the excitement I wish I could let out. There it is, the redish building, lights on, it looks occupied from down the road. Joy sets in new beer is on the horizon. We'll it disappoint, well it be amazing, only one way to tell.

Walking in is a nice open Floorplan. Real darts in the corner, shuffle board next to that, a large wrap around bar and several table of varying sizes. In the back the shine of fermentation tanks bring joy to my eyes and maybe a tear. On the left a board with seven colored names. Speedball Stout, Ramble on Red and Roadside IPA catch my eyes. We take a seat and I walk to the bar. How many are in your flight? "As many as you want." Oh these are my favorite words... One of each please. "I'll bring the right over." Wowzers full service, nice...

I try all seven, even the wife has a sip to see if her pallet has matured to beer. The six year old sticks to water for this trip and is enjoying the electronic device in her hands. The beers overall were good. I wasn't disappointed at all by them. It seems they are Brewing for both the first timer (bud light drinker) and the craft beer lovers. So there is certainly something for everyone. Two I would consider the New guy first step beer, either their Lincolnville Lager which is really lightly hoped or the Palace Pale Ale which is more the citrus route. My favorite here was the Roadside IPA which smells as good as it tastes. The Set Break oatmeal stout and the Speedball stout also very good.

Saying I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin in advance (mostly because it's almost always pumpkin spice) I wasn't a fan of the Jolly Jack's Pumpkin Ale. It gave me more of an Old Bay taste than a strong pumpkin spice.

All in all it is a nice brewery to visit. I'll look forward to coming out again and will certainly visit each time. It's nice to have two good Taprooms downtownish and worth the short walk to each.

The road to @GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is approaching. A and J are sitting at the Rum Fish in the C terminal of Tampa International Airport. Enjoying a Reef Donkey from Tampa Bay Brewing Co to start the prep of our livers for two days of trying to try 3800+ Craft beers from around the country. Can we prep for this? I'd like to think the years and years of beer has been prep. How many can we try? Well the dream goal is is all of them, reality will break our spirts at some point  but the alcohol content will keep them alive.

We board our flight shortly hoping to meet new brewer's and most importantly new masterpiece craft beers.

-J

Shirts!!!!

What did we do? Well we have a cool shirt for you to be a honorary brew reviewer. We think you'll like them. Both men's and woman's styles. We will ship anywhere in the continental US included in your price. We know you like beer as much as we do and this shirt will let you be just as cool!

How much to be awesome? Only $15.00

All orders will ship no later than August 1st.

All Sizes 15.00 includes shipping in continental US

Men's 2X Men's XL Men's L Men's M Men's S Woman's 2X Woman's XL Woman's L Woman's M Woman's S

We know this shirt is cool but we want to hear your ideas for slogans. We've seen some really cool ones and wonder if our fellow beer drinkers can come up with even more awesome ones. Like usual you'll get no credit and nothing from it but hey you can tell a tale to anyone you'd like.

Mistakes - Great and Not so

I'm sitting here at Escape brewing thinking, it's amazing how many mistakes make really good things. A and I have been to so many breweries over the last few years and a common theme is an oops beer on tap. They never mean to and doubt you'll ever see it again but they all have them.

It's like a great chef, they say in pairing food you taste each bite, you consider the emotion that it brings forward. The memory from the smell and the visions of childhood wonders. Like the smell of fresh baked bread making you recall the bakery down the street you had to pass on the way to school. You didn't have that memory? Neither did I but that's why we aren't great chefs.

Anyways back to beer. Always be willing to try that beer in the bottom right corner of the sign. Great breweries admit their mistakes, they wear them with pride and gosh dang a few of them that will never be duplicated again, you'll wish for, you'll desire, you'll crave one last sip and damn it they won't let you fill the growler. 

Santa needs a Dunkel!

It's that time of year again folks.  The big day, the day you decide to make the right life choice.  The day you teach your children right.  Bake those cookies, frost them nice and even add some extra sprinkles right there on top.  Use that colored sugar goo to frost a hat on frosty that's as black as coal and a little orange for the carrot nose.  Whatever you do, don't blow it this year with the fat man.  Leave him a beer.  Don't be cheap and leave him a PBR, save those for the family you have to put up with tomorrow.  Leave Santa something special,  your favorite IPA, a seasonal choice from those local harry guys down the street or my pick for the year a nice growler full of some flavorful dunkel.  Santa will appreciate it,  the reindeer do the driving anyways.  Maybe Mrs. clause will leave you something special, in a stocking, for reducing some of Santa's stress before he gets home.  Who knows the benifits of your choice, maybe Santa will take you off the naughty list for next year, maybe Mrs. Clause will put you on it... No matter what Santa will have a better night and you'll end it with a smile.

Merry Christmas,

AJ Brew

Six Ten Brewing First Impressions

Well A and J are off tasting as many beers as our livers will allow, or our wives which ever tell us to stop first. While we were out and about this last weekend preparing for the big event of the 4th of July we went to a nice little spot in Tampa called Six Ten Brewing.

The location was nice, a small number of tables and nice size bar. They appears to have a nice crowd there most of the time at least during the Saturday night rush in which we went to visit for.

Here are our reviews for the different Beers we tried, I truly think we would both suggest this place as a nice little joint to stop.

I'm declaring the Vanilla Porter the winner of the trip. Nice smooth and still remember the lovely vanilla smell so many days later..

OWC
Six Ten Brewing
IPA - American
A'S RATING (4.25)

GLOBAL RATING (3.68)
6.8% ABV
NO IBU


TPA
Six Ten Brewing
IPA - Imperial / Double
A'S RATING (4)

GLOBAL RATING (3.85)
10% ABV NO IBU


Vanilla Porter
Six Ten Brewing
Porter - American
J'S RATING (4)
A'S RATING (4.75)

GLOBAL RATING (3.98)
5.9% ABV 38 IBU

Poco Loco
Six Ten Brewing
Pale Ale - Belgian
J'S RATING (3.25)

GLOBAL RATING (3.51)
6% ABV No IBU

Shameless
Six Ten Brewing
Blonde Ale
J'S RATING (3.25)
A'S RATING (4.0)

GLOBAL RATING (3.56)
5% ABV No IBU

Monk's Milk
Six Ten Brewing
Blonde Ale - Belgian Blonde / Golden
J'S RATING (3.5)

GLOBAL RATING (3.53)
5.2% ABV No IBU


CBGB
Six Ten Brewing
Berliner Weisse
J'S RATING (3.25)
A'S RATING (3.5)


GLOBAL RATING (3.75)
3.5% ABV No IBU

Gateway
Six Ten Brewing
Pale Ale - American
A'S RATING (4.25)

GLOBAL RATING (3.47)
5.5% ABV No IBU 

YouTube videos are go

So like we started below in singe other post we've started paying YouTube videos. Well we may pretty much suck at it today but in a year we might just get dang good. Don't you want to be one if the first to subscribe? Rhetorical question, we know you do. So enjoy the pre perfection entertainment now, one day well be charging for this stuff...

Days without beer

The days between beers, oh what long days those can be. Been super busy running around with family and having a generally good time. I noticed something missing, the new beer experience. Found myself looking for something new to try and nothing could be found. Well nothing without driving away from the family fun and since I'm the only one who drinks the beer it wouldn't really be a good time had by all. This needs to be remedied folks, why even today local restaurant's don't have local brews or even why chain names don't bring in the community brews blows my mind. Yeah sure Bud sells the most but one barrel of a local alternative a month might slow that down a bit.

Have one person from your location who likes beer go out to a local tap house and find the closest thing to Bud Light they can. Bring it in and give it one tap, that's all I'm asking. If it goes well then fantastic, if it sits there and spoils no one was told you have a local on tap. That's really what it is, I hate going to a place and saying what beers do you have on draft. I know you have Bud, Bud Light maybe Miller, I want to know the oddballs. I want to hear "Well we have a local lager by XYZ down the street and Bud, Bud Light...."

Damn how that would change the world. Get out of this same old garbage routine, people want to try new things if they don't then they're missing the spice of life.

Enjoy the spice of life drink local brews...

J

The video barrier

AJBrew has just broken into the video world. Honestly this is how we planned on starting this thing but we got distracted by delicious beer. Now that we've had so much delicious beer we figure it is time to show our faces, those handsome (ha) faces.So anyway our New Years resolution (one we hope not to fail at) is post at least one video a week, may be short may be long but we will be using Periscope and\or Snachat so follow us at both those places. As usual AJBrewReview will be the way to find us. Here are the links for your enjoyment. Let us know what you think, good, bad or otherwise. On everything but the Snaps we will make sure to do them in landscape because that horizontal video thing we hate it too.

AJBrew You Tube Channel

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 DrinkMoreBeer

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Side Trip New Belgium - Quick Review

Mediocre Breweries

So I just got back form another road trip and visited a new brewery. A normal thing I enjoy to do. The odd thing about this place is while chit chatting with folks, like I often do, One guy who claimed to be friends with the owner (old school pals). Right none of that is odd, what is, according to this "pal" the owner isn't interested in making a great beer. Whaaat? I know right a brewer not interested in making a great beer? I'm interested in drinking a great beer! Anyway, the owner just wants to make a middle of the road beer that anyone can enjoy.

I guess that is a goal. A beer anyone can enjoy. Someone has to do the grunt work and make a beer for the folks who don't want the great one. I guess the issue I have is the image. The image of a sell out. Whats wrong with a sell out? well nothing at all. I can't blame anyone for working their butt off to build something and then someone come to them with a check, the check, the one they have been waiting for. The millions that in their eyes makes it all worth it. It erases the problems they may have been having, the neglect they may have shown to someone they love. You can't blame someone for selling out to the man! Can you?

Beer is beer but I feel craft beer becomes an art. An art that allows one to express themselves in knowledge. Knowledge that if I use this yeast in this way with these ingredients at this exact temp for this exact time frame I'll end up with a drink worthy of the gods! That's my craft beer experience but I'd still sell out!