50. "I'd love to talk about THIS part, too..." In response to In response to 0
>its craft beer season
you mention Magic Hat... I'm not a huge fan (though I was up in VT in college when the only place I could find their beer was on tap at the Metronome... funny that they're so big now) but they're certainly not bad.
I've been drinking a pretty wide variety lately courtesy of a few swaps that my wife's organized. Participation's up enough though that we've only gotten one bottle of each brew the last two swaps.
Lots of Oktoberfests... these don't tend to be my thing, but they're okay. The Thomas Hooker was my favorite of the bunch.
Finishing up an Ommeggang sampler pack. All outstanding.
Meaning to crack a Victory Old Horizontal we've been aging for a year (1 of 3 bottles I think)... same for some of the Rude Elf's Reserve from last year as well.
Our contribution to the last swap was a Duck-Rabbit 'Rabanator' doppelbock, so we've got 5 or 6 of those... maybe a HAIR darker than I like it, but still excellent. Made me want to get some more Aventinus... or maybe make some.
Homebrew: been meaning to make a dunkelweizen with some sassafrass extract for something a little different (the Leiny 'Fireside Brown' has sassafrass or something similar in it, for a non-wheat commercial example). Will be interesting. Bottled up a strong ale with orange peel recently, pretty good but can use some time to develop. Time to get into my holiday ale, have one case left I brewed last Feb. and bottled in April. Awesome, ~11% or so. Have 3 gallons of cider in the fermenter waiting for me to get out and buy bottlecaps. And a keg of a brown ale made with buckwheat honey, a recipe I've been messing around with for the past 18 months or so... this is maybe the 4th or 5th iteration of it.
Cold weather tonight... fire and a beer sounds capital. MMMM.