go CUB(s)(eerClub)

Last night was the May edition of the Champaign Urbana Beer Club. Each gathering has a theme, Feb was "beer and chocolate"; March was "beers from East of the Mississippi"; April was "beers from West of the Mississippi"; last night was "Imported Beers".

Each person is to bring about 24-36 ounces of beer to share with the group. That's about 2 bottles of 12 oz beer, or a little more than a bomber. As Kriddy goes with me, I normally take 3 bottles of beer.

Back in Feb, we took Highland Black Mocha Stout and Sweetwater Happy Ending. March was Yazoo Hefeweizen, Yazoo Pale and Yazoo Dos Perros Altbier (along with a Dixie Lager). April was Siletz Oatmeal Stout and Siletz Chocolate Porter. If you look at the events list you'll see that there's some great beers that people bring in, from all over the u.s.

For last night, we took in some of the beers that we picked up in Indianapolis. Originally I picked up some bottles in Asheville that I was going to take, but changed my mind. It was going to be hoogstraten Poorter and Fantome La Dalmatienne, but instead I took in most of the BrewDog Line.

I gave up four beers last night.

Brewdog the Physics (Amber)
Brewdog Riptide (Imperial Stout)
Brewdog Hardcore IPA
Brewdog Paradox 008 Islay Bowmore 1987

I've still got another bottle of the 008, so I didn't part with anything too hard to come by.

This will come off as very conceited, but the Paradox 008 was the hit of the night. Everyone seemed to love it. Many people asked where I got it, so I got to explain to them how to get to Crown Liquors #6 on the south side of Indy, on route 31. (South of 465, exit 2b, I think). Crown has most of the Brewdog line (Brew Dog or Brewdog or BrewDog?) but only the 008 of the Paradox line. I wasn't able to completely enjoy the beers (like sitting at home or in the bar and write about it), and I didn't take any tasting notes, but none of the BrewDogs disappointed (at least not me).

Some of the other highlights of the night were Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel Peche Mortel. That's a great beer. Ed (Darklord) brought in two bottles of it. One for the early crowd and one for later, when it's down to the real drinkers. After the crowd thinned out, Dr. Andy busted out a bottle of Westy 12. So that was pretty cool.

Other bottles of interest were Rochefort 10; J.W. Lees Vintage Harves Ale; Chimay Blue; Fullers Vintage Ale. Someone brought in a Hvedegoop, so we got to try that.

The Champaign Urbana Beer Club is a great place to go meet like minded people (if you have beer on your mind). They are very accepting of new people (at first I was afraid of not fitting in) and they all have good beer stories to tell. It's a good mix of people, because CU is right in the middle of the country. Noah routinely goes west to California and gets beer from the San Diego (I think he said) area. Dr. Andy is from Washington state and has family there, so he's the pacific hookup. It turns out they are happy to have me and Kriddy there, because we are the only ones who go to the Southeast. So, we filled a void in the group (that they might not have known was there). So now we're the hookup for DuckRabbit; Highland; Terrapin; and Sweetwater beers... It's a lot of responsibility, but I'll try to handle it.

Our next trip to Asheville is scheduled for the end of July. So place your orders now.

In other news, I'm almost done mowing my back yard. There's only one patch of foot and a half tall grass left before I can say I'm done. I should be able to get to it sometime on Saturday.

Also, I ordered the Tap a Draft system from Northern Brewer. It should be in tomorrow. It's also available on Amazon, but is $40 more, so I thought I'd be frugal. So now I need to make some room in my fridge for MORE BEER!!!. The first one to go on draft will be Welcome Back Pat wheat... should Pat ever come back.

I might have to clean out my beer room due to unforeseen circumstances, but that's not a problem. All my empty bottles will probably find their way into the garage, and the full stuff will work it's way into my cellar, behind the bar.

We're probably going to be having a beer gathering at Kriddy's on Sunday, because I've got a lot of beer I need to drink. It won't quite be the same as the New Years Eve lineup, but I've got at least a 12 pack of bombers that I need to share. We were invited to go to one of the beer club people's place on Sunday, but I'm not sure what to do. Maybe we just do that instead and don't worry about the "hosting" issues.

The only problem with not hosting, is you don't really get to control how much you drink, and then you stand over your beer guarding it. Not sure if I want to do that or not. It'd be more fun to just sit around in the back yard on a lawn chair, under the tree with some buddies sippin on some really really really good beer.

So that settles it, my place, Sunday, 5 p.m. Bring a lawn chair.

V