Live Oak Beers

Yep, all those are great. Those along with their Roggenbier and Schwarzbier cement them as my favorite American breweries making German styles. Though Old Tree Hugger is a hell of a barleywine. I have had an Eisbock version of Primus. F@#!*^% hell that is good.

 

Old Tree Hugger is my favorite straight-up non-barrel-aged barleywine.

They made the mistake of having this at the Draught House Anniversary Party this year (2010 batch). After about the 5th pour I was about ready to fall over... with happiness!

If you get a chance, visit the brewery in Austin. It's amazing how dainty the brewery is!

 

Whaaa? Eisbock Primus?!? That sounds mind-blowing.

 

I was there for that one too. It was heaven in a glass.

 

I'm glad that LO taps are showing up more and more frequently in Houston than in the past. As awesome as it is to have a LO keg on hand, it can get a bit expensive

 

Maaaaan... I want to try some EisPrimus...

The last time I went on a Live Oak tour, it really struck me that these guys just don't have any low-quality beers. Their QA standards and consistency seem to be better than many other breweries. This contributes to the their fairly limited scale of their line-up, especially considering it's a fifteen-year-old brewery.

In short, the quality of the beers that come out of that tiny, dingy, beat up old building is pretty remarkable.

 

I got to try some Liberation Ale this weekend and was really impressed.

 

Well color me jealous.. Hopefully this is something that they do again at some point. I've heard that we can expect a few one off's this year. Dopplebock sometime in the next two months I believe

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. This was very limited. Basically they guys at Freetail said "hey look at this, it will be gone by the end of the day." When Scott says that, you get the beer

 

Live Oak definitely makes some fantastic beer. I remember a year or two ago they had an oak aged mild that was really good. I wish some of their one off beers would reappear.

The only LO beer I've had that was a miss was their oaktoberfest last year. On at least one batch they blew the diacetyl rest and there was clearly diacetyl left in the beer.

 

Tapping a keg of the Tree Hugger on Sunday for a little Groundhog's Day celebration. Also going to have a firkin of Liberation on hand as well.

 

Make that Saturday actually

 

Treehugger growlers.....?

 

I'm currently in Dallas right now and I was so excited to see Old Tree Hugger listed on the board at Meddlesome Moth for their Barleywine event. Sadly, I was too late and Tree Hugger wasn't available anymore. I had a vintage draft of it at Whip In a couple years ago and it blew me away.

 

Okay, now they're just teasing us....

 

S#&% just got real...