Balboa Park & Pure Project excursion. Learned of a new style called Flanders... Belgium apparently, and got a bit of that.

All of the beers were great, brought home a few stouts to try. None of the beers were crazy over the top, but that's not necessarily a bad thing... the stout was very solid, lots of smooth coffee. Also had a smoothie sour that was close to a Drekker sour. And a quadruple IPA that was very, uh, IPA-y.

There's apparently a Mostra Coffee nearby, but opted for Extraordinary Desserts, which had great coffee, food, and of course desserts.

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https://i.imgur.com/yTij7yE.jpg

Quoting for holy ****ing awesome.

Looks amazing. Glad you guys are enjoying yourselves!

The Boulevard Chocolate-Dipped Cherry is suprisingly good.

Wow, 15%... looks like they've gone all-in on the heavy stouts lately. Just noticed a few on their website that I didn't know existed (including that one).

Sadly, the stouts I bought weren't great... Lost Monarch and Could be an Illusion got poured down the drain. They had some good reviews out there, but they were not even a little good.

Beast Below was good... more body and flavor than the others, closer to what I had on tap (except BB is banana).

A buddy of mine had mentioned he doesn't really seek them out due to their inconsistency, but I just figured fine, they aren't BL. :(

Not sure how much climate factors into big stout culture within markets but this might be the first stout season I actually lose weight. Combo of limited selection (especially local brews) and inconsistencies.

18,000 different fruited sours to choose from though.

I'm legitimately surprised by this. I've had a large number of PP stouts, and don't ever recall one that was anything worse than above average. Granted, I got burned out on the sweet/syrupy stouts, so haven't had any for a while, but they're generally very highly regarded. Did they taste oxidized or infected?

Bummer to hear that, either way.

I spent weeks drinking down my collection, so as much as I need to hold off a bit, I picked the wrong place for that. LMAO

Yeah, maybe oxidized... flavor definitely seemed off and just not very thick. No idea if beer places take that stuff back, but maybe I should have tried (hell, I'm hoping that was it, because the one on tap was really good, and the one bottle was pretty decent).

I had to console myself with a Bottle Logic Reaction State... and it was amazing. :D

I live about 2.5 miles away from Tempe location. Can't wait.

Bearcat and KCUnited are just on a whole other level of beer drinking than most of us

Hope we can all meet up one of these days. Maybe even Lewdog can be pried out of his enclave to join.

Alright... Belching Beaver Sticky Paws might be pretty damn good.

Sitting at SD Taproom and tried the Monster's Park again as well..... they're fully committed to this lie. LMAO


I am getting more out of the MP this time, having tried it first... but Sticky Paws wins. Or so they say... :D

LMAO

Speaking of, these are pretty good. I was on a Drekker quest and failed, but someone suggested Bottle Logic 'smoothie style'.... one was pineapple and wouldn't really call it a smoothie at all, but had plenty of pineapple. This one was closer to a Drekker, looked like mango juice (not quite 'roll the can' level though).


https://i.imgur.com/3rLpVfr.jpg

I'm living far from Chicago stout season, but a Fieldwork tap takeover here in PHX is a pretty damn great consolation prize*.

Major shout out to our own Timbone for turning me on to the greatness of Fieldwork.

*Fin takedown that BL coconut barleywine sometime this weekend.

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