The great beer adventure tour

Sometimes, I fall in love with a brewery. I've tried all of their more widely available offerings, but I know that there are special reserve brews that are only available in the bosom of the affiliated brewpub or gift shop. I'm looking at you, Unibroue, perched along the Chamblay near Montreal. And, of course, the Huyghe brewery in Ghent, Belgium would be a must-see. I might spend a week there. This type of fascination starts with a satisfying beverage, which leads me to try others, which eventually leads me to a website to find out more. There, I usually salivate over all of the seasonal, small batch, and commemorative brews that I will likely never get to try.

Having lived in Michigan for the past 7 years, I consider it a complete oversight to have never visited Bell's in Kalamazoo. Nearly every offering that I've had from Bell's has been pretty good to great, and they're constantly trying new things. They currently have 19 regular beers in their annual rotation, not counting the special brews that often appear on the shelf unannounced.

More recently, I've become enamored with the offerings of Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, ME. They've got a promising line of Belgian-style ales that I'm just beginning to work my way through. Way over on this coast, I've gotten a crush on the Russian River Brewing Company. Now, I've only tried one beer from them, but it was a Double IPA. I don't like American-style IPAs, as a rule, but this one blew me away. I have another of their line downstairs right now, an artisanal Golden ale. I think that the fact that I can't get my hands on another of their Pliny the Elders is driving my current infatuation, but I don't care. I just don't care.

Incidentally, I'm currently sipping on the brown ale that we made a few weeks ago. It hasn't fully carbonated yet, but it tastes very nice. Sweet and full bodied, very little hoppiness (but you can really smell the burnt chocolate malt), and dark as ink. They should call this a black.

UPDATE I tried the Damnation golden ale from Russian River. They're the real deal, folks. It had the body, sweetness, and spicy-ness of a good Belgian Trippel, but with only 7.5% ABV. Still, I have a bit of a headache today, likely as a result of not enough food base prior to consumption.