Maskerpiece Theatre talks to Mother Road Brewing Company....

 

This this week, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with The Masked Blogster as we chatting with my friend Dan Choiniere, Beer Ambassador for Mother Road Brewing Company in Flagstaff, AZ. Of coarse we talked about, and tried some Mother Road Beers (including their amazing Open Road English Summer Ale). We also chatted about craft beer here in Arizona, and the nation, and where we think Arizona beer is headed. As well as where we may see Mother Road in 5 or 10 years.

So, sit back, and have a listen. You can get the link to either stream, or download the podcast here...


To see some more photos from the evening, check out our Facebook photo album here...

For more on Mother Road Brewing company, check out there website, or Facebook page.

I am sure I speak on behalf of Blogster, when I say I want to thank Dan for taking the time to sit down with us, share is beer, his stories

and his knowledge with us. We greatly appricate it. If you see a Mother Road event, tap take over, or just a six pack on the shelf, check them out. I think this is an outstanding, and often (but not always) over looked Arizona Brewery. You will not be disappointed.



The beers we sampled on the podcast were;

Golden Road Kolsch style
Roadside American Pale Ale
Open Road English Summer Ale spiced with peppercorns
Lost Highway Black IPA (or American Stout)

If you want to try and find some Mother Road Brews, use the beer finder to track it down!



Thanks again to Dan, and the fine folks at Mother Road! Keep up the fantastic work you do!

Until next time
Bottoms up my friends!

The Beer Czar

1st Annual Pumpkin Beer Tasting

The Beer Czar pumpkin keg!

This passed weekend, I had the pleasure of co-hosting a pumpkin beer tasting with my good friend Masked Blogster! The event was even recorded by the Masked Blogsters podcast, Maskerpiece Theatre, Hear what people thought about each beer, and some witty banter between Liger and Masked Blogster. You can listen to the podcast here... I even jumped on the mic from time to time to give some insight, and ad what I could to what was going on.
The event was small, friendly and laid back. We tasting a total of 7 pumpkin beers, blindly. Then the participants ranked each of the beers, and at the end of the night, we tallied up the scores to come up with a list "top pumpkin beers" to recommend to you all!

Masked Blogster 

We had a panel of six tasters, grading the beer on a scale of 1 to 5, in the areas of  appearance, aroma, taste, mouthfeel, and overall. They gave each area a grade of 1 being the worst, 5 being the best, and added up the scores for each beer. We later entered those scores into a spread sheet, which averaged up the scores, and ranked them in order of highest to lowest scores, giving us a 1st through 7th place.

Bobby and Mrs Blogster getting started

So without further ado, I will go over the list of beers we tried, in the order we tried them, along with a few notes about each one that the attendee's had to say, then I will give you the rank in which each beer fell. Just a quick note, if you want to read more about the beers flavors, I provided a link to the Beeradvocate reviews for each beer, just clink the link on the beer name, and it will take you to those reviews. OK, here we go...

Daniell giving her thoughts one of the beers

1. Shipyard Pumpkinhead, Portland Maine. Pumpkin Ale, 4.7% abv. For the first beer of the evening, was described as "light in color, but smooth", "nice aroma", "subtle pumpkin-iness" "sweet" and "too sweet" , and even a "love it"!

2. Wasatch Pumpkin Seasonal Ale, Wasatch Brewing/Utah Brewers Collaborative 4% abv. Terms ranging from  "more cinnamon and spice then pumpkin", "overall, quite good", "weird taste", "subtle pumpkin, enjoyable spiceyness" all the way to "blah, not a fan at all".


3. Pumpkick, New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, CO, 6.0% abv. Seemed to be a popular beer at the time of the tasting, people stating "pleasant finish" and "it leaves a great after taste", and some less enthusiastic "better then #2" and "not my favorite".

4. Fall Hornin', Anderson Valley Brewing Company, Booneville, CA 6.0% abv. This was the only beer we tried in a can, and it seemed to go over well. Heard things like "a little bitter", "more like a red ale", "really good finish", "smells awesome" and even a "loved it, favorite so far!".

5. Small Batch Pumpkin Harvest Ale, Tommyknocker Brewing Company, Idaho Springs CO, 5% abv. "Smells of caramel and chocolate", "looks good, smells great...", "..getting a lot of coffee in this one", and some "light on flavor" and even a "watery taste" and "thin mouthfeel"

Mrs Czar, not impressed!

6. Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin, Pugsley's Signature Series, Shipyard Brewing, Portland ME, 9% abv. This one had the widest range of comments by far. Seems the group either just loved this beer, and just absolutely hated it. Most terms were either "awful", "yuck" "horrible flavor" to "wow, best so far" to a "this is awesome!". This one it seems you'll have to try for yourself to figure it out! (note, it was one of my favorites of the evening as well)

MB and Liger giving the play by play

7. Peaceful Pumpkin, Mudshark Brewing Company, Lake Havasu City, Arizona 5.2% abv, Our only local Arizona beer of the evening. Not sure if it was tasting fatigue, or the late hour, but reaction to this one was a little muted, and not very enthusiastic, but it wasn't bad either. Had a hard time gauging this one at the time of the tasting.


After the tastings was wrapped up, I tallied up the votes, and here are the results, in the order they scored, and the scores they received.

The line up!

Beer Name                                      Score

1. New Belgium Pumpkick,              16.33

2. Mudshark Peaceful Pumpkin        15.83

3. Anderson Valley's Fall Hornin'      15.5

4. Shipyard's Pumpkinhead               14.33

5. Wasatch Pumpkin Seasonal          14.00

6. Tommyknocker Small Batch         13.67

7. Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin          12.37

The group!

All in all, I think it was a pretty successful event, and we had a ton of fun! The event was recorded by the Masked Blogsters podcast, I will post a link to the podcast here as soon as it is posted! Hear what people thought about each beer, and some witty banter between Liger and Masked Blogster. I even jumped on the mic from time to time to give some insight, and ad what I could to what was going on.

Look forward to more tastings to come from the Masked Blogster and I. I am thinking maybe  "The First Annual Ugly sweater and Christmas beer tasting"??? Has a nice ring to it....

If you have an idea for a tasting, or would like to host a tasting, please contact us at thebeerczar@gmail.com and we will make those arrangements!

For a complete look at all the photos of this event, check out The Beer Czar on Facebook here, and like us while you are there!!!    (link to photo album)


Until next time
Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar

The best beer in the world, is the one in your hand....

This is something I've been saying for a long time now. Like many a newbie beer geek, I started getting excited about limited release beers, or beers that were hot on the top of Ratebeer, or Beeradvocate's top lists. It got to the pointwith me, and many others where you get so obsessed with these hard to find, rare gems that you ignore or forget about the wonderful beer being brewed just a few miles, or in some lucky cases, just blocks from your home. Beer geekery can be a lot of fun. However, I found, it can also be frustrating, exhausting, and VERY expensive. If I hear about a beer I want to try, I will go to one, maybe two places to find it, if its not there, I stop. I am not about to waste time, gas and money driving all over the valley for an IPA I may never have again, or worse yet, may not even like in the first place. This has always been my frustration with the "beer geek". I don't dwell on it, I will mention it from time to time but never really spent much time on, and sort of forgot about doing a full write up on it.

However, this passed week, Andy Ingram of our beloved local brewery Four Peaks in Tempe, wrote up a piece in the local "paper" about much this same topic, however, he wrapped it up a lot better, and far more eloquent then I could, or did.  So I wanted to share his thoughts with you here....

The most important beer? Is the one you like.....

So there you have it, thank you Andy, very well said! I couldn't say it any better. Reminds me of a conversation I had with Masked Blogster on his podcast a few weeks ago. Judge brewery's by their flagships, not by the beer that has been sitting in a barrel, in the cellar for that last 4 years. Judge them on the beer the make the most of, not the least. And most importantly, don't spend so much time and energy on looking for hard to find, rare gems, that you forget about the gem you have in your hand already! Don't get me wrong, getting your hands on these rare beers can be fun, and more often then not, they are very good. I just think its important to find that balance between the two.

Until next time

Bottoms up my friends!

The Beer Czar

S.L.I.F.!!! (Sorry Liver, it's Friday!)

Happy Friday to you all! We've made it through yet another week, and for that, congrats, you deserve a

beer, you should probably get yourself one, right now!

I didn't have anything real pressing or interesting to share with you that warranted a single post of its own, but I did have a number of useful tidbits and info I wanted to share, so I figured I would just wrap them all up in a pretty, single package, and share them all with you at once. I might even make this a regular Friday thing, or at least semi regular, we shall see.

Who wants a great Taco, and a good time???
A reminder, tomorrow, Saturday the 14th, don't miss the Rockin Taco Street Festival at El Palacio in Chandler (on Gilbert and the 202). Just note, the contest noted in that post is now closed.

Are you a fan of white chocolate?

Good news for lovers of Sonoran Brewing Company's White Chocolate Ale. This wonderful, unique Arizona favorite is now available in 6 packs!! So look for it at your favorite beer store any day now!

Almost pumpkin beer season!
I know its hard here in Arizona to be thinking of fall beers and pumpkin ales already when its still in the 100's, but its that time of year again (in fact, I've been seeing fall beers in stores for weeks now). As is normally the case, I get a lot of folks asking me this time of year for my recommendations for good pumpkin beers. Well, we will be doing a pumpkin beer tasting coming up very soon ( the 1st Annual Pumpkin Beer Tasting featuring The Masked Blogster will be coming up!! Details to come!), but in the mean time, here is a pretty solid list of some great pumpkin beers.....Top 10 Pumpkin Beers. The list is a very solid one, I will disagree with just one on the list. My apologies to all my Maine faithful, but I think Pumpkinhead by Shipyard is a below average pumpkin beer at best. Buffalo Bills is a better option in my opinion. Aside from that, 9 solid beers!

Seriously brilliant!

Must have Tailgating gadgets for the beer lover!
As is always the case, the fine folks at Keg Works have come up with another great list. This one, is ""10 Tools for Tailgating" and, well, there is some great stuff on the list! My favorite, and its so friggin brilliant in its simplicity, is the "Go Plate"! Seriously, how many problems does this one simple innovation solve? Just awesome!








We want you!!!
Do you have a favorite brewery/brew pub? A favorite beer you want everyone to know about? Do you have a fun or interesting story to tell folks about a trip to a brewery, or having a great beer after a long hike? We want you to share it with us! We are looking for guest contributors to The Beer Czar! You can write about anything you want, as long as it is just somewhat beer related. Funny, serious, informative, it can be any, or all of those things. If you are interested, please drop me a line at thebeerczar@gmail.com with some details, and we will get you posted here on The Beer Czar! We would love to have you! Check out a few of our past guest contributors!

A Look at Colorado - contributed by an old family friend, Jon
A Short Tour of Washington Brewery's - contributed from my good friend Daniell
Touring Sam Adams - contributed by my good friend (and Daniell's husband) Bobby

So please, if you have some fun beer stories or whatever, please, share them! (if you can include photos, that would be great, but if you don't have any, not a problem)


That's about all for this first edition of "SLIF", hope to bring you more in the future!

Have a safe and happy weekend everyone
Until next time
Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar

The Beer Czar, co-hosting Maskerpiece Theater Podcast again!

This week, I sat down with The Masked Blogster, for this weeks installment of Maskerpiece Theater! Listen in, as we tape this week at Pop Culture Paradise Comic shop in downtown Tempe AZ. Where we discuss Miley Cyrus at the VMAs, the "new" Batman, Marble Brewing, and how some people or company's market and brand themselves. We also discuss the rapid growth of the East Valley Beer scene, and of coarse, the "Bronson of the Week" (beer of the week for you non regular listeners). Just a quick note, the first 10 minutes and 30 seconds is an interview with an adult film star, so, if that sort of thing offends you, please don't listen to it, and then complain to me it offended you, either don't listen, or skip ahead to 10:30, that is where I join in the conversation...

Listen here....

So, until next time

Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar

The Beer Czar, the guest on a pod cast!

Beer Czar and Masked Blogster

A while ago, I was interviewed for the podcast "Maskerpiece Theater" This week, The Beer Czar was asked to to join the Masked Blogster again, as a guest on his weekly panel. Listen to the Masked Blogster, Beer Czar, along with Maser and Mr. E Marquee as they discuss not only the beer of the week (refereed to as the "Bronson of the Week" on the show) which was Oberon Ale, we also discuss Aaron Hernandez, Paula Dean, NBA draft and a few other things. Check it out here.....

Maskerpiece Theater Podcast episode #8

Listen each week, The Beer Czar is going to be the sponsor of the "Bronson of the Week" and may even appear once in a while to discuss the beer! You can get to Maskerpiece Theaters site here to access the link to listen.

Until next time

Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar

The Beer Czar Interviewed!

Check this out, The Beer Czar was interviewed! The Beer Czar sits down for the inaugural episode of the Masked Blogster's  "Maskerpiece Theater" podcast. Listen as we chat about beer, beer styles, beer brands, and Bigfoot (the beer and the ape!) Check it out....

Listen to it here.....

My thanks to Masked Blogster, this was a ton of fun, and hope to be back on again sometime very soon!

Check out Masked Blogster's "Maskerpiece Theater"

Check out Masked Blogsters regular wrestling podcast "Bank on Action"

Enjoy, 

Until next time

Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar