I was just up in Petaluma. Hop stupid, little sumpin sumpin, are found on tap there. Lagunitas IPA, New Belgium Ranger. Bear racer 5 stone IPA. Sculpin, BIgEye tuna IPA by Coronado brewing... Love them
This sounds like my standard fare around here!
I have stepped away from craft beer after drinking it for 10+ years in an effort to becime more bourbon/whiskey savvy but have recently gotten back into it. I started with IPA's, left off with them and am picking back up with them so with beer an IPA is the sweet spot for me!
I've become a big bourbon fan in the last five or six years. Sipping on a nice Knob Creek as I type this... I find beer has become for getting work done, cook outs, meals, and daylight hours. Bourbon is for truely relaxing! Sitting by the fire (inside or out), on the back porch with a cigar a good friend, or just a quite Saturday night, in front of the tv with the dog asleep beside me on the couch.
Overall, I've become a big fan of craft beers though. Growing up, I hated beer. I'd be at parties (all at a 'legal' age of course) and everyone was drinking the cheapest swill they could get their hands on. This also meant they were all drinking what tasted like piss-water to me - Coors Light, Bud Light, and all the other corporate swill passed on to the public as beer. So I learned to drink booze. I became 'that guy' who could walk into a frat party, kill off half a bottle of tequila and still speak coherently. Never realized beer could actually have a flavor (other than filtered sewer water) until Sam Adams started showing up in bars.
Now, it's a great time to be a beer drinker. Every region has great craft beers, and most of us can get a good selection of stuff from across the country, right in or local joint. And to top it all off, I can hit 5 or 6 different brew-pubs, making there own beer that you can only buy there, all within 2 miles of my house.
PA has some great brewers. Penn Brewery's St. Niclalousbach is a great winter seasonal. Full Pint and Fat Head's are wonderful brewers, who don't make anything bad, yet I almost hope they never make it outside of Pittsburgh, so they stay "our little secret"! And Troeggs, over on the other side of the state, has got to be one of the best on the east coast, if you ask me. And just over the border, into Cleveland, Great Lakes is putting out some damn fine beers (love me an Elliott Ness or Dortmunder Gold).
Yes sir, doesn't matter where you live, it's a damn good time to drink beer!
) But then I get my wits about me and realize that it's a pretty cool job, and I'm lucky to have it. Cheers!
