My beer is stronger then your beer, eh!

Tomorrow we're traveling up to my homeland of Canada for about 10 days for vacation. That should allow ample time to seek out new beer that I haven't tried as well as visit with friends and relatives. Thinking about drinking new Canadian beer also made me think of the age old myth that Canadian beer is typically stronger then American beer. The confusion comes from how alcohol was traditionally measured in the two countries. Canada listed the alcohol content of its beer by volume (ABV), while the U.S. listed it by weight (ABW). A beer that is 4.0% by volume is about 3.2% by weight, so if comparing just the numbers without understanding the difference, the American beer would appear to contain less alcohol. The fact of the matter is, they're both roughly the same. Although most American breweries now list alcohol by volume, the myth still does continue.

UFO's at the Flying Saucer

I joined the UFO club at the Flying Saucer in Dec of 2006. As of today, I have a grand total of 23 of the required 200 beers recorded. Sad, I know. My only excuse is that I live out on the West side of town and the Saucer is downtown which I typically don't get down to very often. However, since I had to make a client site visit downtown today, I'm meeting my buddy Cory after work and I'll be able to add 3 more (the max beers they'll add per day) to the list. Just 174 more to go. Wahoo.

#24 Green Flash West Coast IPA

#25 Avery 15

#26 Victory Storm King Imperial Stout

08.08.08 on 08/08/08

My wife's birthday is 08/08 and as a special celebration this year, we went to Aspen for the weekend. As luck would have it, I stumbled across a couple of Stone Vertical Epic 08.08.08 in a beer store in Aspen (the Vertical Epic series are not available in Texas). The beer Gods were obviously smiling down upon me to put this beer in my path on 08/08/08! Its a Strong Golden Belgian style ale (one of my favourite styles of beer) highly hopped with Ahtanum, Amarillo and Simcoe (my favourite American hops). The symbolism of enjoying a Vertical Epic 08.08.08 on that actual day could only be appreciated by a true Beer Enthusiast such as myself.

Welcome to All Good Beer

I refrained from blogging this long because I basically viewed blogs as a tool used by people (some of them tools themselves) to push their ideologies and agendas on a global audience. That, and I figured it would be way too much work to keep a blog updated. However, I recently realized that it could be an easy and cool way to keep a record of my own experiences with drinking, brewing and enjoying good beer. So, its mainly for my own personal amusement, but other beer enthusiasts like myself may find the odd post interesting as well. Cheers.