Went out last night to Carrabba's since Mrs BV is leaving for a couple weeks. Not a lot of choices on draft. I'm tired of Sam Adams so I had a Peroni.

Tried a jalapeno-lime IPA from Strange Days Brewing in the River Market neighborhood in Kansas City last weekend. I liked it enough to buy a four-pack: the flavors were subtle, unlike a lot of beers that use either peppers or lime.

If you are in Budapest hop on the craft beer bandwagon as they have some nice pieces.

Allagash White -- an old standby

I discovered that Thursday is $5 flights at the local brewery/taproom. I lost track of everything I drank but the most interesting was 81Bay out of Tampa's Raspberry Peach Cobbler sour. Runner up was Proof (Tallahassee) Key Lime Pie Evil Kiss sour. Both had a very perfume-y aspect. Kind of reminded me of eating violet candies.

New Holland Brewing Dragon's Milk White - very subtle bourbon flavor, but not something I would probably buy again
Boulder Beer Company Shake Chocolate Porter - very nice porter with just a hint of chocolate

Half Acre Burl Double IPA
Radiant Pig Own The Night Hazy IPA

Both are kinda mediocre, IMO.

For yesterdays Dark Night event, we were treated with:

1. Left Hand Brewing Company White Russian Nitro.
A stout with vanilla and coffee aromas. IMO, a nice full taste, not too much of the coffee, but slightly uber-sweet for my taste

2. North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout,
A true benchmark for stouts - Mmmmmmmmm, Old Rasputin !

3. Wylam Summon Up The Blood Coconut Vanilla Imperial Stout
A great stout with full taste, evident (but not too pushy) hints of vanilla and coconut. Not even the slightest suggestion of blood, but compensated that with a high ABV, 13.5%

Our local brewery, Civil Society, had their 4th anniversary party yesterday. Invited over 70 different breweries from all over the US, most of them small ones. Some very tasty beers. There were a ton of sours and stouts.

My favorites:
Evil Twin(Brooklyn, NY): What If We Named This Beer Doug From Cycle IPA
Outer Range (Frisco, CO): Pillow Stacks Imperial IPA
Bearded Iris (Nashville, TN): Another Suggestion Imperial IPA

105 West Brewing Istanbul coffee stout - I've had better coffee stouts

Let me know if they plan on doing it again next year and I’ll join you.

Awesome. Will do!

We went out Sunday afternoon to the Great Chicago Fire Brewery & Tap House. Arrived at 4:50 to a sign on the door advising a 6:00 closing time on Sunday. It turned out to be more of a suggestion than a rule. We ended up staying until 6:30 at the insistence of the bartender (who might be the owner as well). And when we left, there were still 5 others eating/drinking.

I had their house IPA which is quite good and strong to boot at 7.5% ABV. We may make this a regular habit after the move is complete in 3 weeks.

Also the best Polish sausage of my life. Wow, that was good. Apparently they have all their meat shipped down from Chicago to central Florida.

A couple of IPAs to my liking yesterday:

Stone Scorpion Bowl IPA and BrewDog Walking Dead Rambling Society.
We consumed more bottles than planned, but the host served the hottest of wings I've had in years.

It's $5 flight night at the local brewery. I can't wait. But I have a 3:30 meeting that I will do my best to hurry along.