Features By the Pint

21st Amendment and Thirsty Bear Brewing Company in San Francisco
I recently visited San Francisco on a business trip and made it a point to stop at a few of craft brew pubs I'd heard a lot of good things about. Luckily, the conference I was in town for was held at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco.
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Schlafly Imperial Stout Vertical Tasting
Earlier this week I attended an interesting event in Waldo... Waldo Pizza hosted a tapping partying for the 2009 Schlafly Imperial Stout. In addition to your pint of bourbon barrel aged Imperial Stout fresh from the keg, Gary from Schlafly was...
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First Impressions of the Boulevard/Orval Collaboration No. 1 Imperial Pilsner
Last night I was lucky enough to get an invite to the release party for Boulevard's newest Smokestack Series beer, the Imperial Pilsner. This beer is a collaboration between Steven Pauwels of Boulevard and Jean-Marie Rock of Orval. The style is...
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ByThePint.com serves as a repository for my personal beer notes and musings. I don't have any fancy algorithms or science behind my ratings or reviews, I just judge beers based on how much I liked them at the time. As a way to better my understanding of beer, I've set up the reviews section of this site to match the format of the Beer Judge Certification Program. This was done less as a way to lend any sort of legitimacy to my rankings, but rather as a way to get myself to think more analytically about beer when I drink it. Was that a good idea? Will it prove to be too daunting to keep up with? We'll see...

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the site. Be sure to comment on any item you see as exceptional or objectionable.
Cheers!

Recent Reviews

Two Women - New Glarus Brewing Company, New Glarus
New Glarus Two Women
Pilsner New Glarus New Glarus Brewing Company Wisconsin American

When it rains, it pours. It seems like New Glarus beers were nearly impossible for me to get a year ago but today I'm awash in Spotted Cow, Fat Squirrel, Moon Man and Stone Soup. These beers have come to me as gifts from friends who visited Wisconsin, friends who live in Wisconsin and even my neighbor (who also has family in Wisconsin). Sometimes it seems like I'm the only one who doesn't spend a few days in Wisconsin over the summer. This bottle of Two Women is a new one to me, I hadn't heard of this beer before this summer and I've been holding on to it for a few weeks because it has the word LAGER printed on the label. It might sound prejudicial, but when you've got your pick of the New Glarus litter, the Lager is going to be the beer that's left over at the end.

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Shergill IPA - Rhinelander Brewing Company, Monroe
Shergill IPA
India Pale Ale Monroe Rhinelander Brewing Comapny Wisconsin American

This beer came to me from Wisconsin in a mixed box of bottles I received as a gift a couple weeks ago. Most of my attention was focused on the New Glarus bottles I received and I completely overlooked this Shergill IPA. This bottle is fairly nondescript, it's a simple red, white and green label with an Indian parade elephant on the bottom. I decided to open up this bottle today because it'll be one of the few early fall 70+ degree days we'll have left. I've got a pork shoulder on the smoker, the dog is sleeping on the deck and things seem pretty great... then I went and ruined it all by pouring a glass of what has to be the worst beer I've had this year. Seriously, it's bad, really bad...

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Oktoberfest - Summit Brewing Co., St. Paul
Summit Oktoberfest
Märzen Minnesota St. Paul Summit Brewing Co. American

Summit recently started sending their beer to Missouri and the timing couldn't have been better. Well... that makes it sound like I have a well formed opinion toward Summit's beers and that definitely isn't the case. Before a month ago I'd only ever had one Summit offering, it was their Oktoberfest and I really enjoyed it. When Summit announced they'd be sending a good number of their beers to Missouri I hoped it'd be in time for us to seen Oktoberfest on the shelves around town. The timing worked out perfectly and I was able to get my hands on some of these bottles to see if Summit Oktoberfest tasted as good as I remembered.

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Dragonfly India Pale Ale - Upland Brewing Company, Bloomington
Dragonfly India Pale Ale
India Pale Ale Bloomington Indiana Upland Brewing Company American

I'm still going through all the bottles of Indiana beer that showed up last month and I decided it was time to open up one of these Dragonfly Pale Ales from Upland Brewing Company in Bloomington. I've heard the name Upland before and their logo looks familiar but I don't ever remember seeing their beers on shelves or taps anywhere, so I've never been able to try them before. I know very little about Upland so I'm going into this IPA relatively blind. I don't like the first beer I have from a brewery to be their IPA since they're really hit or miss with me, but this is the Upland beer I have so here it goes...

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Wisconsin Belgian Red - New Glarus Brewing Company, New Glarus
Wisconsin Belgian Red
Fruit Beer New Glarus New Glarus Brewing Company American

There are very few reasons I would every willingly go to Wisconsin. The winters are cold there, they eat a lot cheese there and I always get the state confused with Minnesota for some reason. Wisconsin just isn't high on my list of places to see before I'm dead. That's the way it was... before I had some of the great beers from New Glarus. I've had just about every year round beer from New Glarus, and plenty of one offs as well, but I was never able to get a bottle of Wisconsin Belgian Red all to myself until now. I've had this beer once before, in a very tiny tasting glass and I swore it was the best beer I'd ever had.

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In case you missed it...

Here's a collection of By the Pint's top pages you might have missed. Be sure to check these out:

Play a game of Name that Brewery!
Top Ten Rated Beers
German Beer Round-Up
Oktoberfest Beer Reviews
The 10 Best Beers I've Ever Had
Tis the Season for Jingle Beers!
German for Beer Drinkers
American Beer Round-Up
Speaking of Doppelbocks...
First Impressions of Boulevard's Tank 7
India Pale Ale Round-Up
Fruit Beer Round-Up