Tonight: Lucky Baldwin's Delirium Cafe

Well I have my Virus/Fungi/Parasite Therapeutics final in about 36 hours (how fun does that sound?) but that did not stop me from enjoying a few good beers with some friends at Lucky Baldwin's Delirium Cafe in Sierra Madre- my favorite "local pub" which happens to be about 25 miles away, for my friend Pat's birthday. Had a couple new beers tonight....

• Lagunitas (or Lost Coast?) Chocolate Porter: Somehow it never fails that I find a chocolate porter on tap at Lucky Baldwin's. I've had Lost Coast's version and now I get to try Lagunitas', and chocolate porter happens to be one of my favorite styles. This one was very good. I'd say they hit the mark pretty well as it was very chocolaty, though you could tell it was from chocolate malt and not from added chocolate during brewing like some stouts recently (Southern Tier Choklat, Rogue Chocolate Stout). Very good beer, I drank it pretty fast and enjoyed it. And actually, as I do a little search, I can't find any record of Lagunitas ever brewing a chocolate porter so I put in an email to them to see if they indeed have brewed one maybe recently for the first time. We'll see what they say. [EDIT: Lagunitas says they've never made a chocolate porter so I'm guessing this was from Lost Coast and just mislabeled on the menu.]
  

• Fantôm Saison: Wow, this was the funkiest Saison I've come across. We split a bottle of this about 4 ways at our table and the description out of this was "feet".... maybe "sweaty feet"... Well I informed my fellow beer drinkers who didn't really know what a Saison was that funkiness is what they are going for in this beer and I think this might be the closest to a "horseblanket" that I've ever gotten to (even though I don't really know what horseblanket is, I can just imagine). Well, as this beer warms up it is especially good, so make sure you're not drinking it too cold. Beer Advocate's have rated it as a 4.3 / A and I think I'd have to say I like other Saisons more than that but this wasn't bad.

Tomorrow is crunch time and I need to get a lot of studying done to get ready for my final. However, I might take a 2 hour break and take a trip down to Tustin (about 40 miles away) to the Whole Foods that has Deschutes Abyss on tap and get myself a pour, as well a few bottles, because I think Deschutes has totally neglected my area (the Inland Valley, aka the 909 area code) with this beer and who knows when/if we'll get it. If you didn't know, Deschutes is one of my top 5 favorite breweries and I've never had the Abyss before, so I have to try it. It's one of the most hyped Imperial Stouts in the country and hopefully it's not as overrated as I found Three Floyds Dark Lord to be (hey that's just my taste though... I would take Stone Russian Imperial Stout over Dark lord every day of the week and twice on Sunday). We'll see what happens. I'm sad I couldn't make it down to the Lost Abbey Carnivale release tonight but hopefully I'll be able to find some of that beer around here later this month.