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It’s going to be a good year in beer:

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For the record, that’s Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout, The Bruery Black Tuesday, Fantôme La Dalmatienne, New Glarus Serendipity, Founders Bolt Cutter, and Three Floyds Dark Lord. And that doesn’t include some other recent and exciting acquisitions. 2013 is shaping up to be a good one… at least, in terms of beer.

The Earth has once again completed its orbit around the Sun, which for some reason means that we should all take stock of what we did over the past orbital period and post our top 10 whatever. Here at Kaedrin, we like things, so I’m thinking we’ll post our top 40 beers. That sounds like a lot, but it’s been a good year, and I’ve sampled at least 250 different beers, if not more. Plus, I stink at choosing favorites, and with something as varied as beer with all its disparate styles, I need some breathing room.

Before we get to the big list, I thought I’d muse a bit on the themes of the year. This is, of course, more about me than the industry in general. But that’s why you’re here, right?

• Trading – Yes, I’ve dipped my feet into that most nerdy of pursuits, beer trading. Indeed, at least a few of the top 40 wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for some trades made this year, and I’m betting this will flow into next year as well. I don’t see myself reaching the heights of the true beer nerds out there, but I’m sure I’ll be getting ahold of more and more interesting beers in the coming year. Special thanks to Jay for kickstarting this new phase in my beer dorkery.
• Sour Beer – Despite experimenting with sours over the past few years, I didn’t fully buy in until this year. Naturally, these are beers that are expensive and harder to find, but I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more in the way of sour beer in the next year or so. At the very least, I expect to hunt down some Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen, so it should be a fun year.
• White Whales – When I first started this blog, I found it frustrating to read all these other blogs about beers that I’d never seen before or that weren’t really available in the area. Well, that’s changed somewhat, but then, so has the definition of “White Whale”. I’m certainly not to the point where I’m going to start creatively misspelling them as .rar walez or anything silly like that, and the stuff that those trading nerds revere as wales will probably never made their way into my greedy paws (not that I’d mind, but still, those seem like tough beers to land). In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for shelf whales and the like, but that’s not a problem or anything. In a year where I got to try DONG (draft only, no growler) whales like Pliny the Younger, or pre-brick Westy 12 (tasted so much rarer back then), or witness the emergence of Tired Hands, I really have no room to complain and heck, I’m starting to feel a little bad about constantly reviewing beers that aren’t that easy to find for the majority of the country. A little. Not that I’m going to stop or anything.
• Barrel Aged Beer – These continue to be a little obsession of mine, and that partly feeds into my newfound admiration for sours as well. That being said, bourbon barrel aged stouts and barleywines continue to be a favorite, and I’ve got some supposedly spectacular stuff lined up for 2013.
• Palate – I always feel awkward discussing my palate for this stuff, but I will say that I’ve started to get pickier about certain things. I’ve especially become sensitive to hoppy beer and age/storage issues. It’s not something I recognized much in previous years, but this year it became more obvious that fresh, hoppy beer is really ideal and that such beers need to be refrigerated immediately, etc… I’m also getting to be one of those nerds that can identify certain hop varieties by aroma/taste. I’m not awesome at it, but I can pick out a lot of the usual suspects like Cascade/Simcoe, Centennial, and the like. And I’m getting there with specialty malts too, though I’m certainly far from an expert on either. Most of this is due to my further exploration of:
• Home Brewing – I actually only made 3 batches of beer in 2012, but two of them were fantastic, and the other is actually conditioning nicely and getting better as we speak. I would have probably made another batch at some point this year, but I was redoing my kitchen, so that didn’t happen. My new stove, however, might help speed up the process. I guess there’s only one way to find out. I’m actually hoping to try some more adventurous stuff in the homebrewing realm this year, so stay tuned.
• Aging/Cellaring Beer – I’ve mentioned a few times that my eyes are bigger than my liver, so my cellar has grown to be rather large at this point (this might be part of why I’m attracted to trading, but we’ll see how that goes). Some of that stuff is aging intentionally, others will just take a while for me to get to. As mentioned above, I tend to favor drinking hoppy stuff right away at this point, but I’ve got some really interesting beer in the cellar that I want to get to ASAP. Others are things that I really want to age and find out how well they hold up. Only one way to find out, I guess.

It’s been a good year, filled with great beer. So great that, like I said earlier, I’m going to post my top 40 beers, if I can even manage that. Like last year, this list is based solely on what I drank this year. While I drank my fair share of 2012-only limited releases, a lot of these will be old-hat to some of you. To qualify for the list, I had to drink the beer in 2012, and I had to review the beer on this here blog (each beer will be linked to its respective review). They’re all at least an A- on my grading scale, and they’re being listed from best to “worst”, though I should note that this is a pretty fluid list. Stuff could shift around depending on my mood, and there are some A- beers that ended up looming larger on my mind than expected, perhaps even pushing out an A. Go figure. If you’re really curious, check out the archives on the right of the page. Ok, enough disclaimers and equivocation, here’s the list:

1. The Bruery Coton (Old Ale)
2. Logsdon Farmhouse Ales Seizoen Bretta (Saison)
3. Hill Farmstead Abner (Double IPA)
4. Lost Abbey Red Poppy Ale (Flanders Red Ale)
5. Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout (Imperial Stout)
6. Firestone Walker Parabola (Imperial Stout)
7. Bell’s Hopslam Ale (Double IPA)
8. Firestone Walker §ucaba (Barleywine)
9. Hill Farmstead Society and Solitude #2 (American Black Ale)
10. Russian River Pliny the Younger (Double IPA)
11. Trappist Westvleteren 12 (Quadrupel)
12. Firestone Walker XV – Anniversary Ale (American Strong Ale)
13. Oude Gueuze Tilquin à L’Ancienne (Gueuze)
14. Jolly Pumpkin Baudelaire iO Saison (Saison)
15. Weyerbacher Whiskey Barrel Aged (American Brown Ale)
16. Rodenbach Grand Cru (Flanders Red Ale)
17. Tired Hands Flavor Aroma (IPA)
18. The Bruery and Cigar City Collaboration: Marrón Acidifié (Flanders Oud Bruin)
19. Hill Farmstead Double Citra IPA (Double IPA)
20. Tired Hands Westy13 (Saison?)
21. Three Floyds Zombie Dust (American Pale Ale)
22. Weyerbacher Insanity (Barleywine)
23. Tired Hands Zombie (American Black Ale)
24. Russian River Row 2/Hill 56 (American Pale Ale)
25. Victory Oak Horizontal (Barleywine)
26. Dieu Du Ciel Équinoxe Du Printemps (Scotch Ale)
27. Full Pint Rye Rebellion (Imperial Stout)
28. HaandBryggeriet Bestefar (Winter Warmer)
29. Bink Grand Cru (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)
30. Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel (Imperial Stout)
31. Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged Naked Evil (Barleywine)
32. Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale (Double IPA)
33. Port Brewing Older Viscosity (Imperial Stout)
34. Victory Éclat Cocoa Lager (Dark Lager)
35. La Trappe Quadrupel Barrique (Oak Aged) – Batch 3 (Quadrupel)
36. Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti (Imperial Stout)
37. The Bruery Oude Tart (Flanders Red Ale)
38. Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout 2008 (Imperial Stout)
39. Affligem Dubbel (Dubbel)
40. Tripel Karmeliet (Tripel)

Hot damn, that was much more difficult than I thought it would be. I could have easily made this a top 50 without blinking, and those 10 that I left off could have muscled their way onto the above list if I were in a different mood. And heck, there are some superb beers I just recently had that haven’t been reviewed yet – ¿Impending Descent? could have made the list for sure… but it’ll have to wait til next year, I guess. Speaking of which, I’ll see you then. Have a great new year!

Update: Jay has posted his top beers of 2012 today as well, check it out, his lists are always worth reading…

If you’ll permit some blogtastic navel-gazing, I passed the two year mark of the blog a couple weeks ago (being drunk at the time, I neglected to note said anniversary and kinda forgot about it). To celebrate, I’ve cracked open a homebrewed Earl Grey Bitter, and nerd that I am, compiled some statistics that you should totally read because I know you’re all enraptured by such things:

• 379 Total Posts, 227 in the past year (this represents a significant increase in posting rate, from about 3 posts a week to a little over 4 a week)
• 303 Total Comments, not a metric I measured last year, but I get the impression that I’ve had a lot more this year than last year. It should also be noted that a significant number of comments are my responses, though none of this includes other forms of response (emails, tweets, etc…), which have been plentiful this year as well… Much of this interaction is due to certain other awesome bloggers, so thanks guys!
• 70 posts about IPAs, 43 in the past year, making that the most talked-about style on the blog. Stouts come in second with 51 posts (30 in the past year). This is on par with last year, and it should be noted that I don’t break out double/imperial varieties either (which inflates numbers a bit). Rounding out the top styles are Saison (28 posts), Belgian Strong Dark (25 posts), American Pale Ale (18 posts) and Tripel (18 posts).
• 28 posts about Victory Brewing, which remains the most talked about brewery on the blog. Tied in a distant second place are Russian River, Mikkeller, Ommegang, and Weyerbacher, each clocking in at 14 posts. Rounding out the most talked about breweries, we’ve got: Dogfish Head (12), Founders (12), Tröegs (12), Stone (11), The Bruery (11), and Lagunitas (10).
• 183 different breweries have posts. This is not a metric I measured last year, so I don’t know how it really compares, but even after two years, I still find myself consistently adding new breweries to the list.
• 242 posts about beer from US breweries, which is over 4 times as many posts as the runner up, Belgium (54). The UK comes in at 20 posts (though 10 are from Scotland), and Denmark puts in a strong showing (no doubt fueled by Mikkeller) at 17 posts. Scotland, Canada, and Germany get some love, but probably not enough, coming in at 10,9, and 8 posts respectively.
• 129 posts featured a beer rated B+, which remains most common rating by a rather large margin. It is, perhaps, a little overused and a bunch of those beers should probably be a B, but whatever, it’s not like I try to drink mediocre beer. Speaking of which, coming in second place is A- with 97 posts, followed by B with 84 posts, and A with 50 posts. Last year, there was a little more parity in that the B and B- ratings pretty neatly paralleled the A- and A ratings respectively, but now the distribution is a little top heavy. Again, I’m going out of my way for good beer, so this is probably a good thing.

Last year, I was a little taken aback by how much beer I’d drank/reviewed. Little did I know that I would significantly outpace myself this year. However, I should note that I think I’ve curtailed drinking overall a bit, despite the increase in posting. In my first year, I was still drinking a fair amount of six packs/cases/duplicate beers (only one of which would be reviewed), but it’s pretty rare for me to drink the same beer twice these days (the grand majority of which are reviewed), and even more rare to put down a full six pack. The one exception to this is probably homebrew, though I tend to give a lot of that away too.

The blog is definitely still focused mainly on beer reviews, though I do try to use the review as an excuse to wax philosophic about style, history, or issues of the day, and I do try to liven things up from time to time with screenplays or even adventure! I’d like to do some more brewery visits to up and coming stars in the future as well. I was pretty good about non-review posts for a portion of the year, but I’ve since fallen out of that habit. Mayhap I can return to that sometime too. I’ve been at this long enough that I should really put together a best posts category, so if you have any favorites, feel free to let me know.

So yeah, it’s been a good year, tons of great beer and a lot of fun. I don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon, so keep your eyes peeled. Some spectacular stuff coming in the near future, if I can manage it. Cheers!

I would say that posting will be light, except that I’m already pretty far along this week, and I was able to publish something today that I wrote earlier using the magic of my mobile telemaphone. If I can get that to work again, there might be another post on Friday for The Session. In any case, I’m spending time up at Kaedrin North. Alas, beer options appear limited. I thought perhaps I could swing by New Hampshire or Cooperstown and hit a brewery or two, but alas, it appears that I’m in the middle of nowhere (a solid 4 hours from the breweries I’d like to visit). But whatever, I’m on vacation. Check it:

Have a good week everyone…

It occurs to me that I have not explained my grading system at all, and for the most part that’s because it’s a bit of a nebulous thing. How do I know something is an A (or an F or a B- or whatever)? To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart¹, I know it when I see it (or, in this case, drink it). Then again, most beers could probably shift a level one way or the other and still be valid from my perspective, and I’ll admit that a big part of this is just a sorta gut feeling. That being said, I have some definite guidelines that have been brewing² in my head over the course of the year and a half I’ve been running the blog.

I’m not entirely sure why I chose the letter grading system this time around, but it probably had something to do with the fact that most of the folks I read used that scale and at the time, Beer Advocate was using letter grades too (they’ve since moved on to a much simpler system comprised of, like, 13 different values, all weighted and averaged on a logarithmic scale to yield 3 separate ratings that you must analyze separately and together in order to get a broad snapshot of what a bunch of strangers think about the beer³). Plus, I’d never used it before myself (I use 4/5 stars for movies and at some point I had a 10 point scale for books, though I’ve reverted back to stars).

One thing I’ve realized that might be important when considering the below is that, well, I was a huge nerd in school. Not super-genius nerdy, but let’s just say that anything in the C range was unwelcome in my household (I got a C+ one one report card once and my parents grounded me for a month). Low Bs weren’t exactly favored either. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, but I think you can still see that bias seeping through my ratings. The other thing you’ll notice is that I tend to avoid the extremes. Very few A+s and, correspondingly, very few Fs. Most of the stuff will be in the middle of the pack. Anyway, let’s get this party started:

• F: There’s something dramatically wrong with this beer. Initiate quarantine protocols; the end is nigh. Fortunately, as of right now, I’ve only given this rating 4 times. Once was for a non-alcoholic beer, once was for the God-awful abomination that is Cave Creek Chili Beer, and two were for beers that were skunked to high heaven. I suppose you could argue that skunked beers don’t deserve an F, but in both cases, I get the impression that the base beer wasn’t very good to start with and in one case, it was packaged in a green bottle – a distinct decision made by the brewery to emphasize marketing over quality (and thus I have no problem giving it an F). I suppose there could be a plus or minus modifier on an F, but once you reach this level, there are other things you should be worrying about.
• D: There’s still something wrong with the beer, but there is at least some redeeming quality that prevents me from going nuclear and rating an F. Out in the real world, a D is technically a “passing” grade, but if I ever brought home a D, I’d be in serious trouble. To my mind, the textbook beer example is Brewdog Storm, an Imperial IPA aged in Islay Whisky casks. Interesting idea, but my bottle may have been well beyond its shelf life (this nerdy mystery is detailed in the linked post) and I’m not sure I can blame Brewdog for that snafu. All I know is that they tried something interesting and it didn’t work out, hence a D. In other cases, I rate beers a D if they seem stale or if they have weird off flavors that don’t necessarily overwhelm the beer. For some reason, traditional English Pale Ales that have a lot of buttery diacetyl seem to fall into this category a lot). Plus and Minus modifiers have actually been used on the blog, but that only really comes into play in a comparative tasting. In short, if a beer is anywhere in the D range, it’s in trouble. It’s possible that I will finish these beers, as I really do hate to waste a beer, even a bad one, but it’s also possible that I won’t be able to take it anymore either.
• C-: There may be something wrong with this beer, but it’s subtle and the beer is drinkable. I’ll finish it, but I won’t be happy about it. I’ve only given this three times, and in all three cases, the beer turned out to be a subpar version of better beers. In one case, there were minor off flavors, but nothing dramatic. Some of my least-favorite macros fit in here (for example: MGD, Natty Light, Beast, etc…)
• C: Profoundly average beer. There’s probably not anything outright offensive about this beer, but it also doesn’t have much going for it either. Drinkable, but nothing to go out of your way for and probably not worth the calories. I would say that a lot of macro-lagers and light-lagers would fit into this rating (For example: Bud, Bud Light).
• C+: An average (read: boring) beer. When circumstances are right, these can be acceptable. There’s nothing particularly special about this beer, but it’s the first rating discussed so far that isn’t meant as entirely negative. These are beers that usually suffer in comparison to other beers, but again, in the right circumstances, they can be solid. For example, last summer, after an entire day spent out in the sun, a friend handed me a Coors Light. And you know what? I enjoyed it. At that time and place, it was just what I needed. Sure, it’s practically water, but I think that’s what made it work. Now, it’s obviously not going to compete with most of the full-flavored beers I review on the blog, but it has its place. So I’d call this the top tier of the macros, with the occasional craft disappointment that still shows promise.
• B-: This is the first genuinely positive rating, though I also tend to use this as a place to dump beers that I can tell are well crafted, but which never really jived with me. For example: Founders Breakfast Stout. Everyone seems to love that stuff. Me, I’m not a big coffee drinker. I can tell the beer is well made, but it’s just not my thing. So while this rating is positive, a lot of beers rated here tend to be something of a disappointment to me. That being said, I’d pick these over anything in the C-F range any day and twice on Sunday.
• B: Unambiguously good beer. It won’t set your world on fire or melt your face, but it’s a good brew worth drinking. Lots of beers fall into this range, so it’s hard to really define a pattern, but if you’re rated here, you’re doing very well. These are beers I would try again, though I don’t think I’d necessarily go out of my way to find (but they’re certainly a sight for sore eyes when your in a bar sporting mostly macro crap).
• B+: Extremely good beer that is nonetheless lacking something that would lead to true greatness. However, I really like this beer and would go out of my way to try it again. This is my most frequently used rating, so perhaps I am overrating some beers. Or I just have an amazing intuition when it comes to picking out new beer. After all, it’s not like I’m trying to find bad beer!
• A-: A great beer. Despite the minus, I wouldn’t say the beer lacks anything or has any real flaws. However, there may be something that’s holding me back just a teensy bit. Maybe the mouthfeel is just a hint off, or the flavors could be better balanced. While I may rate a ton of stuff at a B+ or A-, I still have rather high standards, so to get higher than an A-, your beer has to be something special. That being said, beers that get an A- are things I’m going to seek out again and things I’d recommend to others. If you’ve got an A-, you’re doing very well indeed. These are great beers, and they actually are setting the world on fire… but it’s an orderly fire, suitable for roasting marshmallows and making s’mores. Which are, like, totally awesome.
• A: This isn’t just great, it’s special. Awesome, in the true sense of that word. Excellent, superb, brilliant, fantastic, fabulous, fantabulous, heavenly, sensational, hyperbole, HYPERBOLE! Oh God the world is on fire! And my face! It’s melting! Yet somehow I want more… gimme! As of right now, I’ve rated 36 beers as an A, which strikes me as being a bit on the high side. And every one of them is truly great. These are beers I’d go far out of my way for. These are the ones that keep me drinking beer.
• A+: No words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should have sent… a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful… I had no idea. I HAD NO IDEA! Yeah, so at the extreme high-end of the ratings, I’m apparently very strict. Only 3 beers have reached this transcendent level. How does one attain this level? It’s a little mysterious. You need more than just a great beer to get up here. This is the one rating where I really do try to make sure I’ve had the beer multiple times to ensure it holds up (though I did break that rule once, which would be mildly shameful if I didn’t absolutely love that beer).

And to further demonstrate my nerdery, I’ve graphed the number of ratings I’ve given out. This is only really an approximation, as I’m using the post count rather than looking at individual beer reviews. This means that posts that feature, for example, 2 B ratings, will only count as one on the chart below. And if you look at those posts, there often are multiple Bs and B-s, etc… Anyway, here’s my dorky chart:

Not quite a perfect bell curve and the peak is probably centered on too high a rating to be statistically sound, but I’m not that much of a nerd, so I’ll just say that I think this is a rather fine distribution. I suspect that my hesitance to rate along the extremes (i.e. A+ and F) will continue unabated.

¹ – Did I just reference a Supreme Court ruling in a freakin post about beer rating? Well, yes I did, and I normally try to avoid devaluing the Supreme Court by applying their rulings to the trivialities of my life, but I don’t feel that bad about it this time because the court case in question was about pornography (for the record, I know that when I see it too.) I should probably just chill out and drink a beer rather than whine about ratings and the Supreme Court.

² – Tee hee! Get it? Oh, you’re annoyed that I made a whole footnote just to giggle at a lame pun? Well, fine then. Be that way.

³ – Ok, so it’s not nearly that complicated. I just miss the letter grades. It was sooo much easier to tell at a glance what a bunch of strangers thought of a beer. Now I have to, like, do calculations. And why do their beer listings use a different, 5 point scale? Pick a scale and stick to it. Or make them all available all the time. Ungh.

So I promise I won’t promote my other blog all the time, but here at Kaedrin, we have a yearly tradition of watching the Oscars, mocking celebrities, and drinking beer. So stop on by my generalist blog for predictions (which are up now, around noon EST) and frequently updated commentary/mockery (starting with the ceremony, around 8:30 pm EST or so). (To get an idea, see previous liveblogging posts are here: [2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004])

I’ll be cracking open a bottle of Firestone Walker Walker’s Reserve Porter and maybe a few others throughout the night. It’s obviously not the focus of the night – it’s more about me accusing celebrities of being drunk rather than getting drunk myself – but I’m a nerd, so I’ll be commenting on beer too.

I was going to write a beer review tonight, but since the web has apparently gone on strike, I figured I’d spend a little time talking about that instead. Many sites, including the likes of Wikipedia and Reddit, have instituted a complete blackout as part of a protest against two ill-conceived pieces of censorship legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Congress (these laws are called the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act, henceforth to be referred to as SOPA and PIPA). I can’t even begin to pretend that blacking out my humble little site would accomplish anything, but since a lot of my personal and professional livelihood depends on the internet, I suppose I can’t ignore this either.

For the uninitiated, if the bills known as SOPA and PIPA become law, many websites could be taken offline involuntarily, without warning, and without due process of law, based on little more than an alleged copyright owner’s unproven and uncontested allegations of infringement¹. The reason Wikipedia is blacked out today is that they depend solely on user-contributed content, which means they would be a ripe target for overzealous copyright holders. Sites like Google haven’t blacked themselves out, but have staged a bit of a protest as well, because under the provisions of the bill, even just linking to a site that infringes upon copyright is grounds for action (and thus search engines have a vested interest in defeating these bills).

I won’t belabor the point much further, but I will link to Kaedrin’s official stance on Intellectual Property, Copyright and DRM, a post I wrote a few years ago on my generalist blog that I think is still relevant. An expanded version of this post you’re reading right now is also up at my generalist blog, along with some other links and thoughts on the matter. Feel free to stop on by.

And if you’re so inclined, perhaps your form of protest could be represented by a different kind of blackout. Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

¹ – Thanks to James for the concise description. There are lots of much longer longer and better sourced descriptions of the shortcomings of this bill and the issues surrounding it, so I won’t belabor the point here.

As 2011 comes to a close, everyone and their mother is putting out top 10 lists and recaps for all manner of subjects, including beer. Here at Kaedrin, we’re usually pretty lazy about it. Over on my generalist blog, I always put together a top 10 movies of the year list, but it usually doesn’t come out until February. In that case, it’s because I’m trying to catch up with movies on DVD/BD/Streaming/Torrents/etc…, but beer is a different matter entirely. For one thing, beer isn’t released the way movies are, and while I’ve certainly had my fair share of one-off 2011-only brews, most of what I drank this year has been around for a while. So I’ve been lazily compiling a couple of lists, all based only on what I drank this year.

As such, this post will be an intensely personal affair, entirely dependent on my 2011 consumption. Almost everything in this post will be represented in my archives somewhere, because as a true nerd, I’ve done a pretty good job about documenting the beers I drank this year. Before I get to my top beers of the year, I thought I’d spend some time musing on the trends of the year. Not necessarily trends of the whole craft beer world, just my own personal tastes.

• Stouts – When I began beer blogging a little over a year ago, I wasn’t much of a fan of stouts or porters. But I forced myself to try some, and the more I tried, the more I enjoyed, especially when it comes to imperial stouts. There are still some varieties that I don’t love, particularly stouts that emphasize coffee flavors (I’m looking at you, Founders Breakfast Stout), but I’ve really come to enjoy strong, dark beers over the last year.
• Barrel Aged Beer – In particular, bourbon or scotch barrel aged beers have become a bit of an obsession (wine barrel aged beers with wild yeasts/bacteria are a different story, see below). One sure-fire way to trick me into buying your beer is to make a bourbon barrel aged version. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to cattle calls or paying through the nose, but I’m willing to jump through some hoops for beer this good. I know some folks think bourbon barrel aging has gone too far, and there’s something to be said for harnessing a balance of flavors (which some barrel aged beers emphatically do not accomplish), but I think my tolerance for bourbon/scotch flavors is higher than most. I kinda love these beers. This is something that I imagine will continue to explore through 2012…
• Aging/Cellaring Beer – As evidenced by a few recent posts, I’ve been toying with the concept of aging beer in my basement. Conditions are apparently not entirely ideal down there, but I tend to buy more than I can drink, so sometimes this happens by accident. I intend to cover the subject in more detail in a separate post (including a list of beers I’m currently saving), as it’s an interesting practice.
• Homebrewing – I brewed 5 batches of beer in 2011. This roughly translates to once every 2-3 months and even that has left me with 3-4 cases of beer in my basement. I think my next step is to try making smaller batches more frequently. Speaking of which, I should really get cracking on my next batch!
• The Discovery of Barleywines – I never quite knew what to make of this style, and owing to the extremely high ABV, these aren’t exactly every day beers, but some of my biggest discoveries and surprises this year were barleywines. I don’t expect to go crazy with the style in 2012 – again, very high ABV beers require certain circumstances – but I’ll most definitely be exploring the style a little more in 2012 (and hey, the style often gets the bourbon barrel treatment, so there’s that too!)
• Sour Experimentation – I’ve really only gotten my feet wet with my exploration of sour beers. I’ve enjoyed a lot of what I’ve had, but only one has really knocked my socks off (the Sierra Nevada ExPortation). Expect more exploration in 2012, though I can’t say as though these beers have really captured my imagination the way other styles have.
• Finding my White Whales – When I started this blog, I was a little frustrated by reading about beers I could never find anywhere. Well, somewhere along the way, I started to get a sense for how to find me some white whale beers. My list of beer purveyors has increased significantly over the year, and the ridiculous PLCB rules notwithstanding, Philly is a pretty bitchin beer town.

Well, there you have it. It’s been a great year, filled with a ton of great beers. So great, in fact, that I couldn’t quite bring myself to put together a top 10. I mean, seriously? I wrote somewhere on the order of 170 posts this year, and some of those contained multiple beers (including some with 10+ beers), meaning that I have somwhere on the order of 200-250 beers to choose from. Narrowing the list down to 30 was hard enough. All of the below beers have been reviewed, and I’m linking to each one. They’re all at least an A- on my grading scale, and they’re being listed from best to “worst”, though I’d like to emphasize that the order is relatively fluid in my mind. Some of the beers on the bottom of the list could easily float up towards the middle or even top of the list, depending on my mood… Indeed, I could probably add another dozen beers to the list with no real problem. So take it with a grain of salt and if you want to see more, check out the A- archive.

Bottom line, though, is that these are all exceptional beers in one way or another.

1. Trappistes Rochefort 8 (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)
2. Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special Reserve 40 (Old Ale)
3. Avec Les Bons Voeux de la Brasserie Dupont (Saison)
4. BrewDog and Mikkeller Collaboration: Devine Rebel (Barleywine)
5. Victory V-Twelve (Belgian Specialty Ale)
6. La Trappe Quadrupel (Quadrupel)
7. Ommegang Rare Vos (Belgian Pale Ale)
8. The Bruery Autumn Maple (Belgian Fruit/Vegetable Beer)
9. Ommegang Three Philosophers (Quadrupel)
10. Trappistes Rochefort 6 (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)
11. Iron Hill Kryptonite (Double India Pale Ale)
12. Trappistes Rochefort 10 (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)
13. Victory Dark Intrigue (Imperial Stout)
14. Chimay Grand Reserve (Blue) (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)
15. Sierra Nevada ExPortation (American Wild Ale)
16. Allagash Big Little Beer (Belgian Pale Ale)
17. The Bruery Mischief (Belgian Strong Pale Ale)
18. Cape Ann Fisherman’s Imperial Pumpkin Stout (Pumpkin Ale/Imperial Stout)
19. St. Bernardus Watau Tripel (Tripel)
20. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (Imperial Stout)
21. St. Bernardus Prior 8 (Dubbel)
22. Pretty Things Baby Tree (Quadrupel)
23. Russian River Pliny the Elder (Double India Pale Ale)
24. Uinta Cockeyed Cooper (Barleywine)
25. Lost Abbey The Angel’s Share (American Strong Ale)
26. Lagunitas Hop Stoopid (Double India Pale Ale)
27. Mikkeller I Beat yoU (Double India Pale Ale)
28. La Chouffe (Belgian Strong Pale Ale)
29. Dogfish Head Burton Baton (Double India Pale Ale)
30. Victory Hop Wallop (Double India Pale Ale)

It’s no Beer Samizdat 100, but it’s a start! Hopefully, it will be up to 50-60 beers by next year… In any case, this concludes my 2011 beer wrapup. Still a few more beers to be drunk, and I need to figure out a beer that fits New Years, but I’ll include those in next year’s recap (like I did above with Dupont’s Bon Voux). Here’s to a great 2012.