Fatty Boombalatty

I LOVE that name! Even though it’s a Belgian and therefore not one of my favorite styles the name alone makes this worth trying. To be fair, this is a pretty drinkable beer that Belgian and non-Belgian fans can both enjoy. Not only did we have the pleasure of trying this newest offering from Furthermore, we also got to meet ½ of the Furthermore crew, Chris, at Harvey’s last night. Fatty Boombalatty and Chris…two thumbs up! Harvey’s…well, the fact that they offer FREE tap domestics and rails from 5-7 on Thursday’s says a lot. What it doesn’t say though is that they actually have a pretty decent tap and bottle selection AND tater tots. The crowd isn’t your beer crowd, which is unfortunate but Chris did his best to make converts of them anyway.

Their Knot Stock is my favorite but I’m excited to see what they’ll be brewing up in the future, which until their facility in Spring Green is up and running will continue to be brewed by Aran at Pioneer’s facilities in Black River Falls. It’s great to see a more established craft brewer lending a hand to a new kid on the block. Alcorn Beverage, who also handles Tyranena, is their Twin Cities distributor so if you’re at the store and see Tyranena but not Furthermore, ASK FOR IT…they can get it.

Patience is a Virtue

Yes, I know it’s been nearly 2 weeks since our last post but trust us, there’s a good reason for it. Next week is our Portland trip (!!!!!!!) and it would be a shame to use up all of our creative juices writing some dribble just to give you something new to read when soon we should have some pretty gosh darn good stuff to write about. That being said, we’re heading over to Harvey’s to give Furthermore’s Fatty Boombalatty a whirl so if anything really good or really bad happens you just might hear about it.

Gitchee Gumee 2008

Yet another successful and relatively safe trip to the Gitchee Gumee Brew Fest this year! We went up this year on Friday with Kat and Scott and had a chance to visit a few places we'd not yet been, including Sir Ben's and Thirsty Pagan. Hell, we even watched a few ships come into port. It was almost like a real vacation!

Gitchee Gumee was fun again this year, but its changing. It was still mostly a college crowd and that crowd was reasonably well behaved, but I think the over all quality of breweries and brew pubs went down...kinda sorta. I mean, home town hero Fitger's wasn't there and there were some other notable breweries missing, which was disappointing, but we did get a chance to see some new places (and I'm not talking about Landshark). Upland Brewing (Indiana) was the most memorable one in my mind, especially since the folks there were so damn nice. From a MN Beer perspective, Schell's, Surly, Flat Earth, Rock Bottom, Summit, Lake Superior and St. Croix were there (did I miss anyone?). And we got a chance to catch up with friends and make a few new ones.

Most memorable moment: Seeing some 6'6" dude hold back puke with his hand until he could make it to a garbage can. I mean, come on! Lightweight!

Favorite beer: Scott and I agreed that Muskie Capital's American Pale Ale was our favorite and Kat and Kris agreed that New Glarus' Raspberry Tart took the prize. I also got a chance to enjoy Schell's Stout. I thoroughly enjoyed it (but since 7 out of 10 doctors recommend pales over stouts, my vote goes that way).

Worst moment: Losing at Killer Bunnies...yet again...sonofa...