We can hardly believe it’s that time again, but February sees the ‘08 release of Foothills Brewing’s delicious Sexual Chocolate. Of course, Barley’s will get a keg and they will be sent westward on February 4. Here’s the kicker (from BeerAdvocate):

Sexual Chocolate ‘08 will be tapped January 30th in dual locations: Tyler’s Durham and Foothills Brewing Company.The Sexual Chocolate will have limited distribution to accounts in North and South Carolina…only 20 kegs will be released (some will be 5gal). SC ‘08 will be found for sure at both Tyler’s, 3 Flying Saucers (Ral,Cha,Col), Six Pence Pub(Blowing Rock), 6th & Vine (WS), Snapshot (Greenville, SC), Barley’s Ashe–plus a few more. Kegs will go out the week of February 4th, so mark your calendars…Look for events at Flying Saucer Charlotte and Raleigh on Feb. 6.NOW FOR THE BIG NEWS:Foothills Brewing Company will host a Sexual Chocolate Release event on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2 at homebase. The reason for waiting a few days after the release???

We thought it might be easier for those of you with day jobs to make it on Saturday…Plus, we will be releasing Sexual Chocolate in 500, limited edition, 22oz. bottles. Exact pricing in a few days, but there will be a limit of 12 per customer. Cash or cards will be accepted—no checks. Due to the limited volume of Sexual Chocolate, no growlers will be available. Tours will be availble for those 1st timers….Saturday will also see some special beers on tap at Foothills, so come and hang out for a while. Foothills merchandise will be available as well.

I will update this post over the weekend…Thanks for your patience and loyalty. Also, please DO NOT call the pub seeking information, I will let you know as soon as I do…Just wanted to give a little planning time to those with a haul.

We are so happy that more NC breweries are seeing the value of bottling these limited releases. It creates buzz for our state and is over all a very good thing for beer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year, folks! We took a much-needed break from writing on this here bloggy and the day we decide to reenter the blogosphere, Asheville gets its first winter storm of the season. We’re staring at what looks to be about 5″ of snow and the AC-T Accuweather Forecast seems to show more coming through this afternoon, according to radar. The gusty winds are pretty wicked. That being said, Bruisin’ Ales is closed today. While we look forward to the New Year, we’d be lying if we didn’t say we are giddy to have a Snow Day as it brings out the Canadian/Yankee in both of us.

2007 ended over-the-top with a raging boom of beer buyers in December. And there was no shortage of holiday cheer amongst the beer people. Uncle Jedi and Joan gave us a Lost Abbey Lost & Found; James & Michelle returned with a few brews from the new Saint Somewhere; John & Melissa are no shortage of liquid surprises (of which there are too many to mention); Chris, Adam & Philip shared a Southampton 10th Anniversary Ale; Steve & Becca gave us a homebrewed Triple; Wil gave us one of his uber-delicious Oud Bruins; JL delivered a mighty fine Oatmeal Stout; and The Brewsician took a Blue Ribbon at the Palmetto State Brewers Open, for which we were a sponsor. Yay, Chris!

Local Beer News Updates:

Pisgah Brewing Co. is about to unleash a beer storm. The return of Hellbender Barleywine is almost here, as well as Cosmos and Vortex III, a strong Belgian Golden. Plans to bottle Red Devil are also in the works and Vortex II will also be making a return later this year. We wonder if they ever sleep.

Highland Brewing Co. is hosting the Big Game & Beer Tasting on January 24 at the Crest Center in Asheville.

French Broad’s new brown growlers are a hit, but be advised there are no more deposits and no more returns. Please be mindful and either sterilize to refill or recycle. The newest brew to join the growler line-up? The return of Flanders Style Abbey Ale.

Head Brewer John Stuart of Green Man has a super tasty Russian Imperial Stout on cask at Dirty Jack’s. Do not miss this one.

Mark Lyons of Asheville Brews Cruise has helped organize Winter Warmer, Asheville’s first Winter beer festival featuring barbecue and all local brews. The event is January 19, 3-7pm at The Garage next to French Broad Brewery. Tickets are $35.

We hear that former Green Man brewer Carl Melissas is still on track for an early 2008 opening of the new brewpub at the Wedge Gallery.

Asheville’s first Belgian beer bar, The Thirsty Monk, is finally scheduled to open in just a few weeks where the old Hookah Joe’s used to be. Until then, the beautiful hand-carved wooden door will continue to taunt us.

Tony Kiss, The Beer Guy, reflects on the 2007 beer scene in Asheville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving is just two days away, and most of us are still putting the finishing touches on our menus, so here are a few suggestions for pairings, recipes, and other ways to bring beer to your holiday table.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes Garrett Oliver as saying a Biere de Garde is the perfect beer for Thanksgiving. They also make the case for Trappist Orval, Saison Dupont, and North Coast Old Rasputin as great beers to pair with your feast. The Federal Way Mirror calls on Rogue Juniper Pale Ale and Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome with dinner and suggests pumpkin ale, Belgian fruit lambic, or champagne beer with dessert.

The Bros at BeerAdvocate also have a great list of brews and recipes that use beer. Since we’ve been assigned to cranberry duty this year, we’ll be making their recipe for Cranberry Wit Sauce:

Cranberry Wit Sauce
A traditional side dish with a twist.

Ingredients
2 Blood oranges, zested and sliced into rings
2 cups Witbier*
1/2 cup Belgian clear rock candy sugar, or regular sugar
2 tsp. Ground coriander
1 pinch Sea salt
1/2 cup Orange blossom honey
12 oz. Cranberries, fresh (1 bag)

Directions
In a large saucepan, add oranges (giving a good twist to release the juice), Witbier, rock candy, coriander and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring about 4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Remove the sliced citrus, and add the honey, orange zest and cranberries; reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the cranberries have popped and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes. Serve immediately or chill until ready to serve. The sauce can be made up to 2 days in advance.

* For beer, use a local Wit or Double Wit from Southampton Brewery, if you don’t have a homebrew Witbier available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, here’s the basic round-up: Philly is a beer town. This is not new news, but it is unbelievable the array of beer available there. We’re not talking in the way like Portland, Ore. is influential with all its breweries, we’re saying the Philly folks just like to have good beer around, from all over the place. Sure, there’s no ABV cap in Pennsylvania, making some interesting beers show-up in stores like The Foodery, but outside of that beer-geek-ness, you can barely go anywhere without finding at least one good beer on a menu. And by good, we don’t mean decent—we mean good.

We were stood-up at Victory Brewing. Well, maybe. We also hit horrendous traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, which if you’ve never driven on, it is hard to translate the amount of anxiety the road produces. We don’t know if we misunderstood our time, but we did not get the full tour, which was disappointing. However, the Victory Brewpub is a great stop. Yummy food—how about some Hop Devil Potato Soup? We had crazy delicious burgers along with glasses of both Hop Devil and Storm King on cask. (Incidentally, The New York Times says today that cask beer is coming back.) Too bad two weeks early for the Hop Wallop release.

The best thing we found at Victory was in the package store, where we bought a t-shirt that has B-E-E-R spelled out in the formation of Philadelphia’s famous LOVE sculpture, by Robert Indiana. We heart that shirt already.

 

 

 

 

 

We are heading north to ”Little Belgium” tomorrow through Monday, a.k.a. Philadelphia, for a little beer research, fun with old friends, and a football game. We’re going to try to keep you updated on the beer travels, which includes a trip to Victory Brewing, Dock Street, possibly Weyerbacher (if we can make the road trip, but doubtful), and at least two of our favorite Belgian beer bars, Monk’s Cafe and The Eulogy. We’ll also hit-up the best of the beer stores, too. We always like to meet our fellow beerlanthropists.

Chris and Joe are going to take good care of you while we are away!