Guinness 250th Anniversary beer thing

I found the 250th anniversary Guinness underwhelming. It does not have the good bite and full body and taste of the extra stout. It is better than the draught Guinness which is pure shite. This beer is definitely not in the same category as the Foreign Extra Stout, or the Special Extra Stout (Belgium only), or the Nigerian export. Actually, the Guinness' I had in Asia or the Caribbean are much better than this. I was really hoping for something really good. Perhaps they would have been better off resurrecting the porter. The porter is the beer that made the Guinness fortune and reputation. Now that would have been a real great idea. I guess Guinness has too many bean counters at Diageo looking at the bloody bottom line. With so many really good stouts and porters made in America and especially here in the Twin Cities, spend your money here and forget the Guinness 250th.

Stout & Imperial Stout Things

Friday 30 January was the meeting of the Orval Malt Tasting Society. The subject that was explored were stouts and imperial stouts. We had a glorious tasting and sampled a wonderful selection of beers. Lacking in the tasting was one of the best stouts made and that is Rogue's Shakespeare Stout, a truly world class beer. The winners of the evening share the top spot - New Holland Poet Stout and Mcauslan's St. Ambroise Stout with 5 votes each. Second place was also shared by Victory Storm King and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout(Dublin). Bronze medals went to Flat Earth Black Helicopter Coffee Stout, Southern Tier Imperial Choklat Stout, and Deschutes Obsidian Stout. The stinker of the night was Podge Belgian Imperial Stout it was universally thought of as undrinkable.

Here is the list of the evenings libations:
Gene's Hershey's Chocolate Quaker Oats Stout, St. Ambroise Stout, Moylan's Dragoons Dry Irish Stout, Stockyard Oatmeal Stout (Trader Joe's), Schell's Stout, Flat Earth Black Helicopter Coffee Stout 4.8%, Guinness Extra Stout (Canada), Guinness Foreign Extra Stout 7.5%(Nigeria), Guinness Foreign Extra Stout 7.5% (Dublin), Poet Stout 5%(New Holland), Surly 2 cranberry stout, Southern Tier Imperial Choklat Stout, Podge Belgian Imperial Stout 10.5 %, Boulevard Imperial Stout (smoke stack series) Avery Mephistopheles Imperial Stout 15.9%, Avery Out of Bounds Stout, Fitgers Big Boat Oatmeal Stout, Deschutes Obsidian Stout 6.4%, Titanic Stout 4.5%(Champion Bottled Beer of Britain 2004), Bell's Expedition Stout, Victory Storm King Stout, ABC Stout 8%(Cambodia), Cooper's Best Extra Stout, Sprecher Russian Imperial Stout, Weyerbacher Old Heathen Imperial Stout 8%, Stoudt's Fat Dog Imperial Oatmeal Stout, Alaskan Oatmeal Stout, Viking Big Swede Imperial Stout, Dragon Stout 7.5%, Weyerbacher Raspberry Imperial Stout. We had some nice IPA from Flat Earth for a palate cleanser after having so much malt, chocolate, and alcohol. All in all in it was a very good tasting of some of the best and most unusal stouts around. It was a successful tasting for the club. Meeting was called at 1:30 am, 31 January 2009.