Well, after being in Europe for so long, I'm finally back in the land of the microbrew. Thank god.
Being back in NY, my selections are fairly limited due to a lack of large beer stores in the area. Thus, I'm stuck with what I can find at the Shoprite - not necessarily a bad thing, as they carry beers from Magic Hat and Stone Brewery. So I've been drinking a lot of the MH #9, a Pale Ale with a hint of apricot, and Stone IPA, a very bitter India Pale with 6.9% ABV. I've also been drinking a little of Stone's Arrogant Bastard, which is an even more intense IPA with something like 8.0% ABV. It only comes in bombers at around $5.50 each.
For my daily ration of scotch I picked up a liter of The Balvenie Doublewood 12 year at Heathrow Airport before I left. It was something like 29.95 pounds sterling, so not completely unreasonable considering it was duty free. The name Doublewood comes from being aged in two different kinds of barrels - the first, standard oak for ~10 years, then another ~2 in Sherry casks, which both finish up the aging process and take a bit of the edge off, creating a very smooth yet simple single malt.
In two weeks, I'll be back in my hometown of Fort Collins, home to New Belgium and Odell's microbreweries, among others. New Belgium's new Ranger IPA is supposed to be delicious and extremely hoppy at 70 IBUs (International Bitterness Units). I'm excited.
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