Saturday, March 30, 2013

Beer Review: Indio


Well, after I announced I wasn't going to do beer reviews I got a bunch of emails stating that I should continue.  Okay, okay, enough with the begging.  Here ya go.  I enjoyed writing this one.

So recently a company sent me some samples of a beer named Indio.  I will admit this label kicks some serious ass.  I am one of those beer drinkers that enjoys an awesome label.  Honestly it's how I first started buying my beer.  I went by the label.

Indio, according to the press release, has been "brewed and sold in Mexico since 1893".  Looks like they were recently acquired by Heineken USA and apparently they crunched some serious numbers and found out that "there are five million multicultural millennial consumers in the U.S. who are characterized as confident, self-expressive and receptive to new ideas and ways of living".  I have no idea what any of this means.  I don't know what "multicultural millennial consumers" are.  I guess they mean young Hispanics since they later go on to say that is their target audience.

So, um, I have a question here before I get into the review of the beer.  I'm no cultcha expert but isn't the term Indio a negative one?  I thought it was a racist/classist term to describe indigenous people in Mexico?  Perhaps someone with more knowledge could answer that one for me.

Here is my review:

The taste is...typical of a mass produced lager with darker malts being used.  Tastes a lot like every other "dark" beer I've had coming out of Mexico.  It's a bit like a Corona with caramel flavoring added.  I guess it's not horrible.  It ain't great either.  However, I bet it's MUCH safer than drinking the water in Mexico!  Montezuma's Revenge or Indio?  I choose Indio every time!

Score:  1 1/2 Buddhas
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Friday, March 29, 2013

We've Come A Long Way Baby!

                          Stolen from somewhere on the internets

This week The Ale Runner announced and then confirmed the rumor that we will be seeing Southern Tier enter the Louisiana market.  Looks like a possible May release.  We also know about New Belgium entering the market this week as well.   And of course I still think Lagunitas will be making an appearance this year.  I could be wrong and have no sources to back that up but it makes sense considering it's in Texas and Florida.



All of this is pretty wild.  When I started this blog five years ago(yeah FIVE years ago) I remember getting excited about Harpoon coming to town and we were super pumped about that new brewery opening up in New Orleans.  What was it called again?  Oh yeah, NOLA Brewing.  And there was this bar that was working on changing from a "dive bar" to a craft beer bar!   Look at Avenue Pub now!  Man, how things change.

At the first beer tasting we threw there were only like 6 people there.  Hell, I couldn't make it because of work.  Now when we throw a tasting we can have anywhere from 40-100 people.  We used to be super excited when someone brought Stone Brewing beers as well!  Crazy.

Our distributor situation back then was stupid.  I used to complain regularly on this blog about how they weren't doing enough to bring in craft breweries or promote them.  Now?  They all have their own special little craft beer division with major players from the craft beer market as employees.  Like craft beer A-Teams.

We've come along way since I started The Beer Buddha.  I originally started the blog as a way to learn more about craft beer but also promote the craft beer industry in what I considered a craft beer desert at the time.  Obviously times have changed and I feel my mission has changed as well.  I feel now my purpose is not only to keep promoting craft beer in New Orleans but also to keep the craft beer scene in check.   We can't allow those who want to take us into the world of craft beer douchebaggery to do so.  They are out there and they are trying.  I see it often.  Many of us have worked hard to help this craft beer scene grow and we also worked hard to keep the douchebaggery out of it as well.

Beer douchebaggery may work fine in cities like Portland, San Diego, Boston or Philadelphia but New Orleans isn't large enough to handle it.  We are a small city and we have a new and  fragile scene.  Douchebaggery could hurt it.  It could turn away new people who may be interested in trying craft beer.  We need more craft beer drinkers.  The more we have the better the scene will become.  Being a douche and acting like craft beer is some sort of hipster inner circle club just hurts us.  Those of you being beer douches be ready cause I'll keep ya in check!



 We've come a long way since those early days.  It's been a fun journey and it will continue to be fun!  New Orleans is slowly becoming a beer meccha for the South.  We have some work to do but it's definitely coming around!

Cheers!

The Beer Buddha

PS Please note I have no idea if those cities I named are beer douchebag cities.  I named them because they are large enough beer cities to handle beer douchebaggery.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Stop With Your Stupid Ass Best Of Lists

You know what pisses me off?  Best of lists written by people who have no clue.  Yeah I've done them in the past but I always kept it local and always related to beer.  And I sort of know beer.  I stopped doing them for a few reasons.  1)  Avenue Pub always wins best beer bar.  2)  Steins Deli always wins best retail.  3)  It's mostly my opinion.

Recently we have seen a shit ton of pathetic ass best of beer lists which are about New Orleans or include New Orleans in some way.  It appears that they are always written by people who aren't from New Orleans at all or are from Louisiana so think they're entitled to write about New Orleans.   And almost ALWAYS they are written by someone who doesn't know shit about beer. It's seriously pisses me off.

Here are two that I have seen recently:

http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/americas-best-beer-bars-slideshow/bulldog-orleans-photo-2595525-213400659.html

http://www.complex.com/city-guide/2013/02/the-25-best-bars-in-new-orleans/

Both of these lists are pieces of shit and let me tell you why.  Avenue Pub isn't on any of these lists.  Now yes, I'm sure you're thinking I'm biased because I love Avenue Pub and yeah it's true.  But I love Avenue Pub because it IS the best beer bar in this city.  There is no argument you can make here.  You can try.  But you'll lose and look like a retard doing it.

Now I'm not saying other beer bars are bad.  They're fine.  Like the Bulldog.  The beer selection is decent for sure.  And I love the Crawfish Banditos.  But it ain't no Avenue Pub.

Last I checked The Bulldog didn't hold Zwanze Day at it's bar.  What's Zwanze Day you ask?    I'll let you read Jay Brooks explanation here.  Please note the part where it states, "will be available at just 36 locations around the globe."  That's important.  Because NO bar in Louisiana was on that list except one:  Avenue Pub.  Out of 36 bars in the WORLD they chose Avenue Pub.  I wonder why?

I'm also pretty sure that Avenue Pub was in Draft Magazine's America's Best Beer Bars list.  Yeah, I know. It's a best of list but at least it's written by people who know beer.  But if you don't want to trust this list how about the fact that the owner is one of the most knowledgeable craft beer people in the city.  Oh and the bar tenders are Cicerone beer server certified.  Yes, the people serving you your beer know beer.

So please people.  If you don't live in New Orleans and don't know shit about beer stop writing about both. It just makes you look sad and pathetic.

That's it.  Rant over.  I have nothing else to prove.  You may not like the Avenue Pub but you CANNOT deny it's the best beer bar in New Orleans.  But you can try.  Go ahead.

Cheers!

The Beer Buddha

Sunday, March 10, 2013

New Orleans International Beer Festival: The Day After

                                     Stolen from NOIBF Facebook page.

Okay, so it's the day after the New Orleans International Beer Festival and I have been able to do some thinking of my own and reached out to other folks who were there.  I feel the easiest way for me to write this is in a The Goods and The Bads format.  It was a fun event but I feel that there could be some changes made that would make it that more amazing.  I will start by saying this is a FOR PROFIT event.  They purchased the majority if not all of their beer.  They need to make money and there is nothing wrong with that.  That being said here are the goods and bads:

The Goods

  1. Nice selection of beer.  When someone like myself can find beer that I have never sampled before that's a good thing.  Some of those beers:  Chafunkta, Evil Twin, Anchorage, Emelisse-Stillwater, Hof Ten Dormaal, New Planet.
  2. A great focus on local beer.  Loved this part of it.  They had 4 tents/gardens named after localish breweries:  St. Arnolds,  Parish, Covington, Bayou Teche.  Not sure why St. Arnolds gets one but NOLA doesn't but my guess is this was a distributor thing as all 4 of those breweries are Southern Eagle beers.   Really enjoyed Bayou Teche's section.  Watching the boys from Bayou Teche jamming out to some cajun music was amazing.  Best beer tent in my opinion.
  3. Cornhole Tourney.  This was great fun!  Me and the wife got knocked out first round but had a blast playing and held our own against a team from NOLA Brewing(Ben and Wild Bill)
  4. Newcastle Photo Booth.  This was great.  I love being able to get my photo taken with the wife since for some odd reason it doesn't happen too much!
  5. Cask Garden.  I love that they provided cask ale.  Well, sort of cask. Cask-ish?   Let's call it American cask since the whole idea of cask is supposed to be traditional ingredients and consumed over a couple of days.  Either way I loved it!
The Bad

  1. WAY too crowded for the space.  It was seriously packed and the layout had everyone focused right in the middle instead of making everything spaced out which would have helped with crowd issues.  During our cornhole tournament we had people walking in front of us trying to get to beer tents.  It was nuts.
  2. Bathroom issues.  As the wife and I were leaving we saw a line to the mens room.  It had to be at least 50 people deep.  Now this could have been as simple as people just not realizing there was another bathroom on the other side of the square but people I spoke with claimed it was busy too.  There were only two restrooms per gender.
  3. The food situation:  Thankfully my wife and I ate before getting there.  We saw Rotolo's and some other food place.  That's it.  In the Festival Guide under Tips and Tricks it states:  Take a food break. There are numerous vendors on-site serving all types of food.  Yeah, this really wasn't the case.  Rotolo's dropped the ball big time by running out of pizza and having to get food brought in from another location.  HUGE lines.   The other vendor also ran out of food.  And there were NO prices listed.  Apparently the VIP area was serving Zea's but I heard they started skimping after awhile too.  My recommendation is to get some food trucks in there.  THAT would be amazing!
  4. The guide encourages drinking plenty of water but water cost $4.00 a bottle.  Soda was $4.50.  This is unacceptable.  Now of course the company running the event probably didn't have anything to do with this.  This could have been the dome forcing these prices and whatnot.  I suppose the people were expected to drink the water provided at the tables which we were using to clean out the glasses. In my opinion at beer festivals water needs to be provided.   It helps with keeping the people hydrated which is extremely important.
  5. The designated driver ticket.  Honestly I feel this is a huge waste of money($20).  As a for profit event I get it that you need to make money but come on I feel the designated drivers could have been provided with free drinks or something.  They are providing a huge, valuable service and should be taken care of.
Overall it was a fun event.  It was great seeing so many people enjoying craft beer in New Orleans!  Here are some photos from the event.

 The line.  That I didn't have to stand in thanks to the media pass!


 Josh Erickson from Chafunkta


 Pouring some Old 504 from Chafunkta


 This guy from Bayou Teche was a blast.


 Karlos and Byron jamming out


 I love Byron's shirt.



 Gar pouring some Bayou Teche cask


 Pouring beer out of a pirogue.


Vanessa Gomes and myself!


Like I said, overall I had a great time and I really want to thank Red Mountain Entertainment for not only throwing this event but also with working with me to provide tickets to Grant Capone who won tickets and providing me with a media pass!   

Cheers!

The Beer Buddha

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Abita Harlem Shake

I love everything about this.




Cheers!

The Beer Buddha

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

What's With All This Seriousity? A Beer Buddha Freak Out.

                               Stolen from somewhere on the internet.  I have no clue where.

It's probably smart of me to preface this blog post with the following statement:   This is my freak out.   I'ma piss some of ya'll off.  And I don't really care.  Oh and there's a lot of the usage of the word fuck.  If you don't like that word do not read on.  This is me sticking up for the regular drinking folks.

I've been doing some serious thinking lately.  Yeah, sometimes that happens.  A lot of this "thinking" came about from reading craft beer articles.  Do's and Don'ts articles,  Must Drink In This Glassware or else articles or even Higher ABV is Better and You're a Pussy If You Don't Like It articles.

Shits getting old and I'm sure I have been guilty in the past of writing shit just like that.  Not any more.  I'm tired of it.  Seriously, who gives a shit what glass you are drinking your beer out of at home?  No one.  Is it your favorite glass/stein/mug?  Good.  Use it.  I don't need a glass specially designed by fucking NASA and costs $200 to drink my beer.

No more beer reviews.  I think my Abita Spring IPA will be the last beer review I do.  Why?  Because it's so goddamn pretentious.  I have trouble writing them.  All I can picture is some douchebag swirling and sniffing his beer.  Fucking shut up and drink the beer.  Do you like it?  Yeah?  Good.  Now shut the fuck up and keep drinking it.  Note:  Bret can keep doing his because he is drunk and in bed doing them.  It's funny.

 I signed up for the corn hole tournament at the New Orleans International Beer Festival this weekend and I am super pumped to be in it.  Beer drinking games and stuff like this are usually reserved for the macro crowd and that sucks.  Why the fuck can't we have awesome games too?  Oh, we can?  FUCK YEAH!  Beer pong I am ready!

To ya'll who say higher ABV is better.  You're wrong.  Having a high ABV beer every once in awhile is great but not all the time.  Gimme my low ABV.  And lot's of em.  Craft breweries take note.  Low ABV is the future.  Just my opinion.

To all of you folks who think hop bombs are the only way to drink and all of us who don't drink that way are pussies?  That's retarded.  I like hoppy beers.  Sometimes.  Not all the time.  I don't want my tastebuds completely destroyed all the time,

Craft beer dinners.  Yeah, this is next.  And yeah, this is where people will get pissed if they aren't already.  Craft beer dinners can be fun.  I have been to a couple that I enjoyed.  That being said I didn't pay for either of them.  $50 for one persons dinner?  As my friend Megan Capone says, "Sweet Creole Jesus"!  I don't like paying $50 for my whole family to eat out.  And $50 is on the LOW end for beer dinners.  I have seen $75 beer dinners.  Holy balls that's expensive!   Even if I were rich I wouldn't pay that much for a one person dinner.  ONE PERSON!  WTF?  I can order a pizza from Midway and bust out beers from my own goddamn collection and save like $30.  And that can feed like 3 damn people!  Good lord.  Not all of us in New Orleans work in IT or Computer Engineering.  I think I may have a Po' Mans Beer Dinner.  It's BYOB.  Bet we have some of the best beers not available in New Orleans too.

And you know what?  I like Yuengling.  I don't need your opinion on how it tastes like shit or isn't craft beer.  What do I care about?   Unlike Bud, Miller or Coors it's from an American owned company and I like it.   I'm drinking it.  Not you.  If you don't like it don't drink it.

I think that's it.  I'm done bitching for now.  I'm sure some of you probably feel the same way on some of these issues.  Some of you will disagree and feel the need to blast me via comment.  Go ahead.  I'll even post your rant about me.  Cause in the end you're proving my point.  I'm beginning to feel like craft beer is taking itself way to seriously.  This is beer not wine man.  I always picture craft beer like Animal House.  Craft beer is the Delta Tau Chi House not the Omega Theta Pi House.  Those guys sucks.

Cheers!

The Beer Buddha












Sunday, March 3, 2013

Bret Lyttle's Bed Review: St. Somewhere Cynthiana




On today's Bret Lyttle's Bed Review he reviews St. Somewhere's Cynthiana and I got to listen to his Beer Buddha theme song.  It fits me perfectly.  He is a true guitar master.  When I get a copy I will let you listen.  Here is his review.  Now I need to get my hands on some.

Brewery:  St. Somewhere

Beer:  Cynthiana

ABV:  8%

Style:  Saison/Farmhouse Ale

Appearance: Pours a hazy gold like money, with a nice white head.  Lacing present throughout.

Smell: Fruity tart aroma.  Fermented fruit.  Apples, peaches, etc.

Taste: Just like the nose the taste is also fruity but not overly fruity.  Perfectly balanced.  Very clean and dry finish.

Mouthfeel:  Nice light body.  Very crisp and dry.

Overall:  Hangs with belgian beers like Saison Dupont.  We got's some smarts Americans where it comes to beer.  You get quality with the cost.   I really love this beer.

Score:  4.5 out of 5  Photobucket

Cheers!

The Beer Buddha