So, this weekend was an extended one. I took half of Thursday, up until I finally returned home late last night to celebrate the working. It all began on Thursday with some new brews that I either tried, or bought to try later. Foremost amongst these was an impulse buy. Walking down the beer and wine aisle at HEB 619 (College Station #2, Wm. D. Fitch Parkway, Highway 40, whatever you want to call it) I saw a marvelous box “Night of the living dead” as they call it. In this box were contained four Magic Hat beers. Their fall sampler pack. Beers such as their Hex “Ourtoberfest”, “Humble Patience”, “Hipa” and their classic… “#9”. All these beers were well worth the money, and I would certainly buy them again. I digress going into a detailed summary of each beer, suffice to say they were all excellent, and affordable, I think I paid like $14.69 with tax for the twelve pack. If you can find it, snag it.

In addition to this sampler, it was decided to just turn Thursday afternoon into our own local IPA day. Scott and myself sat down with a handful of different IPAs and enjoyed the refreshing bite of hops as the temperature soared near a hundred and five degrees. The real star of the day however was a Bear Republic. Racer 5 IPA. I have heard for months that this beer is just phenomenal. It has been highly recommended to me for a long time by countless beer department managers, avid IPA connoisseurs, and friends alike. I finally had enough, and well, Scott had an extra in his fridge. WOW. I am not sure that I can sum it up any simpler than that. This beer was everything it was proclaimed to be, and yet so much more. I am jaded when it comes to hyped beers that well, fall considerably short of my expectations. This beer does not disappoint. It is by far the smoothest IPA that I have ever poured. If you are of the opinion that every IPA should have a strong bite of hops to sting your palate into submission, then you may not find this brew all that enjoyable. However, if you like your beers to be smooth, rich in flavor, and not sting like a pissed off wasp, then you will love this beer. It is a little pricier than the usual run of the mill IPA, but it is worth every penny that you pay. I won’t divulge unto you the richness of the aroma, the touch of floral scent, or the bountiful fruit present in this golden indian pale ale, (Scott is polishing up a full on review of this beer for you) but I will highly recommend that you buy it.

Moving along from the IPA filled afternoon, when it comes to tailgating I was right on just about every count from my previous post. All of the beers that I noted would be present, made an appearance. The tailgate that I was at naturally ran out of beer by three in the afternoon… on a kickoff time of 6:30. That was slightly disappointing for most of the tailgaters, however I knew better than to rely on others for my own beer, therefore I brought my own supply of Shiner. I broke out a Family Reunion twelve pack. (Normally, I would link you to this product, however, I have been hoarding this box for a length of time sufficient that it is no longer even offered by Shiner). Now, Shiner does have a family reunion sampler pack available, it has some wonderful brews (Shiner Black, Shiner Kosmos, Shiner Hefeweisen, Shiner Old Time, Shiner Blonde, and naturally Shiner Bock), however, my older version had the since discontinued Shiner Light (which has been replaced by Shiner Light Blonde, but in the sampler is swapped for the Old Time?). But the point that I wish to illustrate is more concerned with one particular beer within the sampler. Shiner Kosmos is far and away one of my favorite Shiner beers. It is a real shame that it is only offered in the samplers, and not packaged as its own six pack.

Now, Kosmos is one of my favorite Shiners and has been for quite some time. Mainly for the story behind it (A beer to commemorate Kosmos Spoetzl, former brewmaster of Shiner who brought the brewery through prohibition). In fact, my dog is named Kosmos in honor of Mr. Spoetzl. also, it is just a badass name for a black and white border collie who only drinks Shiner beer. (Yes, I have allowed my friends to pour their lesser beer (Keystone, Miller Lite, etc) into bowls for my dog to drink, Kosmos walked up to the bowl and every time he will sniff it, and turn and walk away). I challenge you to find a dog with a better palate for beer than mine.

In addition to the Shiner sampler, I also came across a couple of bottles of Yuengling . Now, Yuengling is not offered for sale in Texas. It comes from Pennsylvania, and is made by “Americas oldest brewery” just the mere mention of this beer drives people crazy out here, and honestly, I don’t understand it. In the northeast it is seen as a “crap beer” comparable to PBR, Natural Light, Keystone, etc. While, it certainly carries a more notable flavor than the aforementioned, and I won’t refer to it on the same level as those “when I was in college, I drank x beer because it was cheap, and we could get it readily and we didn’t care about flavor we just drank to get a buzz and the girls drank it because it was a sissy beer and well everyone was happy but then I matured and began to buy real beer, with real flavor, and cannot believe I ever stooped to that level” beers. it really is not the “be all end all” beer of America. Maybe one day when I am feeling a little more motivated I will pull out statistics and give Yuengling a proper paragraph or three, but not today.

In summation of the weekend, NCAA football is off to a roaring start, a handful of ranked teams lost, some in embarrassing (Notre Dame, what happened?) TCU in a “did that just really happen against the Baptists”, and Oregon in a “we may never beat a SEC team at this rate” fashion. The Aggies dominated the Methodists of Southern Methodist University, Rice’s “Mob band” once again showed their (lack of)class that rivals that of Texas Tech, and Texas is, come Tuesday (Monday was a holiday) ranked in the top 25 behind a lackluster performance. On the bright side, today is Tuesday, and football begins once more on Thursday this week.

OI! I nearly forgot. A precursor. A foreshadowing. A beer review that is on the horizon! I acquired a bottle of Ovila: Saison. More to come on this later, but for those of y’all that do not know what I am referring to, this is a big deal, a big beer, and an exciting time!

OVILA!