Wed, 09 Jan 2013

Draft Beer Update


Dock Street Bohemian Pils is yet another world class pilsner made here in the Philadelphia extended area aka Pilsner Heaven, which is probably why it kicked so quickly. I scored the last one last night. Replacing it is Neshaminy Creek Trauger Pils. Joe Sixpack just named Trauger Pils his beer of 2012. After the Dock Street, I had one. This beer, which has only been out for less than a year, is worthy of being a local pilsner here in Pilsner Heaven.

Stone Vertical Epic 12-12-12 replaced Goose Island Christmas. Goose Xmas was one my favorite beers of Xmas 2012. The other was Penn St. Nikolaus Bock. We have still bottles of both BTW. Replacing GIX is Stone Vertical Epic 12-12-12. I'm going to reuse (aka steal) something I already wrote about Vertical Epic.

Stone Vertical Epic 12-12-12 is the last of Stone's Vertical Epic series. It began on 02/02/2002 with the release of Stone Vertical Epic 02-02-02. Stone must of come up with the idea too late to include 01-01-01. Anyway the idea was to create 11 beers that could be aged up to 10 years which you would all drink on 12/12/2012 and then die of alcohol poisoning or something like that.

I'm not a big fan of aging beers. Sometimes age makes it better, but you need to get it at the right moment. If you wait too long, the right moment is gone and the beer isn't all that great. And since it's in a bottle, you can't tell the right moment without opening the whole thing and that point it's THE moment whether it's the right one or not. Too often you wind up with old beer that's past its prime. Seems like too much work for too little reward in my opinion. So since it seems to be socially acceptable to drink Vertical Epic 12-12-12 in December 2012, our tapping this one now works with my tirade.

Due to being sick all weekend, I haven't had a chance to drink this one yet and had to rely on Google. There is a lot of info about Vertical Epic 12-12-12 the release but little about the actual beer. All I could find is that this is an abbey inspired spiced ale, which seems to imply it will be a tripel. Stone tends to make good stuff, so I doubt you will be disappointed. And if you are, you don't have to worry about a 13-13-13.