365 Days, 365 Beers

Over a year ago, Austin Sherwood, the beer buyer and general manager at Coaltrain Wine & Spirits, told me that he was inspired to try a new beer every day for an entire year. He documented his journey on Instagram at @asherwoo24 with weekly photos of the beers he drank. I gotta say that as the weeks went on, I was not only impressed, but downright jealous of some of the beers he was able to try. It looks like he had a blast. As the last couple photos were being posted, we asked Austin if he'd like to share his journey with our readers. Here's his story.

The journey is complete. It was fun and educational.

So why did I do it?

Cold Nights Call for Boozy Beers

I've been checking the weather report to compare the temperature in Portland to Colorado Springs. While Oregon has been seeing snow and ice, the temperatures haven't fallen below 0 or anything like that. The other night, while it was snowing, I had a fire going in the fireplace, I turned on the sci/fi horror movie "Grabbers," and also decided that it was time to open up one of my favorite beers - the Phantom Canyon Winston Smith's Barleywine.

Cellarmanship: Interview with Avery Brewing's Matt Thrall and Andy Parker

Cellarmanship - Interview with Avery Brewing's Andy Parker and Matt Thrall from Focus on the Beer on Vimeo.

Continuing our Cellarmanship series, about the joys and how-to of storing and aging your beer at home, we interviewed the brewers at Avery Brewing Co. in Boulder. Matt Thrall is Avery's head brewer and Andy Parker is the head of their barrel program. Avery's barrel program has brought us some spectacular beers including, but not limited to, Rumpkin, Uncle Jacob's Stout, Brabant, Immitis, and Muscat D'Amor. Avery's non-barrel aged beers are also delicious, you may have heard of some of these: Hog Heaven, DuganA, Mephistopheles, Samael's, The Czar, The Reverend, and  Maharaja to name a few.

In this interview we talk to Andy and Matt about the joys of drinking beer fresh. We talk about off-flavors and oxygenation in aged beer, especially Trans 2 Nonenal which imparts cardboard flavors in addition to sherry and port flavors. We open up a vertical of Avery's Hog Heaven (and Mephistopheles for a later video). You might be surprised by some of the things they say about aging your beer at home. Also check out our previous interview with Eric and Lauren Salazar, of New Belgium, for more on the topic.

Collecting Beer is a form of Subconscious Art

Warning - this post goes down multiple layers of large rabbit trails. I've attempted to make it relevant to beer drinkers, but I think most of its relevance lies in artistic expression and life in general, as it's more of a philosophical pondering. Hopefully our readers will appreciate the small departure. To be honest I'm not sure the post has any real point, it's just a written account of something that's been going on in my brain the last few days.  :)

Recently we've written a number of articles on aging beer in your personal cellar, and so this topic has been on my mind a lot. I also just started teaching again after the winter break. One of the classes asks students to look at some of the more symbolic forms of creativity that go on from a day-to-day basis. All of a sudden these two worlds (art and beer) conceptually collided, as they will occasionally, and it hit me that collecting beer, storing it away, making cellaring space in your basement is certainly a form of artistic expression. Perhaps the collector has not thought of what they do in these terms but I'd like to explain where my head is at here, and I have to go on a tangent or two to make sense of it.

In 2009 my wife and I went on a 10,000 mile road trip. We started in Portland, drove to Michigan and then up into Canada, cross country to the Yukon Territory before heading into Alaska and then back down the Canadian coastline. In the Yukon we had the opportunity to try to drive up to the Arctic Circle but after a couple hours we were afraid our little car wasn't going to be able to handle it. We decided to stop, so we got out of the car and went on a little walk in the sub-arctic tundra. I grabbed a twig off one of the plants as a memento and the little branch has sat in the windshield of our car ever since. At first the twig was purple, green, orange, and red but overtime it turned brown, and is now quite frail. I kept it in the car because every time I look at it I think about that three-month period of my life, looking back it is my favorite time. About a year ago my wife asked me if we could get rid of the branch because, frankly, it's getting old, messy, and it's not really that pretty any more. I said No Way, there's no chance in hell that I'm getting rid of that plant, it reminds me of some of the best times ever, how could we get rid of that!

Pikes Peak Brewing's Barrel Room

Monday night was a great night in Monument. We headed north to visit Pikes Peak Brewing for Monument Beer Week and the grand opening of the Barrel Room. When we first got their the place was packed and we stuck around long enough to talk briefly with Chris Wright and to enjoy a few beers. This was perhaps one of the most memorable beer nights of memory as we were celebrating what should prove to be a top-notch space where beer is presented as art.

The brewery celebrated this grand opening by bringing in all sorts of barrel aged beers, ranging from the biggest dark Russian Imperial Stouts in bourbon barrels to soft and delicate sour and Brett beers. We bought a bottle of Crooked Stave's Batch 01, which was their first brew aged for a while with raspberries, and I also had an oak aged Ten Fidy from Oskar Blues. Other highlights included The Bruery's Oud Bruin, the Scaldis Prestige, Jolly Pumpkin, AC Golden, and many many others.