We like-a the Juice...

Josh and I have had a few drinks since I got down to LA with a trunk full of beer. Here is a list of the beers we have sampled.

Moonlit Sessions - a very nice dark lager from Port Brewing
Serpent Stout - a rather muddled imperial stout from Lost Abbey
Struiselensis - a fine sour brown ale from Struise
Interlude - a very interesting buttery sour ale from Allagash
Troegenator - a tastey but plain dobblebock from Troeg
Choklat - an unbelievably chocolaty stout from Southern Tier
Pliny the Younger - Triple IPA from Russian River (need I say more)
Pliny the Elder - Double IPA from RR my favorite beer
The Abyss - a complex and robust stout (Deschutes)
Nugget Nectar - a super tasty double amber ale from Troegs
Shark Attack - a super sweet (not in a good way) double red ale from Port
Firestone 11 - a super complex barrel aged blend of beers (great stuff)
Gift of the Magi - A disappointing Beir de Garde with Brett from Lost Abbey
Double Bastard - I still don't know what it is aside from really good (Stone)
Collaboration Not Litigation - Good but I wish it was straight RR Salvation
Pannepoot - a nicely spiced Belgian quad maybe a little thinnish (Struise)
J.W. Lee's Harvest Ale - a superb English Barleywine (1998)

Some of these were way better than expected, others were very disappointing. So far Lost Abbey has proved to be disappointing for both Josh and I and I would say the the Struise brews have been a bit less than I expect from my experiences with their other brews. The Moonlit Sessions was a pleasant surprise, but i think that was mostly b/c I wasn't expecting much from something described as a lager. And the J.W. Lee's was fantastic a very nice find for us when I spotted these bottles of beer from 1998 in the wine section at a Whole Foods in Maine.

We have a lot of beers to go through in our cellar and we probably will for quite some time. Some of them will have to become nicely aged just because of the back up. We have over 115 beers in Josh's closet. It ought to be a while before we pay from any beer that is not pretty highly sought after.