Beer of the First College Football Saturday

The best time of the year arrived yesterday and that would be USC football season. The tailgate beer we decided to go with was Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, the beer which has replaced the old Sierra Nevada Wheat Beer in their year round lineup. I definitely can't throw up a formal review yet because we were drinking these out of their bottles, but it was definitely a tasty and easy beer to throw a handful down before the game, especially on this hot hot morning in LA! That won't be the last time I spend some quality time with the Kellerweis.

As is tradition, we concluded the tailgate with a toast that includes Stone beer. Most often the beer of choice here is Stone Ruination, but superstition dictates that Ruination is specifically only needed for a couple certain games. So for San Jose State I decided to pick up a Stone 13th Anniversary. The toast always includes our friend Brian, The Baltimore Beer Guy, but it's always my sister who calls him so I have no idea what he was drinking for the toast yesterday. What say you Brian?

As for the 13th Imperial Red Ale... I took a sip of my friend's pint a month or so ago at a bar and didn't care for it. I just didn't know how I would be able to drink something so ridiculously aggressive and enjoy it (it tasted like Tongue Buckler x2). But yesterday it was so smooth and deliciously hoppy. Maybe it was the plastic cups (ha)? Everyone else liked it as well.

I can already tell you what the toasting beer will be for next week when USC travels to Columbus to face Ohio State. Stone's 09.09.09 Vertical Epic comes out this week and it sounds delicious. A Belgian Imperial Porter brewed with malted barley of the chocolate variety, tangerine peel, dark candi sugar, and vanilla bean. This really strikes my beer geek nerve because Stone uses that vanilla bean so well (see Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Bean) and I'm sure they've done a good job here. The Belgian yeast thing should make this recipe interesting as well. Will be looking forward to that in a week.