Sunday, August 5, 2007

August 2007 BOTM - St. Arnold's Brewery

We had a good time at the brewery on Saturday, having some good beers which led to good comments. There is no air conditioning in the warehouse where they brew the beer and where you sit to enjoy it, so I recomend the next visit being in December or January.

Here are some photos of what we drank...


From left to right this is Brown, Amber, and Oktoberfest...I think.

St. Arnold's Brown - 4-Surprisingly smooth, Jonathan, 3.5+-Newcastle+, The Master (I think Newcastle is one of his favorites and this beer is right there next to it)

Oktoberfest - 4-for the taste of the beer but 2 for an Oktoberfest...Nothing close to a real oktoberfest beer, Jonathan, 2-The Veteran agrees that it is nothing close to the real thing, Arijan, 2.75-Nothing fancy, but solid, The Master

Elissa (it's an IPA) - 3-Nice and strong for an IPA, Jonathan

Lawnmower (somekind of ale) - 4-The perfect summer drink, refreshing, Jeff, 3-Summer ale, The Master



Texas Wheat - 1.5-Schudy beer, The Master. Just to prove how weak this beer is, this picture is of an unfinished tasting cup of the Texas Wheat. It was a small sample that Arijan, Jeff and I all drank...and we didn't finish it...it was that bad.

Amber - 3-One of my favorite Ambers, The Veteran a.k.a. Arijan, 3-Strong for an amber, but worth the pour, Jonathan

The last St. Arnold's product tasted was their rootbeer - 3.75-Maybe the best rootbeer of all time, Jonathan

Now as was sat there and drank beers for a while we got to know our neighbors sitting at our table. At one end there was a mom with her two daughters playing cards, Sudoku, and dominos. The mom had some beers as her kids got all hopped up on rootbeer (there is a pound of sugar in every gallon). At the other end of the table there were two girls, maybe in their mid twenties. As you can assume the conversation with girls (sitting next to James and Arijan) was a little more interesting than the wicked game of war going on next to me. It was a little loud in the warehouse with a few hundred people all talking and drinking, but my ears perked up when I heard the words Fat Tire mentioned at the end of the table. The two ladies at the end of the table were expressing how awful Fat Tire tastes...WHAT!? They were bombarded with questions from James, Arijan, Jeff, and myself about how they could think in such a way. Did they even like beer!? Here are their quotes on Fat Tire:

Fat Tire - Tastes like vomet, girl next to James, and equal to Bud Light but worse than Budweiser, girl next to Arijan.

Clearly they have a lot to learn..what were they doing at a quality brewery anyway!? They probably ran into Schudy in the Budweiser aisle on the way home. All in all, it was a good time.