Off Color (2023)

Beer for Threads

 

Prior to this thread I'd been to Off Color more times than I'd posted about it this year.

 

Just picked up some Stoutling - I’m excited to try it!

also, I’m not a glassware guy, but I was quite tempted by the half acre catch hell glass. I managed to resist.

I will not be able to resist the new off color capybara pint glass. Incredible.

 

You can have mine if you want to pick it up in Portage Park. Doubt I’ll use it much.

 

hey, I had two but someone really wanted it during that release and missed out, so I gave it to him. Now, karma is rewarding me with a capybara cup, the only thing my life was truly missing.

 

too kind! I painted my resistance as an act of willpower, but really it was out of fear of the consequences of bringing in a new glass to my kitchen. I actually used the example of not getting that glass as my rationale for deserving the capybara glass, so I think I’d be courting disaster if that one showed up.

you might say that I’d….








….catch hell.

 

A friend crack double barrel dinos’mores last night. Exceeded expectations. Great barrel presence, with adjuncts working nicely to accentuate and not overpower the stout and barrel notes. For me, much better than the vanilla BA s’mores from this year.

also had their dumpling beer, which was really nicely done. I only wish I had dumplings with it!

 

Stoutling is excellent. A 6 pack of 3.17% 16oz dry Irish stouts for $10? 100 calories each? Yes please! Full flavor, with a nice, clean finish. This feels like it could become a fridge regular for school nights. I’m also having success with moderating my intake by having a 16oz low ABV beer before switching to a high ABV sipper.

 

This "year's" batch of BA bottles really impressed me. I've never been a big Dino S'Mores fan (much as I've tried), but I liked last year's bottles, and I really like this year's. BA Vanilla is basically the platonic ideal of what I was hoping DS would be, and both DB and Port are a little sweeter than last year, which rounds the beers out, imo. I personally thought Vanilla was the best of the 3 (which is a really boring opinion, I know), but they're all a lot of fun. I honestly hope they ramp up production, because 2 bottles pp is just not cutting it in a world where I can hoard 8 bottles of DBVSOJ and drive my wife crazy every time she looks in the fridge.

I missed the first batch, so I'm pretty pumped they're brewing it again this coming week. I also like QXY (I mean, really, I'm a sucker for any place that makes good dumplings, especially in Chinatown) so I'm looking forward to doing a pairing of my own.

 

Sī Fáng won best beer and the QXY dumpling pairing won 2nd best food pairing at the Brewpub Shootout last weekend.

The dumplings were awesome, and I could drink a lot of Sī Fáng. Glad they're brewing another batch!

 

Dumpling could use a name rebrand to something that more accurately reflects how appetizing they are rather than sounding like a bathroom leftover from a small child.

 

I’ve never thought of the term dumpling that way before. Thanks for ruining it for me.

 

What I learned today: Beer for Ball Games not a great cream ale, but it’s better than Genessee Cream Ale when used in baking a cake.