Long overdue recap... I hopped in my car and drove down to LA early Friday morning (BCBS hunting on the way) and did Pizza Port's Strong Ales Fest Sat (I should have gone to Hangar 24 instead). The previous night in the 8th hour of Eclipse, I apparently had put in just enough work to black out only for 20-30 minutes: Long enough to throw up (for the first time in 3-4 years) outside and then come back to and ask "Who puked?"
DOTU: "You did"
^Thank you very much for handling the phone dialing to ensure a ride for me.
Arbitrator is the ******* man. Dude hooked it up with a face ticket. Plus he hates HUSMC? most.
Rau71 thanks a bunch for the shares. Gillian definitely exceeded my expectations
Other fun facts on the evening: I opened a Flora and whored that bitch all around, forgetting to give myself a pour. Did the same thing with Belmont 14 (I think) later in the evening <- I'll probably never know what that one tastes like now.
They (stupidly, IMO) didn't put it on tap until 2 hours in, so I'm not confident that I have a good handle on it. However, from that taste I was disappointed. It seemed a bit bitter for me, like it needs some time to mellow out.
I'll probably open one sometime soon so we'll see if it's different out of the bottle and on a fresh palate.
The dinner Wednesday really impressed me with how well some of the older Eclipses held up. Some 3-4 year old variants seemed to just be hitting their peak. Highlights were EC20
Reserve and '10 Annularity - amazingly light and lots of apricots.... in a barleywine. I really hope they bottle a bunch of Annularity next year.
It's my opinion that quite possibly everything at the party was head & shoulders better on draft than out of the bottle. Pappy was sweet & its complexity was really tightly woven together. Most interesting to note is this weird cold gunbarrel (for lack of a better description) characteristic. Draft High West Rye Eclipse and High West Rye & Bourbon Scotch Ale had this going on too IMO. Rum was pretty disappointing for me, I could have been told it was a bourbon barrel and wouldn't have thought twice. Four Roses is handily my favorite from this year's core class, as has been every year it's been in the lineup in the past. Most consistent(ly awesome) barrel IMO. The Conundrum variants in bourbon were great. My favorite of the whole week was Pappy Conundrum. I literally had 3 glasses of this in a row.
Had Pappy out of a bottle 48 hours after the party and was very unenthralled. Seemed like a totally different beast than was on tap. House Cat vs. the King of the ******* Jungle. Bottle was mellow, bourbon and wood didn't pop at all, less body (draft wasn't that burly either), but the complexity was still there. Just swirling around in a tide pool and not on a tractorbeam of bitch-slapping flavor.
tl/dr: Party was a blast.
with no seats.
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