work and the holidays has been cramping my blogging style as of late, so my apologies for the less-than-daily postings.  hopefully this week we’ll get back on track!

last friday the overcarbed.com team (me and AP) hosted our first strong beer session, inspired by the holiday season.

• we focused on barleywine, one of my personal favorite styles and a great way to warm up during these cold months.
• after procuring barleywine-centric foods such as stilton cheese, savory sausages, and some sweet desserts, bottles began to get cracked and the taps started pouring.
• the lineup was pretty varied, with many states (and a few countries) being represented.  the brews included:
  • 2009 flying dog double dog
  • 2008 hair of the dog doggie claws
  • 2008 avery old jubilation
  • 2008 rogue double dead guy
  • 2008 mikkeller big worse
  • 2008 flying dog horn dog
  • 2008 full sail old boardhead
  • 2008 dogfish head 120 minute IPA
  • 2008 beer valley highway to ale
  • 2008 moylan’s old blarney
• the session peaked with a three year flight (2007-2009) of lagunitas’ brown shugga, and was followed by a bomber of my own 2006 homebrew barleywine and CB’s 2008 homebrew barleywine.
• I also had my 8-month belgian date barleywine on draft for people to sip between tastings.
• crowd favorites included the doggie claws, the ’07 brown shugga, and my ’06 homebrew (yes!).  an honorable mention went out to the 120 minute, which drank like a liqueur and had everybody talking (at 20% abv it was easy to see why).  I wish I had another one to put down for about 5 years…
• overall, there was great company, beers, and food.  look for individual reviews of standout brews from the above list in the future.