Subject: Vintge Beer Tasting May 26
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!!! VINTAGE BEER TASTING AT BUFFALO WILD WINGS DOWNTOWN FEATURING BEERS FROM MY HEAVILY GUARDED CELLAR FEATURING STONE BEERS. STARTS AT 7PM. REGISTER BY EMAIL OR AT 916-9464. LIMITED TO FIRST 30 REGISTRANTS. $25(FOOD NOT INCLUDED) CHEERS, MIKE...was how the email from Mike DeWeese read.

I eagerly sent off my reply, Sign me up!

Fast forward to the following Thursday.... "You are paying how much?" My son asked with a "dads gone off the deep end again" look! "$25", I replied. "You are paying $25 to drink old beer?" "Thats right, but it's not old beer. It is a Vintage beer tasting!" "Old beer...vintage beer...what's the difference" as he walks away shaking his head mumbling to himself, about padded walls, and such.

This was the conversation I had with my youngest son, as I was getting ready to head Downtown, to enjoy the latest of Mike Deweese's famous beer tastings. For those who don't know Mike, he is the owner of the Downtown BW3, definetly one of the best places for beer in Indy! He also has one of the finest beer cellars around. From time to time...usually after being pestered about it, he'll bring out some beer from his cellar and have a tasting.

This night's selection consisted of the following:
'04 EKU 28 11%
'04 Stone Smoked Porter 6%
'04 Stone 8th Anniversary 8%
'04 Stone Imperial Stout 9%
'03 Sam Adams Chocolate Bock 6%
'04 Stone Vertical Epic 9%
'03 Stone Verticle Epic 9%
'04 Stone Double Bastard 10%
'03 Stone Double Bastard 10%
'04 Stone Old Guardian Barleywine 10%
'04 Avery The Beast 18%

I arrived rather early at the downtown location, so I decided to whet my whistle with a beer. It just so happens that Stone pints are on sale today! So I order up a Stone IPA, and a Black and Bleu burger. Now if I had the space or the time, I'd give you a rundown of the beers they had on tap, but being a basically lazy person, and seeing that I misplaced the taplist, I won't have to bore you with the 40+ beers on tap. I do however remember a couple that they had. They had Bells Oatmeal Stout and Oberon, DFH 90 min, Stone Arrogant Bastard and IPA, 3F's Robert the Bruce and Alpha King, EKU 28, and Piraat.But I digress. We had 12 tasters on hand, to sample the beers that Mike had selected for us. Some of you may recognise Matt of Cavalier in the photo to the left. He is the local Stone distributer, and a big thanks goes out to him from all Stone drinkers in Indiana.

As you can see none of the beers we had were lightweights when it came to ABV's. We started off the tasting with the EKU 28, which is currently on tap. This is one hides it's 11% very well behind a lingering sweetness. So easy drinking, that this one could put a real hurting on you. The Smoked Porter and the 8th Anniversary are still very good, and could easily be session beers. The Imperial Stout, in my opinion was still way too sweet and needs some more aging to smooth out the edges.

Now for the Sam Adams Chocolate Bock. What can I say? I had this when it first came out. It was simply outstanding and the chocolate was so intense. I tried it again a few months later and was very disappointed. The beer was still very good, but the intense chocolate that made this beer so good had disappeared. I am happy to say the the flavor has not fallen off after 2 years. Still very enjoyable.

Now for the verticle epics. Stone started what they call the verticle epic series in 2002. Each year on a specific day 02-02-02, 03-03-03, 04-04-04, and 05-05-05 they have put out a different beer style. They are planning on doing this until 12-12-12. These beers are meant to be set down (cellared) until the final beer is released in 2012 and drank in a verticle tasting. The two we had, the 03 and 04 had aged well. But neither was anything special. We'll see how these do after a few more years. The Double Bastards and Old Guardian we had are another story, these were great when they were fresh, and they just keep getting better with age.

And finally we come to the biggest beer of the night. Avery Brewing, The Beast Grand Cru 2004, a Belgian Strong Dark Ale. Now the normal The Beast Grand Cru is a 15.7% ABV beer. A monster in it's own right. What we had was 2004 version, which comes in at 18.1% ABV. It is still way to young to be enjoyed yet. This needs a few more years of cellaring.

So all in all a very enjoyable evening. If you want to get in on one of Mike's tastings, just fire off an email, to get put on his mailing list.