Last week

Lauren Salazar (wife to Eric or Eric’s Ale), NB Sensory Specialist, was there with the rest of the local NB crew to meet and greet and pass out pints of the Ranger. She was kind enough to go on camera with us.

Lauren talked up the Ranger, an American style IPA with 70 IBUs and 6.5 ABV hopped with “tons and tons and tons…” of Cascade, Chinook, and Simcoe, and also shed some light on the name history (hint- it has nothing to do with that stupid baseball team in Arlington or Chuck Norris.) The Ranger was good. Nice and hoppy, well balanced, very drinkable. Go get it.

She also gets into describing her role at New Belgium as a sensory specialist. Basically, she can take someone who “likes beer” and five years later have them identifying off flavors and specific chemical compounds and scale on an intensity scale and other stuff that is above my pay grade (I don’t get paid anything for this.) Simply, she keeps your favorite New Belgium beers tasting the way they should across the board.

Oh, and she told us they are planning a Berliner weiss and a wet dry hopped sour ale, among other beers, for the Lips of Faith series. Wait, what? Wow. Those sound amazing. More info in the video about the Berliner Weiss, unfortunately we ran out of time before we could get much more about the wet dry hopped sour.

At the 2:36 mark you can see the guys in the background getting into a short game of charades, or he’s describing that Youtube video where the deer attacks the hunter. I’ve had that conversation at the Draught House before. I dunno.

Much thanks to Josh at Draught House and Lauren and the New Belgium crew for talking to us and sharing some beers.

For our sweet sixteenth OAP, we’re both drinking the Ranger, so if you can crack open a cold one and join us over a pint.

Enjoy!

(Disclaimer, I am not a trained beer critic, these are my opinions. Also, some of the beer was given to me free, but that did not influence the list)

(Counting down)

5. Draught House Double IPA

Yeah, it’s good. Josh does a lot of things good, but one of the main things he does good is hops. Josh does hops good. And his hoppy beers do you good, too.

This one hasn’t been on draught for a while (maybe a year?), but it’s just as good as I remember it.

Josh does another thing real well, describing beer. Here’s his description of the double IPA:

Four pounds per barrel of American hops. Big and floral with aromas of pine, citrus, mango, pineapple. Huge resinous flavor of hops.

It’s 8.25% ABV, $2.75 for 10 oz and will put you under if you’re not careful. With five hop varieties, this 2X IPA is well rounded and dangerously drinkable. Get some while it’s still on tap.

4. Stone Cali-Belgique

I love this beer and I love the “Belgian” IPA style (when it was not so easy to find I was blending Stone IPA with Real Ale Devil’s Backbone up at Billy’s on Burnet when they were only $2 during Happiest Hour… now you know my dirty secret).

A little over a year ago I went on a “Belgian” IPA journey. I had the Urthel Hop-It, the Piraat Ale, the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel, the Green Flash Le Freak, the Victory Wild Devil… and they were all good. Mostly all of them. But the Cali-Belgique was the cussing holy grail for me. And I couldn’t find it. Then the Flying Saucer announced they’d have it at their Fall Beer Fest! Then it was on at the Draught House 41st party, then Shawn brought me back a bottle of it from Cali!

Gah! What a great month for a great beer!

It’s exactly what I like in a “Belgian” IPA; malty sweet, light fruity esters and then a nice balanced hop finish to whet the palate for more. Wish I had one right now.

3. Live Oak Old Tree Hugger (three years old)

Retired, reschmired.

This great local barely wine dissapeared three years ago and then crashed the Draught House 41st party as a f@$#ing toddler!

Last time I tried the Old Tree Hugger it was very hot with alcohol, had a prominent citrus hop character (think a pineapple liquor), and was pretty smooth going down (did I really just write that?).

This time around, it’s a typical toddler; bigger, hard headed, throwing a temper tantrum, and gives you a head ache if you have too much, in a good way.

The hop character has mellowed and passed the torch on to a prominent caramel malt profile, IMO. So, so, good. This barely wine has grown up just fine and was the bell of the ball that night.

[I'm not actually sure that's a picture of the Old Tree Hugger. It was about that color and I had it in that glass... but I'm pretty sure it was dark outside when it was served.]

2. Saint Arnold Divine Reserve # 9 Imperial Pumpkin Stout

This beer made it to the lower part of the list the day it was announced. I love most everything from Saint Arnold and I especially love pumpkin beers.

A lot of people might hold a grudge against this beer or Saint Arnold because of all the hype surrounding it, or the difficulty in acquiring it.

But if you can look past all of that, and taste it just as the beer, not the hype or headache, it’s pretty, pretty, pretty good.

I tried a Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout at the Sunset Grill & Tap in Boston in anticipation/comparison for this, and the DR9 blew it out of the water. The only thing the Fisherman’s may have had on it was the cinnamon sugar rimmed glass it was served in.

The DR9 is a big pumpkin spicy, chocolatey stout. Enough pumpkin in the nose, not too much in the mouth. Nice spices, but they yield in the end to the chocolate from the malt. A little warm on alcohol, but it was made to cellar. I’ve only had it on tap so far, I may update this after I crack open a bottle. Maybe I’ll recreate the cinnamon sugar rimmed glass experience at home.

1. New Belgium Tart Lychee

Had this at the Draught House 41st party. I don’t think it’s available anywhere else on tap.

Like the last content dredge of a top 10/11 list, the number one spot is occupied by a beer that was not only excellent, but it possessed the quality to seduce me.

With all the rare, cask, exceptional, augmented beers available at the DH 41st event, this one won my heart. I can’t even come up with a number of how many I had that night [BeerTownAustin does not endorse or encourage not being able to remember how many beers you drink]. IT WAS GREAT!

I love sours, and New Belgium has been knocking them out of the park.  This one had a hint of cinnamon and spice in addition to the wild yeast souriness.

And “tart” is right. This beer was getting all kinds of action that night. I think I ran into more people sipping on one of these more often than any other offering available.

Wish we had this beer more often.

So, thanks for reading this lame list. Feel free to use the comments section to berate me and my opinion and inform me of how I missed YOUR favorite beer… oh, wait… this isn’t your website so why would your favorite beers be on the top 11 list?

Just kidding. Feel free to post your top 11 and we can be nerdy and compare.

Also, I recognize that I did not include any of the fine fine beers made by Uncle Billy’s, Love Joys, or NXNW. Please excuse my omission, I turned in a thesis last month and simply didn’t get out to any of those.

Cheers!