Thomas.Ortega's blog

We have been experiencing some technical difficulties here at Ortega On Beer, so while we work them out, here something to wet your whistle.

We all know my love of the beers from Stoudt's. Here's a special selection they came up with to commemorate the 150th anniversary of McGillin's Old Ale House in Philadelphia. McGillin's is the oldest continuously operating tavern in Philadelphia (Congrats to them!).

This just in, Burger King has announced that it’s going to test selling beer at its location in South Beach, Miami. This comes on the heels of Starbucks opening up its menu to beer & wine at various Pacific Northwest locations that will be called (deep breath) "15th Ave. Coffee and Tea inspired by Starbucks". Both companies explain that they are doing this to stay competitive in the struggling economy.

Happy New Year everyone out there in Beervana. I know it’s been a while since my last post (four months & two days to be exact but who’s counting). Sorry for that, won’t happen again. Now that we’ve gotten caught up, let us get down to what’s going on.

This past week I was invited to a Belgian Beer & Poker Night by one of my friends where one of the respondents to this invite said the following:

“However, Belgian Beer tastes like soapy water to me.”

Breweries, like any other famous/infamous event (like the Newport Folk Festival, which celebrated its’ 50th anniversary this year & which I’m currently listening to highlights from as I write this) have anniversaries to commemorate it. Except w/the anniversary of a brewery usually comes a special one off treat to mark the celebration. Today we are going to look at a couple of such celebratory offerings that recently came to spend time in my fridge.

For our 3rd trip into the depths of my fridge we travel to the far off land of beer wonder, Belgium. About the size of Maryland, but w/5 million more people and more importantly, over 125 breweries. Now I’m not going to get into their vast brewing history at this time. I just want to talk about this fine beverage in my hand that I got from a friend of mine who traveled there.

Got an email from The Drunken Troubadour over the weekend about how (arguably) America’s most popular beer drinker will be cutting the ribbon during the opening ceremonies of America’s most popular beer festival. Talk about win/win all around. Let us take a look at the qualifications for this year’s recipient:

Dough, the stuff...that buys me beer...

Japanese Beer Machine

Found this video on YouTube over the weekend.

I have so many questions:

There’s nothing like a good road trip. For me, road trips usually revolve around 3 things: Baseball, Beer (not while driving mind you), & Concerts. Recently, my co-conspirators’ & I took part in just such a journey. Now while I would love nothing more than to talk about the ball games or concert we saw, I’m just going to focus on the beer aspect of our trip.

I’ve been sitting on this video that I came across for a while now, trying to properly put it in perspective. Then I realized that the video really doesn’t need much explaining. In three minutes & nine seconds (much more concise & entertaining then Beer Wars), you see a declaration for (take your pick) craft, better, real, original BEER by those who know it best, the brewers. You even get an inspirational theme -Hoppipolla is the track- from hipster faves Sigur Ros.

For our second trip into my fridge we go to a beer brewed a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…I mean Connecticut. Today’s selection is Imperial Stout Trooper from New England Brewing Company (NEBC). NEBC was started up in 2001 in Woodbridge, CT by Rob Leonard.