That's Odd, Let's Drink It - S2 Episode 2

Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione heads to Oklahoma City to celebrate Record Store Day and craft beer with indie-rock legends The Flaming Lips. In addition to tasting a couple extra-special collaboration brews, Sam and lead singer Wayne Coyne discuss their own offbeat collaboration called Dragons & Yum Yums—a tropical pale ale packed with dragonfruit, yumberry, passionfruit, and black carrot juice. With the ingredients of the beer as his muse, Coyne wrote lyrics for a special release called "The Story of Yum Yum and Dragon," pressed into super-limited vinyl records injected with the beer itself. There's music in the beer, and beer in the music...literally.

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First We Feast videos offer an iconoclastic view into the culinary world, taking you behind-the-scenes with some of the country's best chefs and finding the unexpected places where food and pop culture intersect.

Oskar Blues Announces Large Format (15-pack) Canundrum Mix-Pack

Oskar Blues Large Format Packages are up Over 100% From 2017

LONGMONT, CO, AUG 22, 2018 - The Oskar Blues Brewery CANundrum variety pack, previously presented as a 12-pack, is now available as a 15-er dream team of the brewery's best core offerings. Oskar Blues provides more diversity to the beer drinker with the new format, which will be distributed nationwide starting Sept. 1. Oskar Blues is one of only five craft breweries in the U.S. to release a mixed 15-pack.

Oskar Blues Brewery has crammed five straight-shooting brews into one box. So what’s inside?

•     Dale’s Pale Ale
•     Mama’s Little Yella Pils
•     Pinner Throwback IPA
•     Oskar Blues IPA
•     G’Knight Imperial Red IPA (in a mixed pack for the first time)

Dale’s Pale Ale, the voluminously hopped mutha and #2 selling craft six-pack in U.S. Grocery, plays centre. This pack’s power forward is Mama’s Little Yella Pils, a true-to-the-style, uncompromising pilsner brewed with pilsner malt and Saaz and Aramis hops. Pinner Throwback IPA rocks the small forward position with citrusy, tropical fruit notes and a biscuity finish at an incredibly crushable 4.9% ABV. Playing shooting guard is OB IPA, a metamodern IPA crafted from hand-selected Australian hops. Rounding out the lineup is G’Knight Imperial Red Ale at point guard.

The U.S. Open Beer Championship recently honored G’Knight Imperial Red IPA with a gold medal in the Imperial Red IPA category. Up 121% in 2018, this monstrously malted, sadistically smooth and well-balanced beer is America’s Velvet M-80. G’Knight is an OG Oskar Blues beer brewed and named in honor of a real life American hero, Gordon Knight. Knight was a Colorado craft beer legend, decorated Vietnam vet and Purple Heart recipient who lost his life in a helicopter crash while fighting a wildfire outside of Oskar Blues’ birthplace of Lyons, CO.

The 15-pack offers more of what today’s craft drinker demands – variety. That desire is demonstrated by 32.6% growth YTD in mixed can packs. Additionally, many of the “Impact Brands” identified by the BA in 2017 were mixed pack offerings, demonstrated by the success of the Oskar Blues shrink-wrapped CANundrum 24 multi-pack with packaging engineered by The Dow Chemical Company, which is up over 400% YTD.

Oskar Blues’ CANundrum is the choicest choice you don’t have to make. Why pick one Oskar Blues beer when you can have ‘em all? Play to win and find a 15-pack CANundrum near you using the beerfinder.

About Oskar Blues Brewery:
 
Founded over 20 years ago in Lyons, Colorado, Oskar Blues Brewery launched the craft beer-in-a-can apocalypse with their hand-canned flagship brew, Dale's Pale Ale. Today, Oskar Blues operates breweries in Colorado, North Carolina and Texas while reaching 200,000 barrels per year and featuring Dale’s Pale Ale as the nation's top-selling craft can six-pack at U.S. supermarkets. The makers of the Original Craft Beer in a Can continue to innovate with creations like The CROWLER, Hotbox Roasters, B. Stiff & Sons Old Fashioned Sodas, The Oak Room, Oskar Blues Fooderies, REEB Cycles and the cycling-inspired accommodations and event space at REEB Ranch in North Carolina. Oskar Blues is available in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., parts of Canada, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, The U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Brazil, and South Korea. Along with Cigar City Brewing, Perrin Brewing, Squatters Craft Beers and Wasatch Brewery, Deep Ellum Brewing and Three Weavers Brewing, Oskar Blues Brewery belongs to a disruptive collective of like-minded craft brewers known as CANarchy, the largest canned craft beer supplier in the country.

To keep up with all things Oskar Blues, visit http://www.oskarblues.com/.

Brewery Visits for 2018 (so far)

So last year I made it out to 54 breweries in all and I figured that although I wasn't really shooting for that number in 2018, I'd probably be close to it again with all the road trips my wife and I do. So with the year over halfway over I took a look at how many I'd hit so far and of course I'm over halfway to that number, with 32 breweries visited so far. Some of these I've been to many times, some are new to me and several are ones I'd been wanting to get to for quite some time.

A few highlights:

I was fortunate enough to go to Sweetwater 420Fest in Atlanta this year and got to visit the Sweetwater brewery and also The Woodlands, their barrel-aging facility. Huge operation they've got going with some fantastic brews. Wish I'd have been able to visit more Atlanta breweries, but it was an awesome weekend.

Also knocked one off the ole bucket list, finally making it to Jester King just outside of Austin, TX, for a wonderful visit. It was everything I thought it would be and more. Amazing beer, great people and a really cool facility. Austin has tons of breweries and we only made it to a few. Looking forward to getting back to that city.

Got up to Springfield, Mo and hit one of my favorite breweries, Mother's Brewing, for my birthday weekend. New breweries popping up there regularly. Also made it to Springfield Brewing Company and Lost Signal plus Brick & Forge in Harrison, AR on the way home. Cool quick trip. 

My first trip every over to Oklahoma City allowed me to visit quite a few breweries I'd never been to before, so that was cool. A great beer scene is "brewing" over there. See what I did? Ha.

So anyway, here's the current list for 2018...

Abita Brew Pub Abita Springs, LA Anthem Brewing Co. Oklahoma City, OK Blue Canoe Brewing Co. Little Rock, AR Blue Owl Brewing Austin, TX Brick + Forge Harrison, AR Bricktown Brewery Oklahoma City, OK Brieux Carre Brewing Co. New Orleans, LA Coop Ale Works Oklahoma City, OK Courtyard Brewery New Orleans, LA Flyway North Little Rock, AR Fort Smith Brewing Co. Fort Smith, AR Great Raft Shreveport, LA Independence Austin, TX Jester King Austin, TX Lost Forty Little Rock, AR Lost Signal Springfield, Mo Mother's Brewing Co. Springfield, Mo NOLA Brewing New Orleans, LA Port Orleans New Orleans, LA Prairie OKC Oklahoma City, OK Prestonrose Farm & Brewery Paris, AR Rebel Kettle Brewing Co. Little Rock, AR Rough Tail Brewing Co. Oklahoma City, OK Springfield Brewing Co. Springfield, Mo SQZBX Brewery Hot Springs, AR STATS Brewpub Atlanta, GA Stone's Throw Brewing Little Rock, AR Superior Bathhouse Brewing Hot Springs, AR Sweetwater Atlanta, GA Twisted Spike Oklahoma City, OK Urban South New Orleans, LA Vinos Brewpub Little Rock, AR

Ballast Point White Wine Barrel Aged Sour Wench

My God this new release from the bad asses at Ballast Point sounds amazing. I'm digging most of these wine "inspired" (related?) beers that breweries are doing lately.

Ballast Point: "After years of exploring a variety of oak barrels and beer styles, we’ve decided to bottle a few of our favorites. Named after the site of our barrel-aging cellar, our Trade St. Collection celebrates the deep and distinctive flavors of barrel-aged beers. 

 

Our newest release in this series is a White Wine Barrel Aged Sour Wench, available in 4pk bottles. After resting in both chardonnay and sauvignon blanc barrels for over six months, our Sour Wench emerges with aromas of freshly sliced white peach, citrus, woody oak tannins and rich vanilla. Within every sip you’ll taste hints of crushed berries and ripe apricots with a deliciously buttery smoothness from the chardonnay barrels, while finishing dry from the sauvignon blanc. Easy-drinking for a barrel-aged beer, it’s tart, refreshing, and delightfully smooth."

 

Tank Tested: the Original Sierra Nevada Brewhouse

Ken and Terence hit the road to pick up Ken's original brewhouse.  

Tap Time Radio August 6th, 2018

Check out last night's Tap Time on 103.7 The Buzz with guest John Lee from Rebel Kettle Brewing in Little Rock as we talk about their new beers, expansion and the effects of social media on breweries all while drinking some of their upcoming bottle release, Fuzzy Dice.