Mission 1 has reached it's conclusion. Beer month is over. When I look back over the month I can not believe that it went by so fast. The process of drinking a beer every day for thirty days was surprising.

Everyone has been asking what my favorite beer has been. I can't say that I have a favorite beer. I like so many beers for so many reasons that I can't pick just one. Perhaps I could pick a favorite from each style, but even then it would be difficult. My top five beers for the month would be: Celebration, Racer 5, Arrogant Bastard, Rubicon Irish Red Ale and 90 Minute IPA.

I learned so much about beer this month. I tried beers that I normally wouldn't touch and found that I need to try new things more often. Brother Thelonious is a great example. I would not have tried that beer had it not been for beer month. I was forced to broaden my thoughts on beer and my palate. I have earned my beer snob membership card this month.

I don't think I could continue to drink a beer everyday. While I enjoy beer, I don't think my body is very happy about the increased alcohol consumption. For the past couple days I have felt like I may need to do a cleanse or something. My system feels a little sluggish. I didn't weigh myself at the start of this project, but I don't think drinking a beer every night after 10 o'clock made me more slender.

I have very much enjoyed having a project with Keith. He is an excellent partner in crime. It has been fun to write about something we are both passionate about. We both enjoy beer, the internet and each other, so beer month just made sense. Beer month may be over but Keith and I still love trying new beers. We have continued to pick up new and interesting beers when we are at the store. We will keep on posting about the new beers we try and love in the future.

Beer Month was a fantastic way to start out Operation Monthly. We had a lot of fun trying new beers and revisiting some old favorites. My favorites for the month are Racer 5, Bigfoot, Celebration, Rubicon's Irish Red Ale and Arrogant Bastard Ale with honorable mention to Sierra 30 and Brother Thelonious. Surprisingly none of the beers we tried were terrible or without merit.

Along the way a few friends outed themselves as beer geeks and we met some folks from the craft beer community like Peter, Ashley and Josh. We also learned a lot about beer and the beer industry through our research for our posts, beer blogs, and by watching the documentary Beer Wars. The view of the of beer industry in Beer Wars is both inspiring and depressing. Seeing craft brewers like Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head doing what they love and making amazing beer was inspiring. Seeing the collusion between macro-brewers like Anheuser-Busch, politicians, and distributors that forces small brewers who want to make a quality product out of business was depressing. This movie is entertaining and definitely worth checking out.

Our beer adventures will continue beyond beer month, just not every single night. Along with trying new beers and going to an occasional brewfest we will be making our own beer for the first time thanks to my awesome sisters who got me home brew equipment for my birthday.

Here are few remaindered beer related items I picked up in April:

Mario Rubio » Reactions to Anchor Brewing’s Sale

Brooks on Beer: Aging beer - San Jose Mercury News

20 Things Worth Knowing About Beer - The Oatmeal

Beer Journal - 33 Beers

Brewers Association | Brewers Association Releases 2009 Top 50 Breweries Lists

Makers Market: Windy City Glass

Josh Christie » Mandles – Perfect for the Beer-Drinking Dude in Your Life

National Beer Day

Sierra Nevada Turns 30: An Interview with Ken Grossman

It's appropriate that I'm getting around to my Sierra 30 post today since I turn 30 years old today. Hopefully Sierra Nevada and I both have many good years ahead of us. Fritz and Ken's Ale is the first of four beers Sierra Nevada is releasing this year in collaboration with some icons of craft beer to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary. Fritz Maytag owned Anchor Steam (sale recently announced) brewery for the last 45 years and Ken Grossman started Sierra Nevada.

Fritz & Ken's Ale is the best stout I've ever tasted. Take that for what it's worth as I've only tried a handful of stouts and it isn't my favorite style, but the beer geeks over at Beer Advocate agree with no one giving it less than an A-. It poured black with a frothy tan head. It smelled like malt and coffee. The rich and complex flavors included chocolate, coffee and roasted malts with a solid hop background, particularly at the finish. It was very creamy and surprisingly smooth considering the 9.2% ABV. I had no problem downing my half of our 750 ml bottle.

Peter over at BetterBeerBlog was lucky enough to attend the 30th Anniversary dinner hosted by Fritz and Ken at Anchor Steam and has graciously offered to let me include some of his recap of the event. The Fritz & Ken's Ale was paired with warm TCHO Chocolate-Old Foghorn Cake, caramel, Old Foghorn ice cream and raisin compote. Peter had this to say about the beer:

Very dark brown, nearly black with a brown head. The aroma has a deep roasted, nearly burnt quality with a moderate level of smokiness. The flavor is slightly sweet; the malt character is mellow with burnt and smoked malt character. Hop bitterness is a surprising medium-high/high level. This is a full bodied beer with medium-high carbonation.

I was pleasantly surprised by this beer. Knowing what I know about Fritz, I find him to be a man of tradition, especially when it comes to the beers he brews. That being said, I fully expected the stout to be strongly rooted in the Russian Imperial Stout style. I didn’t expect the smokey character of the beer at all but I like it’s inclusion. The beer changes character as it warms up and will change over the years, at least that’s what the majority of the brewers I’ve spoken with have said. Anchor head brewer Mike Lee told me that a couple of test batches were developed at Sierra Nevada’s pilot brewery and the 30th Anniversary Ale – Fritz and Ken’s Ale is the result of the tasting process. It’s a straight-up recipe, no blending with any of the other test batches.

Peter also provided some audio of Fritz and Ken talking about their collaboration:

Big thanks to Peter for the insider input! This was a fantastic beer to end Beer Month with and I look forward to the next three Sierra 30 brews.

The last day of beer month is upon us. The last beer is Ken and Fritz Ale or as it is more commonly known 30th Anniversary Ale. This year is the 30th birthday of Sierra Nevada. Keith and I both had the day off and drank our last beer in the middle of the afternoon.

30th Anniversary is a stout. I think I have made my stand on stouts pretty clear. I don't favor them. This one is better than most. I found it to be very drinkable. It pours out black with a grey-brown head. The first thing I noticed was the chocolate smell and coffee flavor. I found the coffee flavor to be very strong. Thankfully for me, there is an unusual hop presence in the beer. I enjoyed it more than any other stout I have ever had.

The 30th anniversary of Sierra Nevada will bring three more specially made, collaborative beers throughout 2010. I am so excited. I have been very fortunate to grow up in a town with a business like Sierra Nevada. They have set the standard for what a garage based business can someday grown into. Sierra Nevada is always innovative and strives to be a good environmental citizen. They are proving that a business can go almost completely green and still turn a tidy profit. They do not seem to have compromised any of their craft brew integrity and to my mind are the best brewery in the nation. I know I am biased, but well, I'm still right.

The next 30th Anniversary beer to be released will be Charlie, Fred and Ken's Lager. It will be available in mid May. Put it on your calendar. These beers sell out fast!

As I mentioned before Dogfish Head likes to experiment with their beers. Their 90 Minute IPA pushes the boundaries of hopped up beers. The name comes from the brewing process:

90 Minute IPA was our first continually-hopped beer, which is a method of hopping that allows for a pungent, but not crushing hop flavor.

It poured an amber color and had a piny citrus hop aroma. It had a similar taste with the addition of sweet malt. This beer is a must for hop heads. It has an odd complexity with lots of similar flavors. It's a constant guessing game between various citrus fruits, peach, and apricot flavors. My only complaint is the sweet malts and strong citrus hop flavor doesn't necessarily compliment each other. The combination can be overwhelming and might prevent me from having more than one 90 Minute IPA in a sitting.

90 Minute IPA is the third Dogfish Head brewery beer on our list. I love Dogfish Head. I don't always like their beers, but I love their passion. I wasn't crazy about the Palo Santo Marron but I am damn glad they made it. They are known for their highly experimental brews. They look at what the ancients drank and make it into beer for the modern man. They take ingredients from around the globe and make a beer that is truly international.

They make a delicious IPA. I was very pleased with the 90 Minute IPA. The 90 Minute is continuously hopped for 90 minutes during the brewing process, and is also dry-hopped. There are other incarnations, the 60 Minute, 75 Minute and 120 Minute. I will be trying each one in the future. The 90 Minute was refreshing, more so than your average IPA. IPA's aren't really beers you would reach for to relieve your parched throat. Well, I would, but I'm a freak. The hop flavor was fully developed beyond just the initial punch. I could drink this beer all day, any day, any season.

Mendocino Brewing Company's Eye of the Hawk poured a deep amber color with noticeable sediment. Stephanie commented about how nice it looked in the glass and I agreed. It started out with a nice malt flavor but then finished with an odd yeasty sour flavor that I didn't enjoy.

This beer is smooth and you don't notice the 8% ABV but I didn't like bready flavor or the weird finish. I wouldn't rule out Stephanie's speculation that our bottle was bad, especially since Eye of the Hawk is rated so highly on Beer Advocate.

I found Boddingtons to be mostly flavorless. It is a typically underwhelming English import compared to the adventurous American craft beers I usually enjoy. It has a watery malt flavor with a hint of bitter hops. The nitrogen ball gives it a creamy feel but there isn't much flavor to back that up. It has a grainy/grassy flavor throughout and finishes like dirty water. If I'm going to go for an English import I would rather have a Smithwicks or any red ale.

We helped wrap up beer month by watching Beer Wars. I'll get into that more in a later post but we were disappointed to learn from the movie that brewing behemouth Anheuser-Busch bought Boddingtons which had its roots dating back to 1778 in England.