best beers of NHC 2011

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Date Rape Melomel

In fact a lot of the stuff made by mr Anderson in Coachella Balley Homebrewers.

He had some 2006 lambics and some meads that were by far my favorites. No offense to CHUG or ASH. But this guy is a machine.
 
carnevoodo's pale ale was down right amazing....for such a more or less simple style, it was notches above the other APAs I tasted.

And Sacchromyces' serano and coconut mead was really great!

:mug:
 
AZ_IPA said:
carnevoodo's pale ale was down right amazing....for such a more or less simple style, it was notches above the other APAs I tasted.

And Sacchromyces' serano and coconut mead was really great!

:mug:

Yeah that pale was amazing!
 
Date Rape Melomel

In fact a lot of the stuff made by mr Anderson in Coachella Balley Homebrewers.

He had some 2006 lambics and some meads that were by far my favorites. No offense to CHUG or ASH. But this guy is a machine.

No offense taken at all! You like what you like!
 
i saw some surprising beers tweeted a lot, like i think i saw a peanut butter stout tweeted a number of times the first day
 
I wasnt blown away by any of the homebrews I tasted this year from what I remember anyway, not that there were many bad ones just none that were out and out amazing. Maybe a couple Saisons that were inspiring. Sopers Watermelon Wit tastes like a Jolly Rancher.

The bottle of Lost Abbey Cable Car was amazing and in my opinion worth the proce tag if you ever fnd yourself in a Toronado. I was pleasantly surprised by the Bruery Trade Winds too.
 
And Sacchromyces' serano and coconut mead was really great!

Yeah, really cool stuff.

Sopers Watermelon Wit tastes like a Jolly Rancher.

What I really liked about that beer though was that the taste said watermelon too me. I enjoy the Hell or High Watermelon from 21a, but sometimes it tastes more like a cucumber flavor. Soper's was a clear watermelon taste and I liked that a lot.
 
People had beer there other than CHUG? Hmmm... must have missed that.

I really loved the Ovila Dubbel during the Sacred Stones seminar, but that is obvious. The Belgian beers that Tom Nickel brought for his talk were great. I don't recall the first, but I'm fairly sure the second was Maulher 10 and then Le Trappe Q. I had plenty of delicious beer on pro-night

I had a great Kriek at...? the booth in the back corner during club night. All beers I tried from the HBT members were at least perfectly drinkable :) Other than that I stuck with our booth at club night mostly because I was having fun serving! carnevoodoo's imperial red rye was tasty, bsquared's sour brown was a big hit, as well as his English IPA on the beer engine.
 
The peanut butter stout was very good. I had a Doze IPA with Citra that gave me ideas for all those free Citra hops they were handing out. There was a smoked chili-pepper wheat beer that I had a few tastes of over the night. I had the Date Rape melomel, it was very good. Ken Shramm had some great mead in his mead lecture. Also, there was a ginger wit that I had in the Homebrew Planet lecture that was great.
 
There was a belgian strong aged in a chardonnay barrel from temecula valley brewers that was quite memorable. Also the Sierra Nevada Ovila dubble, and Kelsey's iiipa was really good.
 
Hey, just a heads up, while I was waiting in the massive line for the awards banquet I overhead a couple people mentioning your club's beers very positively. That English IPA I had from the hand pump was quite good! :rockin:

Thanks, we had a fair number of people pass us at random times on Saturday and pay compliments too. I agree with you on bsquared's cask IPA, that thing was delicious. I really want to try my mild on that thing sometime.
 
Any time. We should try to set up a real ale party some time this summer. I want to try out that pin I picked from norternbrewer. Thanks for the complement shooter. I was happy that beer was ready in time.
 
Any time. We should try to set up a real ale party some time this summer. I want to try out that pin I picked from norternbrewer. Thanks for the complement shooter. I was happy that beer was ready in time.

Ooo, that would be fun! Now back to talking about NHC beers.
 
Best Commercial Beer - Stone's Double Black IPA (or at least I think that's what was being poured for the mayor's toast)
Best Homebrewed Beer - a Flander's Red, I believe the dude's name was Mark Emily from Seattle.
Most Overrated Beer - Janet's Brown Ale (sorry it just doesn't do anything for me and gets way too much attention).
Most Underrated Beer - all the sessionable ales (wheats, Saisons, Bitters, etc.). I was all 'hopped-out' after Pro Night.
 
I had too many to remember, so I'm sure I'll leave some out that I had.

thesanch's oak aged porter
Gremlyn1's mild
Saccharomyces' Serrano Coconut mead
weirdboy's IIIPA (yes, 3 I's)
humann_brewing's Imperial Stout (or porter? club night was a blur)
tedski's mead
AZ_IPA's meads
??? someone's consecration clone (speak up)
something being poured at club night from carnevoodoo (was this the pale?)
.... it gets vague after that so sorry if I left someone out.

Dang, I remember drinking lots of meads. Seems like twice a day there was a spontaneous HBT mead tasting gathering.
 
I forgot to mention, I was really impressed with sacc's 22 day old meads.

I would be very interested in a post detailing the process used from start to finish.
 
I really liked a lot of the beers I tried and also had some ones that I couldn't stand, but for the homebrews, I really liked a rye pepper pale ale from one of the Ann Arbor, MI clubs and the ESB from Brewmeister's Anonymous. Can't remember anymore that stand out, but we had already hit 5 breweries that afternoon...

At Pro Brewer's night I enjoyed the Coconut Curry Porter that was the Pro-Am for Ballast Point and also the IPA with habanero in it (I believe it was the Sculpin with that infused into it).

Out of all of the local breweries/micros that we checked out, overall I'd have to say that I liked the offerings from Alpine Brewing Co. overall the most, as they had a lot of great beers that I enjoyed like their Irish Red, the Duet IPA and even the Mandarin Nectar Honey Ale. To add to it, they had a killer barrel aged barleywine! As always Port was great as well as AleSmith and GreenFlash was consistent.
 
We stopped at Lost Abbey/Port Brewing and had an amazing sour, soured with raspberries, can't remember the name but a 375ml bottle costs like $20 and we had our fair share. A great place too, their Mongo IIPA is awesome too.
 
Some of my club members hit up Alpine and were commenting on how good it was.

Yeah, it was nice and kind of reminded me of an old sodashop or diner... Also, they supposedly have great BBQ, which we didn't get to try, but did have their battered and fried pickles and green beans (which were awesome).
 
We stopped at Lost Abbey/Port Brewing and had an amazing sour, soured with raspberries, can't remember the name but a 375ml bottle costs like $20 and we had our fair share. A great place too, their Mongo IIPA is awesome too.

Framboise de Ambrosia is the LA Raspberry sour. It was $15, I bought 4.

Cable Car at Toronado was awesome, I think someone else called that out.

Alpine was the positive commercial surprise of the trip. Not since my first PtE have I had something which that much hype that lived up. They understand how to make hoppy beers, period.

That peanut butter stout was the winner for me for "homebrew that sounded horrible but I tried it anyway and it was really good".

Well that and the Olive Wheat Beer that won category 21, but I had to drink that because I was judging. It was awesome (as was the second place Jalapeno IPA which an HBT member entered).

I hate to be a groupie but Ken Schramm's Mead was the club night best for me.
 
We stopped at Lost Abbey/Port Brewing and had an amazing sour, soured with raspberries, can't remember the name but a 375ml bottle costs like $20 and we had our fair share. A great place too, their Mongo IIPA is awesome too.

Yeah, their mongo is really good! That reminds me, I found this place before we left town called Pubcakes and we had to hit it; check out their I can't believe it's not mango cupcake that has mongo in it - http://pubcakes.com/PubCakes/Flavors.html . I'm vegan, so got the Punkin' vegan, but my buddies got one of each flavor, so will look forward to hearing what they thought, but mine was so flavorful and good; how can you go wrong with something that has Old Stock in it?
 
Also, they supposedly have great BBQ

.....

It's far better than average for the West Coast. Does not compare well to average Carolina/Memphis/KC/Texas 'cue though. Definitely good food. My wife's BLAT was outstanding. Great bread, great tomatoes (in June? gotta love California), great bacon.
 
Well that and the Olive Wheat Beer that won category 21, but I had to drink that because I was judging. It was awesome (as was the second place Jalapeno IPA which an HBT member entered).

Was that with salted brined green olives? Because when we saw that come up on the screen our entire club/table turned to each other and said WTF?!?!?:D
 
Framboise de Ambrosia is the LA Raspberry sour. It was $15, I bought 4.
.

that was it, amazing stuff, I am on a quest to make a beer like that now

can anyone point me in the right direction?

Yeah, their mongo is really good! That reminds me, I found this place before we left town called Pubcakes and we had to hit it; check out their I can't believe it's not mango cupcake that has mongo in it - http://pubcakes.com/PubCakes/Flavors.html . I'm vegan, so got the Punkin' vegan, but my buddies got one of each flavor, so will look forward to hearing what they thought, but mine was so flavorful and good; how can you go wrong with something that has Old Stock in it?

sounds interesting

I got a taste of that. It was good...really good.

Soperbrew's IPA in the hospitality booth on Friday was awesome.

yes, I didn't really consider myself a mead guy before this trip but man there was some good ones including the prickly pear and even Saccharomyces 24 day old Serrano and coconut one was great!
 
Cape_Brewing's Consecration clone was quite memorable because NORAD is still tracking the cork. I don't know if I have ever seen a beer that carbonated in my life. :cross:

PTN's U1 clone sucked as much as I anticipated it would (0% suck coefficient, in fact). :mug: I had very few homebrews during the conference, since there was so much great mead around. The sour brown at the CHUG booth I think took the prize for best homebrew. The 2003 Alaskan Smoked Porter was un-freakin-believable, and the Tupelo sack mead from Moonlight Meadery was so good I ordered a 60# bucket of Tupelo honey that should be in later this week... I'm going to make a 1.120 sack mead with D-47 and transfer it to my Rumble barrel to age for six months. I will bring some to next years NHC in Seattle. :rockin:

I forgot to mention, I was really impressed with sacc's 22 day old meads.

I would be very interested in a post detailing the process used from start to finish.

I posted the details in AZ_IPA's thread over in the mead forum. Once I get that base mead dialed in I will add it to my dropdown.
 
The 2003 Alaskan Smoked Porter was un-freakin-believable, and the Tupelo sack mead from Moonlight Meadery was so good I ordered a 60# bucket of Tupelo honey that should be in later this week... I'm going to make a 1.120 sack mead with D-47 and transfer it to my Rumble barrel to age for six months. I will bring some to next years NHC in Seattle. :rockin:

.

now I'm really mad I didn't go to the smoked beer and mead lectures :(
 
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