In honor of the start of football season. The beer is OK, but the name is great. Go Birds.

You gave every single one of us our fondest wish...a bigger wiener.

I was perusing the available options at Trillium's Fort Point (Boston) location, and I came across this label, and it needed to be shared.

For those who don't know, Storrow Drive in Boston is a major roadway, but trucks can't go on most parts of it due to height restrictions. Inevitably during college move-ins and/or around Sept. 1, when the vast majority of Boston leases start, someone will drive a moving truck on Storrow, crash into an overpass, and cause gridlock for hours on end.

​Trillium is just doing their part to raise awareness about this phenomenon, and I, for one, am thankful for it. To show my gratitude, I will go and buy numerous beers from their brewery, including this one. Hopefully I won't sit in gridlock on Storrow on that trip.

Now that we're over 2000 beers, I figured I'd share some data about beers and breweries on the site. Thanks to Tip Tap Room for accounting for probably a third of these beers with their fast rotating set of taps. On to the statistics:
Breweries: 490
Beers: 2022
Breweries with only 1 beer: 212
Breweries with 5+  beers: 117
Fox Farm highest average of those at 5.71 for 7 beers
Breweries with 10+ beers: 45
Ommegang highest average of those at 5.5 for 10 beers
Breweries with 25+ beers: 8
Trillium highest average of those at 5.34 for 29 beers
Breweries with 50+ beers: 3
Night Shift 4.52 for 79 beers
Sam Adams 4.41 for 69 (nice)
Harpoon 4.32 for 68
Most inconsistent breweries (biggest standard deviation of ratings) with 5+ beers:
Shipyard (3.55 avg), Goose Island (3.78), Heineken (3.29), Dogfish Head (4.78), Hermit Thrush (4.2)
Most consistent breweries with 5+ beers:
Cheeky Monkey (4), SixPoint (4.17), Pipeworks (4.2), Down The Road (4.3), Bone Up (4.33)
Worst Beer (this is unlikely to ever change):
Newport Storm Hurricane Amber Ale
Breweries with at least 1 beer 6 or higher rating: 150
Breweries with 5+ beers with 6 or higher rating: 15
Breweries with 10+ beers with 6 or higher rating: 5
Breweries with more than 1 7 Shyoh beer: 6 (Southern Tier only one with 3).
Beers rated 7 Shyoh's: 36
Beers rated 6 Shyoh's: 293
Beers rated 5 Shyoh's: 642
Beers rated 4 Shyoh's: 700
Beers rated 3 Shyoh's: 285
Beers rated 2 Shyoh's: 57
Beers rated 1 Shyoh   : 9

There's a lot more good beer than bad beer out there, and there are always new ones to try. I guarantee I will have more beers to add in the future (and maybe Josh will add some too).

Pete
Needless to say, we fell apart again on beer of the week, but given that we (read: mostly me) reached 2000 beers this week, I figured I would try to revive it. The beer:

Description: Very balanced beer. It's got a little bit of creaminess, sort of like a porter, but not quite a stout, in terms of body and finish. The flavor is a mix of mild piney bitterness and a blast of citrus in the finish. It's not overwhelming on the taste buds, so you can definitely have a couple, but it's 8.4%, so don't drive after.

What you should know: This was one of Trillium's first beers, and they still make it because it's awesome. Trillium excels at making hazy (New England) IPA's, sours, and dark beers. All their stuff is great. As far as their IPA's go, this is one of the more bitter offerings, but I certainly wouldn't call this beer bitter by any normal IPA standard. 

Recommendations: Make your way to their Boston brewery in the summer and get this if they have it. If they don't, just get whatever they have. They have beer lists updated frequently on the website for each location. After you've picked up everything they have at the brewery (I got 8 different ones last time I was there) and stashed it away somewhere, head on over to the beer garden and waste the day away. The last time I was there, I met a group of guys from Philly (go birds) who came to Boston just to come to Trillium. It's that good.

After Josh revived us last week, I'm a few days late on the beer of the week, but it still counts. 2 weeks in a row for us now, 1 more and I'd have to call that a streak. Almost like we're actually going to keep it up. On to the beer:

Description: Grimm describes this as a "dessert Berliner", so you (like me) might have no idea what to expect here. Dessert and sour don't necessarily make sense together, but this beer really works. It's definitely sweet first, with a creamy body, like an oatmeal stout almost, and it finishes with a hint of sour. It's nothing like anything you've ever had before (if it is, let me know because I want to find it).

What you should know: I let a bunch of people try this one, and it was universally loved despite a wide range of beer preferences in the group. Grimm describes this as having a "cream soda finish", and I have to agree with that. 

Cons: There's a lot going on, so you probably can only have 1-2 of these. It's also fairly low alcohol. That's an unfortunate combination.

Recommendations: Just try it. It's a Brooklyn-based brewery, and they have a beer finder on their website.

In honor of resurrecting the beer of the week, I would like to take a moment to thank my co-founder, Peter.

During my recent sabbatical, Peter has managed to double our reviews (closing in on 1500).  If you scroll down, you'll notice the date that we hit 750. Do some 2nd grade math and you'll figure out that Peter drinks frequently. His commitment to review every beer in his grasp with no regard for his liver function is admirable. 

Thank you Peter.

Now to the beer.

Description: In honor of my recent move to Ithaca, I'll start us off with a local favorite and a beer on tap at my apartment. CascaZilla is a year round offering and you can taste why. The black malt takes the bitter edge off of the dry hops and makes for easy drinking. Served cold and fresh out of the kegorator and it's easy to find yourself 3+ beers deep in the blink of an eye. At 7%, that could be good or bad, depends on what kind of night you're looking to have. Since I'm studying accounting, it's fantastic.

What you should know: If you have ever been to Ithaca, you would know that it is Gorges. By that I mean, there are gorges everywhere . One of the gorges, which also happens to be a few blocks from my apartment, is called Cascadilla. Since the beer also has cascade hops, I guess the name was preordained. What the clever folks over at Ithaca Beer Co. failed to take into account was that a completely irrelevant beer blogger cannot pronounce Cascadilla, so he calls it Quesadilla. Ipso facto, I hereby motion to change the name to QuesaZilla. 

Cons: I don't really love black malt, but I guess that's a Josh problem. 

Recommendations: If you like ambers or brown ales and IPAs, this is a beer I definitely recommend. If not, there are a lot IPAs I'd go for before this guy. Sorry Ithaca Beer Co., I still love you guys.
​

Description: This is an imperial stout. It's thick, and very strong, but you won't notice that part. The dominant flavors are coffee and chocolate, but there are also hints of caramel, creaminess, smokiness, and even a little bitterness to balance it out.

What you should know: My palate isn't refined enough to do this beer justice. A ton of complex flavors in there.

Cons: It's hard to find, and at 12% ABV, you can't drink too many of these and remember it. That's a shame, because you'll want to keep drinking them.

Recommendations: Find this, make sure you don't need to drive anywhere, and start drinking.

I bought this recently because this is the first time I've ever seen a 6-pack with 6 different beers in it. It started out pretty good with the Black Lager, and the Bock is obviously pretty good, but the other 4 were disappointing. Good work making a 6-pack with 6 different beers, but I wouldn't recommend this one. Maybe next year's version will be better.

I thought this was really cool, but I am a simple man. Bonus points for being the first can variety pack I've ever seen. I had a variety of opinions on the beers, mostly good, but hey, I drank them all in one day, so that is something.