Batchelors Delight (Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery)

Normally in this crowd, you saw pirate party and we say fuck yes! Well it didn't work out for us to go in a huge group, dressed up as planned. I am still trying to figure out how the schedule to get the baby and life squared away so we can still do things. You know coordinate with other adults and enjoy each others company. Well between feedings, the wife and I ran out to Goochland for the festivities. We each had a beer, and I bought two bottles. If you want to get your hands on one I'm sure we can work out a trade. If you are going to the cabin weekend in October, this will be a part of the barrel aged extravaganza that weekend. 

I have taken the picture below or a very similar picture every time I have a beer at this place that I really enjoy. The third barrel release from Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery, Batchelors Delight, was a delicious rum barrel aged quad. It was another home run, on the heels of despot and the barrel aged tripel. I am so happy for Lickinghole to be getting some beers bottled that people swarm to try and buy. The trading value of these bottles has quickly gone through the roof, good job boys and Lisa. If you have come to town and gone to all of the breweries right around the city limits, please take the time to get out to this beautiful property. I am a little tired of the drive at the moment, but I was prepared to head out there tomorrow to assist in the disc golf course construction. The plans for that have been temporarily put on hold. The county of Goochland or more likely some of the miserable citizens have shut it down.  

I guess a few tasting notes or opinions would be appropriate. It had a suede like mouth feel, that expressed slight heat, or alcohol burn. It was few easy to drink, and the flavor was balanced between the dark fruit of a Belgian quad and the spiced rum. Who ever taste tested this beer while aging nailed it. It was too hot in the field to really drink this all in, but by fall this beer is going to be perfect. Please do this beer and event again.

Gose (Westbrook Brewing Company)

You can always depend on, the kindness of strangers . . . . Or at least I was able to be cordial enough with a co-worker to receive the bad ass gift of this beer. If you aren't aware, I am not a big fan of the session IPA. I feel cheated by session IPAs. They are not as full in flavor and they are just as expensive as their full blown counter part. I racked my brain for what to drink this summer. I heard a podcast that reviewed Leipzig gose, the original from Germany. It just clicked, light, sour, salty and delicious at a extremely low serving temperature. I will hunt for the gose and try them all this summer. My next step was to figure out what was available in our market, so I did a search in total wine. Leipzig showed up, and Anderson Valley. No one had seen or taken delivery of these in years. . . . Shit!

After my revelation and disappointment, I returned to the warehouse determined to get a gose in my mouth. I cornered the unicorn and prodded him for information. I even suggested that maybe Strangeways or The Answer Brewpub make one. I found troublesome from pretty little things, then Anderson Valley released theirs, and a wine shop turned up some Leipzig bottles. Things were looking up, the pics of the Westbrook Gose began to assault my social media feeds. Then David Hetzel blessed me with a 6 pack which I shared. Shortly there after Stillwater released gose gone wild and Strangeways announced the release of wake me up before you gose. Westbrook was still my favorite, the fullest mouth feel, and flavor. I am still on the hunt for gose, if you have any not listed here send them on. 

To help with some of the dribble you may hear in regards to this beer.

Gueze = French word, Belgian beer, very tart and sour. Pronounced Gooooo-z

Gose = German word and beer, sour and salty. Pronounced Goes-A

It is an old German style brewed with salt water. It is a wheat beer with some lactic souring, and is spiced with coriander and hops. 

http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Gose.html

HA$H (Sweetwater Brewing Company)

I am not trying to deny the fact that IPA's and any beer that gets the majority of its flavor profile from hops should be consumed immediately. I had heard about this beer but the distributor to the north that handles Sweet Water had a hard time getting this into the market in a timely fashion. I finally found it though. I had seen reviews about how dank and hoppy this beer was and I was drooling at the opportunity.  Sweet Water beers have not been on my radar since the first time I had one, but I was curious to try this project. It was definitely an east coast IPA, but it pushed the limits of taste and time. 

East Coast IPA: An India Pale Ale that reflects the taste of beer drinkers on the east coast. Nose is normally piny, citrus or floral yet the malt finish of the beer is usually sweet. West Coast IPA's are generally dry in finish, not as sweet. Why does the style differ coast to coast? You got me jack  . .

I have a friend with family ties in the brewery that knew more about what was going on with this series. Hash is a play on words, here it represents the hop shake and its similar appearance to the shake left in a bag of weed. Well maybe not directly that but they had to be smooth with the name for label approval. Apparently someone at Sweet Water went to the hop supplier and noticed the cast aside tiny particles of hops. These tiny bits are usually discarded as not being worth the trouble. The sprinklings are any number of hops in unknown amounts which potentially could create unrepeatable greatness. Sounds like a bunch of shit to me from a consumer end, but for the business of making profits and marketing beer, genius. Look out for the next rendition http://sweetwaterbrew.com/