September Events

Some upcoming events in and around New Jersey for September.


September 16th-18th - Colorado Convention Center - Denver, CO
                                    The Great American Beer Festival

September 18th - Andy's Corner Bar - Bogota, NJ
                            Oktoberfest
                            Crystal Springs Resort - Sussex County, NJ
                            25th Annual New Jersey Oktoberfest

September 23rd - The Coppermine Pub - North Arlington, NJ
                             Sam Adams Taste Test

September 25th - Belmar Marina - Belmar, NJ
                            Beer on the Pier

September 30th - The Coppermine Pub - North Arlington, NJ
                            Victory Brewing Night
                          
October 1st-2nd - Center 548
                             Brewtopia/Great World Beer Festival

October 3rd       - Rattle n' Hum - New York, NY
                            40 Stone beers on tap

October 9th-10th - River Horse Brewery - Lambertville, NJ
                              Oktoberfest 12pm - 5pm both days

Stew Leonard's Wines - Paramus

Visited: 8/24/10

     Stew Leonard's is clearly a wine store first.  There is a nice beer selection, though, tucked into one corner of the store with a few beers scattered around in featured displays.  The first thing I noticed when going into the beer section was alot of Dogfish Head beers.  At least 25-30% of the craft beers available at the store were offerings from Dogfish Head.  They have pretty much everything Dogfish Head offers.  Dogfish Head beers are quadruple faced (in 4 separate locations) throughout the small beer section, as well as a fifth location up front with their featured items.  

     Despite the Dogfish Head overkill, yes there can be too much of a good thing, there are also some other very good beers in the store.  They have a nice collection of big bottles from Stone and Rogue.  Noticeably absent from their selection were beers from any New Jersey brewers or anything at all from Troegs.  There were 4 or 5 offerings from founders and a few scattered Belgians.  The cold case had several empty slots, which I would imagine are for Oktoberfest and other fall seasonal beers.  

    The staff was friendly and not pushy.  They were available to help me if I needed it.  i didn't get to ask any questions because I didn't really have any.  The next time I'm there maybe I'll ask why there's no Jersey or Troegs or some other fairly standard local beers.
    I'll go ahead and give it 3.5 pints because the prices were pretty good and I may have just caught them a day before a shipment.  Stew Leonard's Wines is worth a visit if its not that far out of your way.  There are locations scattered around New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.  I've posted a link to the website above.  

    

FIRST REVIEW!!!!!! Founders Devil Dancer

Name: Founders Devil Dancer

Brewery: Founders Brewing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Style: Imperial IPA(Triple, that's pretty rare)

ABV: 12%(not for the faint of heart)

IBU(International Bitterness Units): 112(official) 200(calculated)

BeerAdvocate Rating: A-(B by style)

RateBeer Rating: 99 (98)

Location Sampled: The Coppermine Pub, North Arlington, NJ

Date: July 31st

Price: $8 for 8oz. draft served in Chimay goblet (picture above)

      I'd like to ad a disclaimer to my first official beer review.  DO NOT DRINK THIS BEER IF YOU'RE NOT READY FOR IT.  Ok now that I got that out of the way, Founders Devil Dancer is a very heavy, very hoppy, very delicious beer.  But if you're going to eat or drink anything else in the same night as Devil Dancer, make sure you have Devil Dancer last.  It will fry your taste-buds for hours.  This is one of the hoppiest beers I've ever had and that says alot if you know me.  I like the hops.  

      Alright down to the details, Devil Dancer poured a slightly hazy reddish-amber with very little head. There was not a very complex portfolio of flavors because the spicy hops flavor smacks you in the face.  If anything I tasted some pepper but that faint due to the overwhelming hops.  

Recommendation: I'd suggest that you don't try this beer until you are about 3 years into your craft beer experience.  It's just too hoppy and sampling this earlier in your beer career might scare you away from craft beer.  This is a good beer for a once a year sampling and 8oz. may have been a bit too much.  If you happen to have a bottle of this I'd split it between at least 2 people.

Rating: 4.5 pints (out of 5) I'd drink it again but I'm a hophead and I'm always searching for the next hoppiest thing.  The only reason its not a 5 is the fact that it's more of a novelty beer.  Go out and search, there aren't alot of triple IPAs out there and there's a good reason for that.  It's just too strong for some people.

      So thank you everyone for visiting my site and reading my first beer review.  Comments and suggestions are encouraged.  You can contact me at hopallaaron@gmail.com.  Please also add me on facebook, just search Hoptical Allusions.  Visit the site often and I'll post on facebook every time there's a new blog post.

                                                                                                                  -Aaron

Quick Fact

You should always store bottled beer upright, not on its side. This minimizes oxidation and contamination from the cap.

Welcome

Welcome all to Hoptical Allusions.  Hoptical Allusions is a beer blog that will offer simple quick reviews of beers, beer bars, beer stores, and just about anything else beer related that I or any of my regular and guest contributors feel like talking about.  I'll try to update fairly regularly and give you a quick and simple perspective of beer and the beer world.  Most reviews will include the basic stats of the beer and location including where, what, when, how much and so on.  I hope this blog can help open some eyes to the world of craft beer and convert some people away from the macrobreweries.  I'll have my first beer review up in a few days so I'll talk to you then.