New Year's Eve & New Year's Day

New Year's Eve was pretty simple. Nothing too exciting except for a couple new beers. The first one was from that Christmas in Belgium gift pack I received, and it was the Pere Noel from Brouwerij De Ranke. This beer is a 7% ABV strong pale ale. The smell was all Belgiany, earthy and fruity, but the taste was much more American at first. This brewery actually uses its hops for a purpose! The first thing to hit the tongue was a earthy hop bite and bitterness, while the Belgian yeast character comes in more towards the end. Overall I would say it wasn't too bad... one of those worth a try sorta beers that you will probably like. The second beer was Sam Adams Cream Stout, from my Sam Adams Winter Classics pack. This beer is a sweet stout for sure, with a good mix of chocolate, coffee, roasted malt, and a lactose type sweetness. None of them dominate, but they meld into a nice mix that is tasty and easy to drink. A good stout I would drink every day and what I would call a home run by Sam Adams. That now makes two winter home runs for them along with their Holiday Porter.

I got up early New Year's Day to head to the Rose Bowl and tailgate. We got situated and started tailgating around 7:45am and for breakfast was a growler of Firestone Unfiltered Double Barrel Ale that Pat had brought back from his trip up there last weekend. I've written on the the unfiltered DB before, but I must reiterate that, although not the most complicated beer, it sure is tasty for something so smooth and easy drinking. After that was polished off in a few minutes we had a growler of Stone Smoked Porter and two growlers of Stone Ruination, which is starting to become a big game tradition to have. One weird thing I happened to pass by at the Rose Bowl was a Deschutes van. I can't say I've ever been to a college football game (and I've been to many) and seen anything promoting craft beer. Most of the time you just see huge tailgate parties thrown by Miller or something. Actually, I have to take that back because I just remembered that about 4 years ago Sam Adams was sponsoring tailgates for USCfootball.com that I always attended. But still, you don't see that in Los Angeles too often.