In Blogs We Trust: Life On Tap

Life on Tap:

El Presidente had the good fortune of meeting a ton of really cool people at the Inaugural Beer Bloggers Conference in Boulder, CO this past November.  Of course at an event like this one, all the attendees have at least one common interest: BEER.  And so pretty much anyone could become an instant drinking buddy.  But Dan (on Tap) Fisher and I seemed to hit it off right away.  Aside from being a really nice guy with a very educated palate, Dan (on Tap) is just a really good dude.  Blogging from the heart of NYC, Dan (on Tap) may even be available for a collaborative blogging event sometime in the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia vicinity.  Here are Dan (on Tap)'s own words:


"Inspired by the folks at The Wicked Good Compound, and encouraged by media personality and friend ScottyJ, I decided to tread into The Podosphere on 7/3/2006.  ”Life On Tap” is just that: my life through my eyes (or rather all my senses) and the appreciation of some of my favorite interests: beer, food, wine, and liquor. There are a tremendous amount of experiences that Sheryl The Drunken Clam Girl and I haven’t had, and we look forward to sharing those with you, the listener. Remember: “Life’s a tap…drink up ’til it’s dry.” "


Hey, it's me again... El Presidente.  Anyway, Life on Tap is an episodic adventure through Dan (on Tap) Fisher's life as a gourmand.  Some of the episodes contain live video reviews, which are short and sharp; the reviews are very informative and receive my recommendation.  So show some love and link up to Life on Tap.  Check it on the website or on Facebook and send us both some feedback.  And look for more sites that are endorsed by yours truly in the upcoming weeks and months.  We the people of the Ferment Nation wish to spread the love and familiarize the citizens with other Blogs We Trust.

Beer Bloggers Conference 2010 Video

Here at The Ferment Nation we say "better late than never" and such is the case with this Beer Bloggers Conference video made by Sean McNeal from Wayward Productions.

Oskar Blues Brewery

The Apocalypse is upon us! The Canned Beer Apocalypse descended upon the world of mortals in November, 2002 when Oskar Blues Brewery first began canning Dale's Pale Ale. But these are not the End Times... Oh no, it's just the beginning!

Many thanks to Allan Wright of Zephyr Adventures, who captained the first ever Beer Bloggers Conference in Boulder, Colorado.  Allan enlisted Oskar Blues as a partner and together they hosted a dinner/tasting/brewery tour party for the participants. The food was home-cooked and perfect fare for tasting some incredible beers. I got to experience some smoked wings, gooey mac-n-cheese, and a sausage hush-puppy kind of meatball that we city folk don't get to sample too frequently. Old Chub Scotch Ale topped off the meal. It's rich and smooth, yet not overpowering, and a hint of smokiness complemented the Southern twist on the meal.

Chad Melis of Oskar Blues guided a group of curious bloggers on a tour of the brewery. We got to see the canning line, the brewing kettles, the cooler, and a particularly happy vat of Dale's Pale Ale. The cooler was an interesting sight to see, since Chad gave us some perspective on the size of Oskar Blues' operation: The cooler that OB uses now to store its beer awaiting shipment is the size of the entire brewery when Oskar Blues began. The growth of the craft brew industry in general has enabled the brewery's growth. More specifically, the quality of Oskar Blues' product as evidenced by the success of Dale's Pale Ale, has fostered a demand for great beer in a really convenient package. The benefits of putting beer in a can are many (including the lockout of light and air, ease of recycling, reduction of shipping-related fuel costs...) and so the canning of craft beers is much more widely accepted nowadays, mostly thanks to the prophets who heralded this Apocalypse way back when.

The Tasty Weasel is the OB tasting room where I got to sample the Old Double Bagger (ODB for short) Barleywine, barrel-aged Ten-Fidy, and a firkin of fresh-hopped Dale's. ODB was a gorgeous barleywine, and big as all get-out, with a tremendous body and slightly citrusy tang. The Ten-Fidy was smooth, boozy, smoky, oaky, and fabulous. The Dale's was simply the ultimate session beer, smooth and malty like Dale's normally is, but with an interesting twist... creamy and a little brighter than normal, with the fresh hops peeking through the mellow maltiness. Pub-style flavor that couldn't possibly get any fresher.

The passion for beer is evident in the perennial offerings as well as the experimental freestylings of Oskar Blues. And the hospitality was greatly appreciated as well. Thanks, Oskar Blues, for a memorable evening! Cheers!

By the way, check out FermentNation's Oskar Blues Roundup, where you can see El Presidente's reviews of Dale's, Gubna, Old Chub, and Gordon. Email us your pics and reviews as well!

The Cherry Cricket

Hello All,

Got a chance to catch up with an old friend here in the Cherry Creek area of Denver. Brendan is a good friend from the Zahm Hall days of Notre Dame. Great to see you, Mig!

We had a few brews and a burger at Duffy's Cherry Cricket. It's a cool place with a downhome vibe.

The burgers are pretty famous, and for good reason. The Cricket Burger was quite tasty, complete with green chiles and a slice of avocado. I got to have some brews I don't normally get on tap like Great Divide's Titan IPA and Oskar Blues' Mama's Little Yella Pils. Also on tap was the Mile HIPA from Wynkoop Brewing. Really nice IPA with pretty aggressive hop flavor, decorating a malty base. Not sweet, though. Hoppy and awesome.

Well, I'm off to a good start here in Colorado. Stay tuned for more minute-by minute updates and some more refined posting after the weekend is in the books. Cheers!

Beer Bloggers Conference BYOB

Goodness Gracious! There was a ree-diculous amount of beer at the Conference's BYOB event.

I'm not even going to attempt to put all the individual pics here now, but keep your eyes peeled for a slide show coming up soon. The show-stealers were the highly sought-after Brew Dog assassins, one of which is called Sink the Bismarck ( 41% abv... that's not a typo)

One of my fellow bloggers used some descriptive words to describe the flavor of Sink the Bismarck... burning lemons. I immediately agreed.


Then there's the world's strongest beer: Brew Dog's End of History. It's bottled in 7 oz. rations and wrapped in roadkill. Yeah, I said roadkill. The particular vintage that I got to try was sitting inside a stoat. Don't believe me? Check out the proof.





This inhuman concoction tasted a little more like whiskey. It burned going down, but that's to be expected at 110 proof! Actually, it tasted a little better than Sink the Bismarck. I can't very accurately describe the flavor, since I only had the teeniest sip, but suffice it to say that it's a little over-hyped in terms of quality, but certainly not in extremity! Definitely worth putting to your lips, just to say that you've done so.


Now the award for El Presidente's Personal Butt-Kicker is Erik Peterson from the Bull & Bush Pub and Brewery. Not only did the Presidential Motorcade spend Thursday afternoon checking out the B&B's fine fare, but Erik was a part of the Beer Bloggers Conference's Night of Many Bottles. He brought some serious stuff, including a 1.5L bottle of Chimay Grande Reserve brewed in honor of the Millenium changeover in 1999. Unbelievably smooth, with subtle notes of dried fruits like raisins, figs, and dates, it retailed for $61.00 on the Vintage Bottle list at the Pub, but we got to sample it for free! And I might add that all the tasters were quite generous and willing to share sips of stuff that had been just about drained. Here's a picture of the Chimay:





Erik was also responsible for bringing my two personal favorite brews of the night: the Royal Oil Barleywine (10% abv), a sweeter treat than most barleywines, with flavors like coconut and vanilla coming through by virtue of the oak aging. Slightly floral as well due to masterful hopping, Royal Oil reminded me ever so slightly of Stone's Old Guardian, but it seemed more complex and a bit richer than the Stone. Will that happen every batch? I guess I'll just have to go back to the Denver area to find out.



And I love a good rye ale, like Dock Street's Rye IPA, Founders Red's Rye, Terrapin Rye and Rye Squared, et al. But Bull & Bush's Pimp My Rye, a Rye Wine with claws, was a resounding success and overwhelms the rye field wtih flavor that can kill a man. Pimp My Rye weighs in at about 11% abv.







The finishing touches to a great event came when the party dispersed into various rooms after hours. El Presidente got to chill with Eli and Erik from Beertap TV, Dan from Life on Tap, and the 2beerguys guys, as well as assorted other chilled-out folks who needed (or didn't need, in my case) a few extra beers to cap off the night. I had brought Victory Hop Wallop for my fellow bloggers to try, and the stash made it onto the BBC's photo coverage! Check out beerbloggersconference.org for a recap of the events and some cool announcements!



Thanks again to Allan Wright and everyone at Zephyr Adventures who made this event possible! Be sure to keep checking back throughout the next week or two for follow-up posts and slideshows that will help bring the event together. Next year's event may possibly be in Portland, Oregon... sign me up!

Dinner at Boulder

So who wants a tour of Boulder Beer? I do, I do!

Here are just a few pics of the awesome brewery tour we took of Boulder Beer Company. Started in a goatshed back in 1979, Boulder Beer has come a long way in terms of technology, however there is a serious old-school flavor when it comes to the workings of the brewery and real old-school hospitality from the folks. Here's Danger Dan Weitz, Marketing Tool of Boulder Beer giving us a guided tour:

Dan is the guy in the middle wielding the inside of a keg like a nightstick. We got to see the bottling line as well:

Here's an interesting fact: Boulder ran an experiment with Hazed and Infused, putting canned H&I into accounts that already served it up in bottles. Did the can sales eat into the bottle sales? No! So Boulder's tiny two-at-a-time canning line is soon to be replaced and Hazed and Infused is going national in cans coming right up!!

So thanks to the Beer Bloggers Conference 2010 and the generosity of the folks at Boulder Beer Company, we had an awesome time with good people, food, and um.... Beer. Cheers!

Boulder Beer David Zuckerman

Hello Citizens,

Let's DO IT LIVE!!

Just in case the audio didn't come out so good, this guy on your right is David Zuckerman, Brewmaster of Boulder Beer. Apparently, he is the new "Seargente" of the Ferment Nation. Cheers!

And, check out what posts we have on Boulder Beer Company's beers!

Beer Bloggers Conference 2010 in Boulder, CO

Whew!!!

Trying to blog with a beer in your hand is tough business but only the strong survive...

The First Ever Beer Bloggers Conference is off to a rousing start!! Yesterday's events were extremely well-organized and very helpful in helping El Presidente to look at Ferment Nation with new eyes. I learned a lot from the speakers and met some awesome fellow bloggers. Keep your eyes open for some improvements on our site as well as many more links, guest-written articles and collaborations!!!

By the way, did I tell anyone that we were going to Oskar Blues?!

Yes, Citizens, the Apocalypse has arrived.

Hello From Denver, CO

Hello, Dear Citizens!

El Presidente here with some pre-conference beer adventures... Bull & BushPub and Brewery in Denver, Colorado has a lot to offer. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to take it all in but I can offer at least a sampling of their fine fare.

The burgers were amazing, as was the mashed potatoes and green chili... but we really went for the beers. The Man Beer was a nice reddish-coppery IPA with pretty solid malt skeleton and some hoppy jazz to bitter up the brew. Cask-conditioned, it was huge on body and chill on flavor, while the regular tap version was a bit more flavorful and more on the crisp side.

The Ghoul Fuel Pumpkin ale was smooth and pumpkinny at 8% abv and super drinkable!

We also ordered from the Vintage Beer menu. What's that you say? Sounds like a private reserve just for El Presidente. Well, I couldn't pass it up. Since I happen to be in Colorado, I tried the Avery Brabant, a barrel-aged wild ale with a zinfandel kick. Check for a Presidential Brief on that one. Very tasty.

Wish I could go back, but I guess only time will tell. Til then, if you're in Denver, check out the Bull & Bush. It's an old world style pub with awesome beers and food to match!