Commencement Celebrations!

 I would like to start this post by first congratulating my beautiful wife for successfully defending her thesis and obtaining her PhD! I would also like to thank the electrical line workers who promptly returned power to my house after last weeks storms so that I can write this here post, but more on that later. I would also like to apologize to my loyal followers for my lack of posts in the past week. My schedule has been preoccupied with post commencement celebrations, shuttling parents from engagement to engagement and keeping busy with my work which includes speaking at a regional conference over the memorial day weekend. Since I was so busy, my beer drinking was sort of limited in both scope and breadth, so I figured lumping all the beers I drank together into one big post would be an easy way to share with you, my experiences over the past week.

First off, early in the week I picked up a 6 pack of Left Hand Brewery's Milk Stout. I have previously had some of Left Hand's other beers; none of which I have ever blogged about, but suffice it to say that given my previous experience with Left Hand, that I had very high hopes for their Milk Stout being a winner! Indeed, my hopes were not dashed! This is a really wonderful beer! The beer pours with a rich head and dark body that lets little to no light through. It finishes with a sweet and caramel finish that you sometimes don't get from other stouts. I believe that LH's website summarizes the experience of drinking this beer really well when it says "Milk sugar in your stout is like cream in your coffee". If you like a dark beer with a sweet finish and great mouth feel, pick up a six pack of this stellar brew!

Tank 7 by lamplight

For all those readers not from the Saint Louis area, last week we experienced some pretty horrible springtime weather. We had pounding rain, tornado sightings, extremely large hail and wind gusts that blew down trees. As a result, my house was without power for 24 hours. In my neighborhood there were 6 trees that knocked down major power lines and caused a lot of damage. Fortunately, my house is still standing and the only inconvenience to me, was a little leaf and branch clean up, and of course the fact that my power was out for 24 hours! I didn't want to open the refrigerator for fear that the food in there would spoil, so Abby and I decided to go out to dinner. After a couple of Stone Levitations at Barristers Pub in Clayton, I still wanted another beer, so we stopped off and grabbed a bottle of Boulevard Tank 7 and hoped that the power would have returned so I could enjoy this beer. Tank 7 is classified as a "Saison" style beer, however, with strong fruity notes, this beer is just barely reminiscent of a Belgain style ale. The hops in the beer are present but not over whelming and the light color in this beer make it extremely drinkable for an 8%ABV beer. I really like Boulevard beers and this one is so unique and flavorful that it has lost its "special occasion only" status and has been promoted to a "daily drinker"! Unfortunately, when we returned home to drink this beer, our power had not yet returned. Abby and I turned this negative into a positive however. I grabbed my iPod and put some music on, turned on my camping lantern and we played cards and drank beer by lamp light all night. It was like we were camping in our living room! It was a truly wonderful night at home with the wife!

The power returned the next day and life returned to normal, and as is customary on Thursday nights, we went to HandleBar for trivia night. I was informed by friend of the blog, Paul McGrew, that 2nd Shift Brewery's hop filled Art of Neurosis was flowing on tap and as a self proclaimed "hop-head", boy was I excited for this beer. This is a 7.1% ABV "hop sandwich" featuring Simcoe and Columbus hops. It pours from the keg with a golden light color that is clear and emits an odor of almost pure hop tea. It finishes very clean with the crispness you would expect from a beer destined to be in the hands and mouths of hop heads everywhere. I am currently unaware if this beer is being bottled and sold anywhere in Saint Louis, I believe this beer is a limited engagement as the 2nd Shift website claims that they "should be making this one again soon". I really hope its sooner than later because I NEED to get this beer again!

Our trivia team this week did pretty bad, and by "pretty bad" I mean we tied for last place! This did not concern me in the least however. Maybe this weeks topics were just not in our wheelhouse. I am confident we will be able to redeem ourselves next week... at least I hope so! I also hope the AON will still be on tap next week!

As always, if you would like to follow me on this Drinking Adventure just click on the link on the right where you can subscribe to my feeds. you can also follow me on twitter at @williepawn or friend me on Facebook. You can also email me here. I am also keeping a compiled list of beers tasted HERE that you can look at.