A Look Inside the Beer Fridge

It's been a while since I've given you a look inside my beer fridge. If you remember the pre-move-to-Portland pictures, you'll see this is a considerable downsize.

The top shelf and about half of the door are filled with Oregon beers: Rogue, Golden Valley, Full Sail, Widmer, Block 15 with the bottom shelf and some of the door filled with one of our Minnesota favorites, Surly.

What's in your fridge?

The New Beer Fridge

You’ll notice that the beer fridge has a new look. It’s shinier and it’s black, but it’s also smaller. We were here less than a week when we realized that it’s simply impossible for us NOT to have a beer fridge. Even a small one. Small or big, it still does one of the most important jobs in the house.

The Beer Fridge

It's been about six months since I last let you peer into my beer fridge so take a look at what we currently have stockpiled.As you can clearly see, there is a wide variety and quite a lot of Surly in there. There's some of the standard stuff - Bender, Furious, Coffee Bender - as well as some harder to find stuff - Darkness, Four, Abrasive.

We're probably at our all time low on growlers, having just polished off two (Vine Park Black Bavarian and Fitger's Honeymoon Stout) Sunday night with friends. The lone full growler is the second of two Great Water's Giant Star. We drank the other just a couple weeks ago and it was still quite tasty even after sitting for about six months.

There's some random Belgians, mostly given to us by other people. There's also a few bombers that are relatively new that I'm looking forward to checking out - Boulevard Smokestack Series Rye on Rye, Deschutes Hop Henge, and New Holland El Mole Ocho.

Beer Fridge Update

I don’t think I’m drinking enough. Either that or I’m buying too much. Regardless of the reason for the imbalance, the result is a beer fridge that is getting pretty full. Not that I’m necessarily complaining. I mean really, when your fridge is full of this much good stuff it would be an offense to the beer gods to complain.

Some of the recent additions:
- A growler of Vine Park Mulligan IPA, courtesy of Mag. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any Vine Park (and it still makes me sad that the former incarnation as a brewpub is but a memory) so I’m quite looking forward to cracking this open. While not quite a wet hop, locally grown Cascade hops were used so I’ll be interested to see how this comes out on the hop spectrum.
- Two growlers procured on a recent trip north: Wildfire Lager and XXX English Ale from Fitger’s. Now if you’ve done much drinking with me you know I’m not a lager fan, but when you spice it up like this (with Hatch chilies) you’ll peak my interest. The XXX falls completely on the other end of the spectrum and should be a nice session beer.
- A growler of Great Water’s Giant Star. A couple weeks ago I’d stopped into Great Waters and found out that Giant Star would soon be making its return. I recalled that I had enjoyed it before but hadn’t recalled just how much I’d enjoyed it. After a goblet of it, there was no way I was leaving without a growler full of it (good thing I made it there on a Saturday).
- Founders Cerise is not a stranger to the fridge but it had been absent until my local Cellars was able to get a super good price from the distributor. The result: a near hording of this lovely brew.
- Also from Founders, Dry Hopped Pale Ale. I don’t know much about this brew other than it’s from a brewery that doesn’t seem to make a bad beer and I’ve not had it before.
- Finally, from another sure bet brewery, Dark Horse, Perkulator Coffee Dopplebock. When I heard Cellars had gotten this in stock I thought it sounded familiar but once I saw the label I knew I’d had it before. I mean really, how many two headed, winged creatures are out there gracing bottles of beer?

It looks like I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. Too bad there’s that silly little thing called work…

Good Friday? No, My Friend. Great Friday.

Today's gonna be a Good Friday, and I don't mean in the Christian sense. There will be no crucifixions (well, maybe in the Phillipines but not at my house), no scourging at any pillars, no crowning of thorns. I expect no...zero...nada interference from my Jewish neighbors. I'll walk over there shortly and inform them that if they want to throw stones at someone, they'd better not be throwing them at me.

Instead, Kris and I are taking half the day off to grill out, drink beer, and enjoy the day with friends. "But wait, Mag, you don't need to take off work half a day to drink beer!" Ahh, but yes I do. Kris and I are sitting on a bounty of fine beers from last weekend's foray into Wisconsin. We've got Stone, Oskar Blues, Dark Horse and even some Hitachino just asking to be drank (drinked? drunk?)...not to mention a bevy of many other bevvies.

Damn it's good being an upstanding, red-blooded, beer-drinking American!