In this episode, See Brian and John do what they do best… hang out and enjoy some great beer with great friends.  This time, it’s with national recording artist Sekshun 8 from Portsmouth, Virginia!  They were gracious enough not only to let us use their music in our shows but invited us to one of their practices.  Here we listen to what the guys are normally ordering up when they have a beer and then we share some beers we think they will like.  Their reactions surprised us!  Maybe they will surprise you too!

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The Oskar factor:

First off, we’d like to point out that there was a couple “pauses” in the show…  Ahhh!  The magic of ad-lib!  So, if you haven’t heard us say this before, we’ll simply say now that we love beer…  and the beer drinking culture.  You probably won’t hear many negative comments from us about any beer other than it may not be something we drink on a normal basis.  We try to concentrate on sharing craft beers / micro brews because we feel like these are the beers some of the beer drinking community may be missing out on.  Although we have Macro beers and Macro Micro beers from time to time, you probably won’t see us covering too many of them on our shows..  but that certainly doesn’t mean we have anything bad to say about any beer.

Now…  here are some additional facts about the beers we chose to share with Sekshun8.

Oskar Blues – The Little Brewery that Cans!  (We think that’s funny!)
The Brewery is located at:
1800 Pike Road, Unit B
Longmont, Colorado  80501

Oskar Blues brewery opened in 1997 and, lucky for us, also opened a brewpub in 1999 which is located in Lyons, Colorado.  They opened their canning operation in the fall of 2002 with a hand-canning line in the 60-year-old barn next door to the pub.  Now for some stats on the beers you saw (or will see)!

Dale’s Pale Ale – Somewhere between an American Pale Ale and India Pale Ale, 6.5% ABV, 65 IBU
Gordon – Somewhere between an Imperial Red and a Double IPA, 8.7% ABV, 85 IBU
Mama’s Little Yella Pils – Czechoslovakian style Pilsner, 5.3% ABV, 35 IBU
Old Chub – Scottish strong ale, 8% ABV and both an AbsOfBeerTV and Sekshun 8 favorite

…and what Sekshun 8 shared with us!

Shipyard Brewing
Located at:
86 Newbury St.
Portland, Maine  04101

We tasted the Pumpkinhead Ale – 4.5% ABV..  Great pumpkin and holiday spice flavors, smooth, very drinkable ale.  They kept some aside for almost 3 weeks before we could get together.  Thank you for saving us some Sekshun 8!

And oh, by the way….  Check out more Sekshun 8 music by picking up their latest CD Black Wing Butterfly and/or listen to some streaming tracks online from their myspace page:  http://www.myspace.com/Sekshun

Finally, since this show was edited on this Veterans Day, all of us here at AbsOfBeerTV would like to thank everyone in our Arms Forces for your services!

Cheers,
Brian and John

Happy Halloween Everyone!

In this episode, Brian and John focus on 5 special pumpkin beers. See which beers they picked as their favorites and be prepared for a couple wizard pranks…

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Beers we tasted:

Weyerbacher – Imperial Pumpkin Ale
Williamsburg Alewerks – Pumpkin Ale
Terrapin – Side Project Pumpkinfest
Dogfish Head – Punkin Ale
Southern Tier – Pumpking
… and special guest… Shmaltz Brewing Company – Coney Island Freaktoberfest

We are already thinking about Thanksgiving and some wonderful Turkey Beers!

The Freaktoberfest Factor:

John was so “freaked” out by his disappearance he couldn’t gather himself up to relay any freaky info about our freaky beer so here goes! ( I’m sure it was probably giving you freaky nightmares not knowing the freaky details!)

Shmaltz Brewing Company

Coney Island Freaktoberfest
Blood Red lager
6 Malts6 Hops
6.66% ABV  (that’s pretty freaky right there..)
Indulge Your Inner FREAK!

AbsOfBeerTV, Out!

In this episode, Brian and John are grilling and chilling with some fantastic Stone Brewing products!  If combining Farmer-to-Fork meats with Stone IPA and Stone Ruination wasn’t enough, they also sample two of the Stone collaboration beers:  BrewDog/Cambridge Brewing Co./Stone Brewing Co: Juxtaposition and Ken Schmidt/Maui Brewing Co./Stone Brewing Co.: Kona Coffee, Macadamia, Coconut Porter.  Wow!!

The Stone Factor: Here are a few extra things regarding this episode.  First, a correction from our previous episode which featured Stone Brewing Company beers.  We said Stone was located in San Marcos, CA. but they have actually moved to Escondido, CA.  Thank you Matt Steirnagle for helping us get the facts straight!

A few extra words about the Weeping Radish Farm and Brewery.  The Weeping Radish is proud to introduce its “Farmer to Fork” food concept, also known as “Reinheitsgebot” food.  The US food chain has consistently expanded and by now the average food travels over 2000 miles between the farm and your plate.  A large amount of our food is even imported from other countries with little oversight and control.  Every perishable commodity (which includes most food we eat) requires additives, chemicals and preservatives in order to “survive” this processing and distribution system.

For this reason they have built thier Eco Farm, Butchery and Smoke House in Jarvisburg, North Carolina. This allows them to purchase hormone-free beef and free-range pork from local farms, and supervise the butchering and smoking process. They are also a member of the Eastern Carolina Organics Co-op, and bring organic vegetables directly to their farm.

The Juxtaposition Black Pilsner!  We were so involved with drinking and eating the only thing we could say was WOW to about everything that day… So some justice to the Black (Imperial) Pilsner – dark brown color with some nice deep amber highlights – GREAT HEAD – Stone Hoppy, roasted/coffee, malty, nice carbonation and  nice ABV… Let’s give a big round of applause for 10%…

Cheers!
Brian and John