Uinta Brewing had their 19th anniversary this year.  In celebration of this momentous occasion they brewed Birthday Suit a slightly sour ale brewed with cherries.  Now you’re talking my language when you say sour ale and cherries together.  Throw that sucker in a barrel for a little while, and I’m in heaven…or so I thought. […]

This was one of the best beers I’ve had from Epic Brewing.  I’ve had a few others, and was less than impressed, but they have completely redeemed themselves with their Exponential Series Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout.  This was a beautiful beer. It poured a thick inky black with a relatively thin and lightly colored […]

Believe it or not, Jim and I do take this blog pretty seriously.  We really enjoy ourselves here, but we also have to put up new and semi interesting things for you to read in order to get the conversation we love going.  This week the wheels have fallen off of the blog, and it […]

Jim and I have talked before about our early childhood experiences with our Dad.  Dad was a Pabst Blue Ribbon drinker through and through.  If he had beer it was PBR.  It wasn’t until the company started to struggle and PBR became a little more scarce on the grocery shelves that he began to branch […]

The other night my son came over and wanted to smoke a cigar, and split a beer with me.  This is not an unusual event, as Dad is an endless supply of beer and tobacco, or so they think.  But there was a difference.  Usually I have my cellar beers, and my “available” beers.  This […]

Green Flash came to Idaho, and as quickly as they got here, they were gone… in a flash…could’a been green. Here is the story.  It starts with a new distributor in Boise.  This new distributor who shall remain nameless, wasn’t fully aware of the legal issues around his profession.  See I guess he thought he […]

This was the third ungettables gathering put on by our buddy Chad of @BeerPoet fame on Twitter.  It was a great line up of beer while pedestrian for some, for us out west in the wilds of Idaho, these represent some of the hardest beers to get in our little corner of the intermountain west. […]

UPDATE:  It turns out those “experts” we hired are the same people who came up with the idea for Bud Light Platinum – stoopid experts!  So we’ve fired them and reset the site to its former glory.  Sorry folks, there’ll be no Panty Hamsters here! ________________________ You may notice the blog looks a little different […]

Wednesday I put together an article warning about Big Beer’s influence on craft beer.  In this particular example I used Old Dominion’s Oak Barrel Stout as a beer that may have been influenced by the Big Beer bean counters.  Turns out all that speculation, was just that…speculation.  Yesterday I received a very nicely worded letter […]

Yesterday I posted an article about ungettables I shared with some friends that were sent to me from Old Dominion Brewing.  In particular I liked the Oak Barrel Stout, but was confused as to why they used oak chips, but it was called oak barrel in the title.  Well yesterday I got my answer in […]

I love having friends that have beer!  And what’s better is I love having friends that have Whiskey!  And what’s better still is I love having friends that have beer and whiskey that I can’t get, and they are willing and eager to share.  So it went last time I went into my local bottle […]

When I was a kid, I’d “accidentally” break dishes while unloading the dishwasher so I could get out of doing that particular chore.  Below is a clipping from a British newspaper that’s been making the rounds, and if true (and I really hope it is), this fella has turned getting out of mundane duties into […]

I know I’ve not been around too much lately.  I’ve been trying to secure employment, and my journeys over the last two weeks have brought be all over the State’s of Oregon and Washington.  I told you about the Cascade Barrel house in Portland a while back, but I also went to Good Life Brewery […]

I just wanted to let all of you folks know that relief is on the way from the Jim-fest that’s been happening here lately.  Donnybear ™ has been swamped the past week or so with employment seeking and so forth, but should be back in the groove here soon. And that’s a good thing.  I […]

I was at the grocery store to pick up a bag of coffee last week, only to be deeply disheartened by what I saw. Let’s start with a disclosure; at my last job I worked on the Starbucks and Seattle’s Best Coffee accounts as a copywriter, particularly in the grocery channel.  I loved working on […]