DeCicco's Ardsley, NY

     This place was like walking into heaven.  Full of gourmet foods, prepared, packaged, and fresh, and  hundreds of varieties of beer.  Being New York, they only sell beer and not wine or spirits because they would have to obtain a different liquor license.  The beer section is not huge and it doesn't need to be.  They carry a little bit of everything so they can satisfy everyone and rotate stock fast enough that it does not go bad.  The few summer beers I saw that were left had huge clearance price cuts.
      The most interesting thing I found was the set of taps in the back.  I had been to a few New York beer stores so I was familiar with their ability to fill growlers of draft beer.  In New Jersey you can only have that done at bars that have a takeaway license.  In New York almost any beer store can have a tap setup to let you take home fresh draft beer.  I was perusing the taps when an employee came over to help and offered me some samples of a few of the drafts including my selection and a beer made for their store.  The growler prices were very very reasonable.  As a non-growler owner I needed to purchase an empty bottle.  They were $2 for a 16oz or $3 for a 32 or 64oz.  Most other places are around $10 for an empty 64.
       The beer I chose was Brooklyn Detonation Ale from the Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster's Reserve collection.  I'll review that here in a few days.  DeCicco's actually has a beer made and bottled for them (Captain Lawrence Birra DeCicco) exclusively by Captain Lawrence Brewing.  On this occasion they also had a draft offering, Sierra Nevada Camp Ghidorah, that was made through Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp.  The Beer Camp invites people from the beer industry around the county to come to Sierra Nevada Brewing, in small groups, and create and brew a beer to be distributed only to the establishments affiliated with people from those groups.  Generally its representatives from bars, beer stores, or distributors that are invited to participate.  Ghidorah (Ghidra to Godzilla fans) is an American Double IPA and is only available in a handful of locations around the country, with each location only getting a few kegs so if it sounds interesting to you then get up to Ardsley soon.
     The store is on beermenus.com so I won't go into any real detail on what else is available because the stock rotates quickly, making for good fresh beer.  The staff, and other customers for that matter, were very friendly and loved to talk about their beer and beer in general.  Some prices were a bit high but there were bargains out there.  Some of the older beers that age well were priced well below what I've seen anywhere else.  I can understand why you would lower prices on 6-packs of summer beers, but there were some big beers, meant to age, that were at clearance prices so a deal can be had.  I'm going to give DeCicco's a 5 pint rating.  It's a mecca for beer lovers and gourmands alike.  DeCiccos has 5 locations in New York state including one on this side of the Hudson in Rockland county just a few miles north of the Thruway.  It's an absolute must visit for any beer snob or someone who just wants to see alot of good beer and good food in the same place.  A link to the website is above.  Stay classy San Diego.

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