Brewery: Flying Dog Brewery (Maryland, USA)
10.5% ABV
Served by bottle

Appearance: Pours a dark amber, mahogany. Cloudy. Surprisingly small head with no retention whatsoever. A very thin, dirty off-white bit of foam is formed and dissipates quickly.

Smell: Pleasant at first. Sweet with a hint of raisins and pear. After a while the decent blend of caramel malt and bread scent gets a little overridden by the smell of alcohol. In the end the smell is a constant reminder that you are drinking a barley wine.

Taste: This brew is like being jumped in a back alley by three men. The first guy, Mr. Malt, stabs your tongue without asking questions. Dude number two, Sir Sugar, does his best to even things out and dull the pain left by Mr. Malt. One without the other might be overpowering in one area. The two combined here make this drink a bumpy ride in cruise control. A raisin plays Villain #3. He’s a little weak. Kicks you while you’re down. He wants to be a part of the gang, and the other two guys let him hang around ’cause he’s a nice kid and all, but his damage is minimal. He’s the punk that steals your wallet after someone else knocked you out cold. A rude raisin would have been much better here in the end, in my opinion. A real kick in the teeth.

Mouthfeel: Thicker than you think, which makes it a little filling. Carbonation is moderate. You feel it all the way down.

Drinkability: My wife picked this out for me and I’m glad she did. Change the strength of the aftertaste and I’m a happy camper. Still, this beer is very drinkable if you are in the mood for a barley wine. It’s a creeper brew and you need to take your time with it. Goes down easy, which anytime a barley wine does that makes it a dangerous thing. I would advise you to dedicate a night to this beer. I have discovered it is NOT wise to wait until your 5th beer of the night to add this to the menu.

President Barack Obama has invited Republican and Democratic lawmakers for drinks at the White House as they consider his economic recovery bill that still faces opposition.

White House aides say about two dozen key members of Congress were invited to the Executive Mansion Wednesday evening. The guest list includes six House Democrats, six House Republicans and five senators from each party.

The event is expected to start after the House considers Obama’s $825 billion economic recovery bill that he has championed virtually daily in his young presidency.

German beer sales dipped by 1.1 percent in 2008, continuing a gradual longterm decline in a year that saw restrictions on smoking in bars and restaurants take effect, official figures showed Thursday.

Germany’s brewers sold 21.75 billion pints, or 10.29 billion liters, of beer last year, the Federal Statistical Office said. It did not offer a reason for the decline.

Beer consumption in Germany has been falling steadily for more than a decade, a trend that experts have attributed to an increasingly health-conscious public.

Brewery: Kiuchi Brewery (Japan)
7.50% ABV
Poured from a stubby 11.2 oz bottle into a pint glass.

Appearance:  The color is black as sin with a red tint.  Even a careful pour brings an explosion of foam.  A heavy, tan head that consumes half the glass.  A lacing that will force you to give your glass a good washing after.

Smell:  Some people pick up a sourness in the scent.  It exists, but it’s on the back end.  Burnt chocolate and vanilla come through immediately.  More so than the espresso or coffee.  There is even a fruityness hidden somewhere between the chocolate and toasted malts.  They have put together a very odd combination of scents and it is definitely one of the most pleasing beers I have smelled recently.

Taste:  While the scent of coffee is lower on the smell list, after tasting you will find that it lives up to it’s name and then some.  The coffee flavor is fantastic, and is accompanied by a long aftertaste of the same.  Your tongue tells you that your nose isn’t a liar.  All scents are easily picked up in the tasting, although in a different order. Roasted malts, almost burnt, team up with a bittersweet chocolate to start the adventure.  A recognizable earthy, fig-like note put together with the vanilla and chocolate malts really keeps the strength and bitterness of the coffee down to a very manageable and drinkable level.  The alcohol percentage is disguised well.

Mouthfeel:  Very thick.  Very creamy.  Syrup-like.  You feel every bit and every bubble from the edge of the glass to the bottom of your throat.

Drinkability:  Do you like beer?  Do you like coffee?  If you answered yes to both, you have found a winner here.  I am a fan of the style, and won’t go crazy with any top placement on the list of coffee stouts out there, but Kiuchi has done Japan proud.  Their Espresso Stout has certainly made it’s way in my rotation.

The move comes after the company merged with a private microbrewery to form Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc., and sold a quarter of its shares to kingpin Anheuser-Busch InBev.

“This bolsters our brand family and makes us a stronger player in the craft beer markets,” Redhook plant manager Amanda Telford said. “It gives us something for everyone.”

Redhook, a publicly traded company with plants in Portsmouth and Woodinville, Wash., merged on July 1 with privately held Widmer Brothers Brewing Company of Portland, Ore., maker of Widmer Hefeweizen.

Redhook’s Portsmouth plant was already bottling and distributing Hefeweizen on the east coast for Widmer, providing groundwork for the deal. The merger is now opening up the Portsmouth plant to bottling a number of brands from Widmer and its subsidiaries.

Kona Brewing Company of Kailua Kona, Hawaii, and Goose Island Beer Company of Chicago, Ill., subsidiaries of Widmer, were swept up into the deal, enabling Redhook plant to introduce beers from these lines into New England markets.

Dogfish Head and Three Floyds will brew Popskull, a limited-batch German-style brown ale, at Three Floyds’ Munster, Ind., brewery Thursday. The beer, aimed at hardcore micro-brew fanatics, will be sold at the Munster brewery and possibly some select Chicago-area retailers and bars.

“These are two shining stars in the beer world and both are very popular in Chicago,” said Jerry Glunz, general manager of Louis Glunz Beer Inc., a Lincolnwood distributor that works with both companies. “They are both very innovative brewers and people are very excited to see what they will produce.”

Lincoln Anderson, a sales and marketing representative with Three Floyds, said Popskull is a slightly sweet, high-alcohol malt beer. He estimates a 22-oz. bottle will sell for $12 to $25.

Via Pisgah blog:

We ordered 22 bottles today to take the next step and get our Pale Ale in more hands. Thanks again for voting us the best brewery in Western NC. More beer is on the way. They will be our usual - unfiltered and bottle conditioned!

A man who was stabbed at the York Hotel Saturday night opted to return to the bar to finish his beer rather than seek medical attention.

Police responded to 10401 96 St. hotel just after 9 p.m. with reports that a man had been stabbed.

When they arrived, they found the victim at his table drinking beer.

Until zymurgy spreads elsewhere in the solar system, Stone Brewing Co. will have to settle for this accolade: According to Beer Advocate magazine’s annual survey, Stone is the top brewery on Planet Earth.

(”Zymurgy” is a highbrow word for beer-making, befitting Stone’s connoisseur market.)

Stone beat out such well-regarded competitors as Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico; Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Bières de Chimay, a Trappist brewery in Belgium.

A maker of famously hyper-hoppy beers, Stone also took five spots out of 25 for top beers. They are: Stone Imperial Russian Stout, (2nd); Stone Ruination IPA, (11th); Stone IPA, (17th); Double Bastard Ale, (18th); and Arrogant Bastard Ale, (22nd). First place went to Trappistes Rochefort 10 Quadrupel, brewed by Brasserie de Rochefort, in Belgium.

Beer Advocate magazine based its awards on reader ratings of the breweries and beers, as given on its Web site, www.beeradvocate.com. The awards were announced in December.

Signs are showing 2009 to be the year where pairing food with beer finally takes off and begins to give wine some competition in the four star eatery department.

Today’s sign comes from Daniel Boulud, the French chef and owner of NY City’s restaurant Daniel. This spring, Boulud plans to open a brasserie, which is a fancy word for joint that serves alcohol with food.

“It will have a beautiful cement floor rather than stone from Burgundy,” he says. Even more surprising, it will feature food that pairs nicely with—of all things—beer. To build excitement for the downtown spot, his flagship, Daniel, will host its first-ever beer-tasting dinner in two weeks.

“I don’t say I’m an expert on beer,” admits Mr. Boulud. “I hope to definitely improve my knowledge of it.”

One year after the nation slipped into recession, high-end restaurateurs are discovering what bar owners have known for, like, forever: Beer goes well with hard times. As diners look for ways to trim their tabs, top-flight restaurateurs are carving out more room on their menus for brews—not Rolling Rock and Miller, of course, but exotic brews from around the world.