MN Craft Beer Weeks Bicycle Pub Crawl and Trivia Contest

I get the honor of planning the first ever bicycle pub crawl for MN Craft Beer Week. Of course I couldn’t do this completely on my own so I’ve acquired the assistance of fellow beer blogger and bike enthusiest Beckel from the blog Legal Beer. This weekend we’ll be riding the planned route to see how it work. The ride is on May 21st and starts at 10 am at Cafe 28 where Surly’s own Todd Haug will have a special beer for us while his wife, who owns the place, will have breakfast. From there we will travel to Busters on 28 then up to the Nomad World Pub on the West Bank, from there we will go north across the Stone Arch Bridge and on to Pracna on Main where lunch will be had and finally the last stop will Stanley’s where the fine folks there have sectioned off their parking lot and made it a bike corral for us and all the bikers in town who will be enjoying the Schell’s beer tent and Art-A-Whirl which is happening the same day. During the ride there will be trivia questions at each stop with a prize for the winner which is unfortunately still in the works but I hope to get that out as soon as I can. To participate in the trivia contest you need to purchase a MN Craft Beer Week Passport but if you just want to ride and drink great beer  you are welcome to tag along but I do encourage everyone to get a passport. I can’t guarantee that there will be anymore passports to purchase on the day of the ride so you should purchase them ahead of time here. Other than that it should be a fun ride and hope you cyclists and craft beer lovers can come along.

Here are some helpful links
MN Craft Beer Weeks Website
MN Craft Beer Week Facebook Page
Pub Crawl Facebook Page
MPLS Bike Love’s Forum Thread about the Pub Crawl 

Win a Beginning Home Brewing DVD

Interested in home brewing but nervous about how to begin? I know when I started I had all the equipment and a few books but I still wish I had some visual tutorial. Well look no further than this DVD. This DVD specializes in extract brewing which most every beginner starts with. It’s a great video to start with and a great reference. Personally I am the kind of person who prefers to visualize and I sure wish I had this when I started but that being said I still found some useful tips inside. Right now I have an opportunity to give away a DVD of this for free. All you need to do to enter is be the first person to send me a picture of your unused kit and the DVD will be shipped to your house.

Send pictures to dirtyspeed@yahoo.com

Check out their website.

Great Lakes Conway Irish

Now this a smooth beer. Since my 3 week detox the only beer I’ve been drinking are hop bombs. Probably because those are the beers I gravitate towards the most but I’m always pleasantly surprised by the more tame beers. Makes me wonder when I’ll switch styles. Hop bombs, though tasty,  are growing old. This Conway Irish has a very nice and welcoming malt finish. The nose is subtle and the mouth is clean. The ABV is 6.5 so it’s no slouch yet it’s still very refreshing. Go for it.

18 days later…

Took a little break from beer recently, made it 18 days. Always wanted to but never really found the right time. Then I decided to pick a time and just go for it. And lucky me, right at the start of Surly Brewery’s 5th Anniversary month. Crap. Well followed through, mostly, planned on till after the baby was born but when you love beer like I do it’s hard to stay completely away. You could have told me I could have hard liquor or wine or heck, Bud Light and I would have passed but to stay away from craft beer is no fun. But that being said this is my catalyst to cut down my intake so there should be some good coming out of it. Anyways I recommended it to people. It’s could to step away and flush the system but take it from me, 2 weeks minimum, 3 weeks maximum

Bigfoot 2011

This is fresh, really fresh. The hops are really strong with the barley wine characteristics coming up after the hop burn subsides. Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot is a national treasure. When I went into the liquor store I had no idea this was in. I’m sure everyone has their “no duh” beers. When you are out picking up beer these are the one’s that make your beer shopping quick. You see it, you buy it, you stop looking for other beers. Mission accomplished. I saw Bigfoot and I was on my home. It’s Bigfoot, duh. So here it is again, pretty much the same as last year but I’m not very good at remembering what I drank a year ago. I believe it’s a bit more hoppy but I could be wrong. So I don’t need to really say anything more. You know what this is.

Hop Slam, my old friend.

What can I say about the beer that introduced me to “the limit.” I was well into craft beer before I first had this but for some reason this was different. And even 4 years later it’s still special. Every year I still buy too much of it,  regret when I drink too much of it and always come back for more. And truth be told, I still don’t see anything too unique about it. It’s a double IPA. Brewed with honey of course which does add to it’s flavor but as I have told countless people, Laguanitas Hop Stoopid is the poor man’s Hop Slam. But still this is an excellent beer. It does the job and then some. Let’s just say this beer works overtime whether you like it or not.

Well, alright then.

I think I just solved a major flaw in my blogging. That flaw being lack of blogging. Then low and behold there’s an Android app. This changes everthing.

I took the liberty in fixing this picture to be more accurate.