Epic Bottle Share

Last weekend, I participated in perhaps the best bottle share I've ever been a part of (see picture 1). This lineup to this share was as follows:

1. 2014 Rum Barrel Black Tuesday (The Bruery)

2. 2015 Eclipse Vanilla (50/50)

3. 2016 Imperial Smells Like Bean Spirit (Mikerphone Brewing)

4. 2016 Woodford Reserve Barrel Aged Victory at Sea (Ballast Point)

5. 2016 Rye Double DBA (Firestone Walker)

6. 2015 Parabajava (Firestone Walker)

7. 2016 Dark Lord (3 Floyds)

8. 2014 Port Barrel Sucre (The Bruery)

These were by far some of the tastiest beers I've ever had, with Dark Lord, Rum Black Tuesday, Rye Double DBA, and Port Sucre standing out as my clear favorites (I would rate all 4 of these 9.9 or higher out of 10 - though every beer I had would be above an 8.5). All of these beers were a bit strong, between 10.5% and 19% ABV, so I don't recommend drinking any of them on your own. A bottle share like this is a great way of trying a bunch of world class, high alcohol beers without getting completely shitfaced.

Additionally, I added my most expensive bottle to date to my collection:

Goose Island King Henry is perhaps the best beer I've ever tried. An American style Barleywine ale, this was aged in barrels that had previously held the original Bourbon County Rare Stout, and before that Pappy Van Winkle 23 year aged bourbon (which is apparently one of the top bourbons out there). The best word I could probably use to describe this beer is decadent. It is safe to say that this will be saved for a very, very special occasion.

Pipeworks Ninja vs. Unicorn

16 oz. can

There are a couple of times in my beer drinking experiences that I've tried a beer solely based on the name, and this is one of the times where the beer has genuinely lived up to the name.

Ninja vs. Unicorn is an 8% Double IPA from Pipeworks Brewing out of Chicago, Illinois.

The first thing I noticed about this beer is the smell: bright tropical flavors - pineapple, mango, peach. Wow. Flavors are similar on the taste, all of these fruits are so bright and strong even though this can is 2 months old (though they probably faded a bit). Refreshing bitterness at the end that fades into juicy fruit again. The 8% is completely hidden. This is a really enjoyable beer.

The beer is completely clear yellow (almost bud light-ish, but slightly paler) - but that's refreshing, considering most of the IPAs I've had recently  (and the biggest craze as of late) have been unfiltered and hazy as fuck.

The first time I had this beer (at Rattle N Hum in NYC, about 2 years ago) I was blown away by the flavors: they were so bright and vibrant. In fact, this beer left such a impression on my palate that I wasn't sure I'd find an IPA I'd like better (I since have found 2 or 3, but this is still sublime). Still, this is a beer that I'm sure to grab a 4-pack or 2 whenever I see it (though this is rare thanks to the albeit well-deserved hype).

Overall Rating: 9.2*/10

(* = rating the 2 month old can. Fresh, this beer is probably about a 9.7)

Jackie O's Bourbon Barrel Wood Burner

12.7 oz bottle

I love smoked (or in German, rauch) beers. They're one of my favorite styles, and probably one of the least popular, at least in the US, styles of beer on the market. Which means that very few breweries will make large batch smoke beers - they don't fly off shelves.

Bourbon barrel imperial stouts, on the other hand, fly off shelves - at least the good ones do. I also love the style and tend to buy primarily this style.

So when Jackie O's combined the 2 styles, I was more than intrigued.

Bourbon Barrel Wood Burner (BBWB) pours black, and dark enough so that very little light shines through it. It's thick, but not the thickest beer I've ever seen. The head is a light mocha (think like the brownish-white foam on top of a cappuccino).

It smells like burnt brown sugar. And I don't mean burnt in a bad way. Kind of like cookies that have been left in the oven slightly too long so they become crispier on the edge than they were meant to be, taken out just before they actually burn.

There's a bit of that burnt brown sugar in the taste as well, along with cocoa. The smoke reveals itself towards the end as a smokey, bitter afterthought that fades fairly quickly. I wish it was more balanced throughout. Nice thickness. Again, not the thickest, but it plays well with the flavors.

Overall, a really enjoyable bourbon barrel smoked stout. BBWB is a solid offering from Jackie O's but pales in comparison to the first beer I had from them: Dark Apparition with Nuts at Extreme Beerfest in Boston. I'm hoping Bourbon Barrel Brick Kiln with Nuts lives up to that level.

Rating; 8.6/10

Night Shift Santilli

This is an IPA I've really been looking forward to try.

I first heard of Night Shift while checking out a bottle shop near Trillium Brewing Co. in Boston, MA. I regret not picking up a couple of cans while I was there, but to be fair I had just spend about $80 on Trillium beer that day. Happy that when my friends Matt and Tim went up to Boston not too long ago for PAX East that they were able to bring me back a can of this and Night Shift Morph.

Santilli pours a mellow yellow with a white head. Carbonation is visible. It's a little hazy, but not the orange juice density of some other IPAs I've had.

On the nose, Santilli is floral and grassy, a bit of citrusy/peachy/slightly tropical back notes.

On first taste, there is, as in the nose, a lot of floral and grassy notes. Clean, dry, bitter, hoppy finish. Not a lot of fruit. A touch, maybe of orange-y sweetnesss, but not a ton - it's definitely in the background. Moderate carbonation. Smooth.

Overall a decent beer. Not my favorite, but still above average.

Rating: 7.3/10

Wicked Weed French Toast Stout

Traded for this with a guy in North Carolina. Have always wanted to try this, just happened to get lucky.

Pours from the can like dark maple syrup - amber hues with a very light brown head.

Strong cinnamon on the nose. This doesn't smell as sweet as I thought it would. Kind of like french toast, but not really.

Tastes very strongly of cinnamon - this, like the smell, tastes a lot less sweet than I thought it would. It does remind me a bit of french toast though. There's vanilla as well - a nice touch, but it doesn't at all add any sweetness. Like french toast straight out of the pan with nothing on it. I guess I was hoping for maple syrup (which apparently is an ingredient). But it just tastes like cinnamon dough, just you know, thinner, because it's a liquid.

This is not a bad beer, in fact it's very solid. Just not what I thought it would be based on the can. I think tweaking the adjunct ratios would help it greatly as I think it's a great idea.

Overall Rating: 7.5

Central Waters Cassian Sunset

One of my favorite styles of beer is the bourbon barrel aged stout. To be honest, it's really tough to find good quality bourbon barrel stouts, short of the yearly Bourbon County Brand Stout release.

This is an example of a good bourbon barrel stout, though not 100% for the reason of being bourbon barrel aged.

Cassian Sunset is a "Stout aged in used oak bourbon barrels with coffee, vanilla beans, and cinnamon added", brewed by Central Waters brewing company in Amherst, Wisconsin.

It pours a dark brown - not quite the black I was expecting. I put the flashlight to the back of the glass and could see a reddish light through the back of it.

On the nose I'm getting lots of caramel, raisin, and cinnamon - some of the caramel sweetness, I'm sure, is the malt playing with the vanilla bean. Not getting any particularly strong bourbon or coffee scents.

First sip: all of these flavors work well with each other. And it's not particularly overly sweet - in fact it's one of the less sweet bourbon barrel stouts I've had. Vanilla and raisin up front with drier cinnamon and black coffee in the back. Fairly smooth. A little thin for my likes, but the flavor is good.

To be honest, probably would have guessed this was a dark Belgian ale or American style barleywine based both on the taste (kind of getting some stout malt qualities, but they're not exceptionally prominent), thickness, and looks.

In the end, a solid offering. I think had this beer been thicker, all of the flavors would have been accentuated and it would have brought the beer together better. An imperial milk stout/oatmeal might have been a better choice for the base to age in those barrels with those adjuncts - again a lot of this is personal preference.

Overall Rating: 8.8/10

Omnipollo Noa Pecan Mud Cake Stout

11.2 oz bottle poured into a Mikkeller Bangkok mini-wine glass.

Omnipollo is one of the few true premier craft breweries in Europe that is well known by US craft enthusiasts, and probably the only Swedish brewery I could name. One of my favorite beers of all time is a collaboration between Omnipollo and Oklahoma's Prairie Brewing (see my #5 from this recent post)

Noa Pecan Mud Cake pours thick and viscous-y black with a dark cocoa slight head. I can tell this is going to be a thick one even before I taste it.

Smells like chocolate and pecan pie. Smell wise, it's tough to get more excited about a stout. I can tell this is going to be sweet. Happy I saved this for dessert.

The beer is as thick (think borderline motor oil, but in a good way) as I thought it would be based on taste, and spot on for the flavor profile. It tastes like a chocolate pecan pie, but it's not as sweet as I thought it would be, which is a good thing. The pecan "nuttiness" does a great job of balancing out the chocolate/sugary sweetness. For it's thickness, it's really smooth - the moderately low carbonation works well with the flavors.

A really spot on beer. Something I'd normally love to get my hands on more of if it weren't for the price - around $12 for a 11.2 oz bottle (normally I like to pay less than $1/oz for something unless it's really special). Figured I'd take a chance on this one though.

And it was a definite home run.

Overall Rating: 9.8/10

Magnify Woah Amarillo

Poured from a 16 oz. can. About a month old at this point.

Much like my Magnify Woah Equinox review, this beer also pours a cloudy, hazy, pale yellow. This makes sense, as they are exactly the same beer with the only difference being the single hop that was used to brew this: Equinox used Equinox hops, this one uses Amarillo hops.

Amarillo hops tend to be floral, tropical, and citrus-y, and their impact in this beer is exactly that. I'm getting a lot of orange, tangerine, mango, and pineapple in the smell, but also a funkiness that is reminiscent of a saison. Make sense, since this is a farmhouse style IPA. The funk is a little more pronounced now than I remember it being when the can was fresh off the canning line.

The smell is stronger than taste. It still tastes good, don't get me wrong; this is just a beer that smells phenomenal and tastes really good. The star of the taste is the orange, the pineapple is a close runner up. Farmhouse funk throughout (think like the taste of a sweet tart - not really sour, not really bitter, a kind of strange can't-quite-put-an-exact-label-on-it kind of funk). Works really well with the other flavors and I think I prefer this with a little bit of age on it than fresh - which is strange for an IPA because hop flavors tend to fade over time (and therefore you generally want to drink hoppy beers as fresh as possible).

Overall a really, really good NJ beer. I've been trying to drink more local, and Magnify has definitely not been letting me down. Can't wait to try Woah Citra (the next in the Woah series after Nelly, Equinox, and Amarillo) to see how it stacks up.

Overall Rating: 9.25/10

Carton/Other Half Collaboration: All Orange Everything

Every once in a while two great breweries get together to make something truly remarkable:

All Orange Everything is truly one of the better beers I've had recently.

It pours a honey orange and smells of sweet candied tangerine, orange, lemon, and lime. They were serious about packing as much orange-y citrus into this beer as possible.

The taste is pure candied tangerine and orange with a little bit a booze. The first time I had this, I got a little bitterness at the end, but a week or 2 has mellowed that out. It helps that the beer is smooth as anything. Goes down like a tangerine candy, which is dangerous considering you can tell this is a boozier IPA (or triple IPA), and at 10.5% abv, it really packs a punch, especially since it's packaged in a 16 oz can. If it weren't for the alcohol percentage, I could drink this all day.

Another home run from Carton. And it didn't hurt that the guys over at Other Half helped to brew this, they've been making some really good IPAs out of Brooklyn.

Overall Rating: 9.8/10

Carton Grape Swisher

Had on tap at the Cloverleaf Tavern in Caldwell, NJ.

Carton Brewing is an interestingly unique beast. I'm almost convinced that they have 2 dart boards - 1 with beer styles and another with random ingredients. Augie (the owner) throws 2 darts, and that's what they brew: Russian Imperial with astronaut ice cream? Sure. Belgian tripel with honey and white truffle? Fuck it, why not? Smoke porter that's reminiscent of cheap, gas station grape cigars? Make it happen.

And the video has it spot on. This beer (as I hinted at above) smells like a cheap, gas station grape cigar. It looks like purple tinged tobacco. And it tastes like you're smoking a cheap, gas station grape cigar.

Now, you'd think this is a bad thing. But it's not. For me at least. It created in me a sense of nostalgia - these are the kind of cigars I used to smoke my freshman and sophomore year in college.

This beer is not for everyone. In fact, it may not be for most people. My recommendation though? Try it. It's a supremely unique beer. Carton isn't really in the business of making subtle beers. They take a flavor profile and run with it. And most of the time it's a home run. This one, I think, falls just short, but is a great example of what brewers can and are doing with hops, malts, and adjuncts to keep craft beer innovative and exciting.

Overall rating: 8.55/10

Magnify Brewing Company/Jersey Spirits Artisan Distillery

Normally, I only post about craft beer. However, there's a place that's trying to convert me away from beer. I'll get into that in a bit.

Magnify Brewing Company. One of the newest craft breweries in NJ. And already making great beer. Their funky saison, Search, is one of the most well crafted saisons I've had. Their Woah Equinox farmhouse style IPA is fantastic (as are the other Woah variants - Woah Nelly and Woah Amarillo - named after the single hop they used for each batch). And their It's Dam Cool Turkish coffee porter is perhaps my favorite they make. It's one of the few breweries I've been to where I didn't have a beer I didn't like.

The brewery itself is a little small, and, as it's growing in popularity, gets a little crowded. The staff is friendly, and they do their best to make sure no one sits in front of an empty glass for long. Plus, they have pretzels on the table. Sure, they're store bought, but it's a nice touch, and something that's definitely helpful if you're going to sit around and have a couple on the way home from work.

You can learn more about them here: Magnify


Right next door to Magnify is Jersey Spirits Artisan Distillery.

This place is awesome as well. Friendly staff, great spirits. I've had more hard liquor here than any other place since I've gotten back from China, and the quality is good enough to make me consider hopping off my beer only trend.

The Maple Whiskey is phenomenal and I haven't had a mixed drink from them that I didn't like. - the Autumn Orange was particularly good. I can't wait till they get the label approved for the infusions and can start selling the maple in addition to their fantastic rum and whiskey (and other variants). I've heard the vodka, gin, and various hooches (legal moonshine) are great as well, but I'm not the biggest vodka or gin drinker, and they were out of hooch every time I went. You also get a free tour if you want it. They describe the process of distillation (the first half of the process is almost identical to brewing) and aging spirits in great detail and are open to any and all questions.

They also provide some cheddar goldfish to snack on while you try all of the drinks.

Great spot for a drink or after work drink. Or to grab a bottle to go.

You can learn more about them here: Jersey Spirits


This one-two combination is sure to bring a lot of people to the small industrial complex they're located. I would definitely recommend a trip, it's worth it if you're in the area.

The Process of Beer Trading

I mentioned beer trading in my previous post about Odd Side Ales' Hipster Brunch. It's not something I do frequently, however, usually when I do it's so I can experience something I couldn't normally get with my access to what's distributed to the NY/NJ area.

Beer trading is a kind of complicated process. I choose to limit my trading to a website called Beer Advocate, on which I am a regular user and poster, and a every-once-in-a-while trader.

The process begins by either creating a post or viewing already created posts. All posts are in the same format, using two acronyms: ISO (in search of) is what you are looking for and FT (for trade) what you're willing to give up. Once you've found a post you like, you send that person a private message on the website and work out the details (dollar for dollar value, shipping, etc.) Beer advocate has a nice system that is kind of like a virtual handshake in that you have to press an additional button, after working out the details in private messages, to create a trade. This is important for after the trade, because you then leave feedback on the entire process so that you can show a completed trade on your profile. These completed trades are ranked either good, okay, or bad. The feedback generally served to encourage other BA's (beer advocate users) to either trade with you or to stay away from some of the shadier traders (those that delay shipping, don't respond to messages for weeks, etc). There's also a forum dedicated to bad traders.

Once the trade is set up, you need to gather all that you've promised plus a couple of extras. Extras can range from cheap local craft brews that you know the other guy (or girl) can't get, to something close to what you know they'd like. They don't have to be anything crazy expensive. Just a little extra thank you for helping you to get some beers you wouldn't have otherwise had. I have always shipped (or brought with me, for in person trades) a couple of extras, and have almost always gotten some in return.

In this particular trade, I sent 8 cans and one 750 ML bottle. The package was about 12-13 lbs and cost about $13 to send to Connecticut.

Packing is particularly important, and bubble wrap is a must. Generally, the shipper is responsible for making sure the contents of the package arrive safely, and, if they don't, doing their best to make up for any damaged bottles (if possible).

Once you receive your package in return (after shipping yours), you leave the appropriate feedback and drink a celebratory beer.

If you are really into craft beer, trading is a great way to try new things and become better acquainted with the craft beer community. Be careful though, because with most sites, you're trading at your own risk (and I've seen trades of $350+ worth of beer! - myself not involved).

Odd Side Ales Hipster Brunch

12 oz bottle - traded for.

So every once in a while I trade beer. One of (I mean a couple of) my friends compared this to Pokemon card trading. And yeah I guess its kind of like that.

But, it's one of the few ways I can try beer that isn't distributed to NJ or NY.

This beer was very highly touted on Beeradvocate.com (a website I frequent for forums, ratings, and trading), however it (and Odd Side Ales) most recently came under fire for dealing with a beer infection poorly. I had hoped that the infection hadn't affected the bottle I traded for.

Hipster Brunch is an imperial stout brewed with bacon, coffee, and maple syrup, and then aged in bourbon barrels. It clocks in at 10% ABV.

Hipster Brunch pours black with a 2 cm milk chocolate colored head.

Smells vanilla, maple, and salty bacon. But there's some tart cherry in there as well. Which is not a good sign.

Taste is more promising up front: first salty bacon (where's the smokiness?) and sweet maple and vanilla. Not getting any coffee which is disappointing. There's some sour/tart cherry on the end. Clear sign of infection. I'm happy I opened and drank this right away. I feel like waiting even a week more and this beer would be undrinkable.

The beer has a fairly thick feel to it. Had there not been that sour/tartness on the end, I feel like this would have worked really well with the beer.

Overall I feel like this could have been a great beer. It just falls short based on a couple of things:

1. The fact that there's most likely some micro-organisms in there creating some unintended flavors. With a manufacturing date of sometime in November of 2015, there's no way that the flavors of a 10% imperial stout should change this quickly without the influence of unintended bacteria/micro-organisms.

2. Can't taste the coffee!

3. There's no smokiness to the bacon. I would have guess salted caramel instead of bacon had no one told me what it was.

4. I think I would prefer all of these items in a non-barrel aged imperial stout. It seems like there's almost too much going on here.


Overal Rating: 5.35/10

Tsingtao and Suntory (China Beer)

I lived in China for a year teaching 4th grade at an international school. China isn't known for it's world class craft beer, and import laws make it tough for imports. That's not to say there wasn't any craft beer in China - there was. There was many a night where I could enjoy Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Old Rasputin Nitro, or any of the various Rogue offerings that made it to the local bottle shops. There was also a couple of craft breweries within walking distance from my house:

Boxing Cat Brewery: Probably my favorite of the 3, since it was fairly inexpensive, especially if you went during happy hour - about 5 bucks a pint. Since I'm typically used to NYC prices, this is a steal. They had a solid core lineup and experimented with seasonal offerings. I'd give the place 8.5/10.

Liquid Laundry: Boxing Cat's more upscale (and pricier) younger brother (same owner), they tend to have not only their own beers (which tend to be a little more creative and edgy than Boxing Cat's) as well as some of Boxing Cat's and some other local and foreign brews. They even had Founders, Boulevard, and Stillwater on tap at various points. And in Shanghai, that's pretty exciting. 8/10

Shanghai Brewery: Standard brews in standard styles. There wasn't anything exciting about this place. If you wanted a pretty standard pale ale or stout or IPA, this was a good place to go. The problem was, none of the beer really stood out for me. The food was good though, and the outdoor seating was nice. 7/10


But, in all honesty, probably my favorite beers to drink in Shanghai were Suntory and Tsingtao. And no, not because they were mind blowing-ly crisp. It's because a lot of enjoyment of beer has to do with the setting (location/time/place/who your with/emotions) in which you are drinking this beer. These were the beers that usually accompanied family meals around a large table at Lotus Eatery (my favorite restaurant in Shanghai), the beers I bought at the local Watson's and carried to my favorite Wonton Soup Place (RIP Trinidad Hong Wonton). These were the beers that I ordered bottle after bottle of as we sat around Huoguo (hot pot) and laughed about the stupid things kids did at school (or the stupid things we did at school) and complained about how terrible our principal was. These were the beers I drank as I sat at the airport waiting to head home at Christmas to surprise my mother (who had no idea I was coming home) and the first I had when I got back to Shanghai afterwards. And these were the beers I got so drunk off of at the holiday party that I threw up out of the window of a cab.

So, while flavor-wise, these beers may not necessarily wow you, and they may not even be worth trying in general, for me they are a great reminder of the memories I've created with the great (and not so great) people during the year I spent in Shanghai.

My Top 10 Without Repeating Styles

One of the first things I thought I'd do when I got back into writing about beer was to talk about my top 10 favorite beers without repeating styles. Basically, even though I really enjoy barrel aged stouts and barleywines, only 1 of each can make the list. Also, as such, these beers are more likely to be on the harder to get/less session-able side.

These are the beers that made the cut:

1. (Barrel Aged Barleywine) Goose Island King Henry: basically Bourbon County Barleywine Rare (it spent 2 years in barrels that had previously held BCBS Rare, and before that Pappy Van Winkle 23 year bourbon), this beer was exceptional from the first sip (and I only got 4 ounces). Vanilla, bourbon, and caramel. One of the few beers where I literally said "holy shit" after the first sip; it really doesn't get much better than this.

2. (Barrel Aged Imperial Stout) Goose Island Bourbon County Coffee, 2013 Vintage: This will easily be a top 5 favorite beer of all time. Coffee and bourbon. Roasty and chocolately malt. Smooth as satin.

3. (Imperial IPA) Trillium Artaic: Pure juice. A true testament to what can, and is gradually more commonly being done, with hops.

4. (Porter) Funky Buddha's Maple Bacon Coffee, which tastes exactly light you think it would - the salty/savoriness of the bacon is perfect against the sweetness of the maple; the coffee's just a bonus here. I'd drink this for breakfast any day.

5. (Milk Stout - technically Imperial Milk Stout) Omnipollo Omniprairie: A salted caramel milk stout. And it tastes exactly like salted caramel chocolate milk. I can't think of any other way of describing this. And yes, it was as fantastic as it sounds. This collaboration between Denmark's Omnipollo and the US's Prairie definitely needs to be brewed again.

6. (Barrel Aged Old Ale) The Bruery Sucre: Every year The Bruery releases their anniversary Old Ale under the french name of that anniversary's symbol (Sucre = sugar, their 6th anniversary ale). Sucre has been by farm my favorite (the bourbon barrel and port barrel particularly stick out). Profound sweetness - dark fruit, caramel, and a fairly well hidden 17-ish% ABV. This is one of my go-to celebratory beers, and the one (well, I cracked more than one) I rang the new year in with in 2016.

7. (American Pale Wheat) Trillium Pier: The best of two worlds: juicy hoppiness that Trillium is known for in their pales and IPAs and a sweet wheat-y taste providing a backbone to it. One of my favorite Trillium offerings I've drank so far.

8. (Cream Ale) Carton Cafe y Churro: I had a hard time deciding between this and Regular Coffee, but this eventually won out. A regular coffee variant (basically, think coffee with cream and two sugars) with essentially a churro dunked into it (cinnamon + vanilla). And that's what this tastes like. Really. It's fantastic.

9. (American Imperial Stout) Grimm Double Negative: Black as night with tastes of dark malt, bitter chocolate, caramel, and dark fruits, I'd be happy sipping this any night of the week.

10. (Barrel Aged Imperial Red) Captain Lawrence Trans-Atlantic Red: Captain Lawrence and Jameson's collaboration, one of the smoothest beers I've ever tasted. Pure malty goodness: caramel, vanilla, whiskey. No burn. (Dangerously) Easy drinking for 7% too.



Honorable mentions; Firestone Walker Sucaba, Goose Island Bourbon County Regal Rye, JW Lees Harvest Ale (Calvados Casks), Grimm Tesseract, Stone Xocoveza, Kane Mexican Brunch, Tree House Dopplegnager, and Westbrook 4th Anniversary.

NYC Craft Beer Fest Spring 2016

Great selection of breweries, terrible selection of beer.

It seem as though the event organizers went to a distributor and asked for the cheepest craft beer they could find. Then they had volunteers, who had zero knowledge of the beer itself, pouring (got a couple "this one's light, the other is dark, but I've never tasted them so I can't tell you"s from pourers). The few booths that did have people from the breweries pouring were the best (Sierra Nevada, Sixpoint, Montauk, Gunhill, and maybe 1 or 2 others - total maybe 1/15 of all stands).

To top it off, some of the breweries ran completely out of beer before the general admission was even let into the building (New Holland specifically, but a few others as well). Others ran out, but they had more beer, but it took 20+ minutes to restock. Not acceptable when I've paid close to $60 for 2.5 hours of craft beer.

I bought my ticket early and paid $55 + fees. Anyone who paid over $70 (VIP + fees) was basically scammed in my opinion.

This will be my last year attending this festival. Past years had been better but it seems as though the organizers stopped giving a crap about the experience and instead care only about profit. What a shame.

Magnify Woah Equinox

Picked up a growler of Magnify's Woah Equinox on 3/24. Drank today, Easter Sunday, 3/27. This is the second Woah variant behind Woah Nelly.

Pours a hazy yellow. Looks almost like pure pineapple juice. If someone poured this from a pineaple or guava juice container, you wouldn't know the difference from the look of it.

Or the smell. Smells like pure pineapple/guava/candied citrus. Really a lot like juice.

Tastes the same: pineapple, guava, candied orange and lemon. Really juicy (but not in an overly sweet way). Almost similar to the juice bombs coming out of Trillium brewing. Might be the juiciest IPA I've had out of NJ. It really is just a pure tropical juice bomb. I can (and did) drink this all day. The moderate carbonation and slightly thick (think actual pineapple juice, not quite OJ thickness) feel really add to the overall enjoyment of the beer and works incredibly well with the flavors.

Overall, one of my favorite new beers of 2016 and a top contender for favorite NJ beer. I'm definitely looking forward to drinking more beer from Magnify Brewing, especially in the Woah series.

Overall Rating: 9.3/10

(Since I've come back from China - which explains the absence, as Google and Google related services were blocked - I'm changing the rating system to a 10 point scale since it gives a better gauge than the previous 5 point scale)

I'll be posting more frequently from here on out, minimum once a week (hopefully)!