Session #1

Polling's closed, and while Oct. 17 won out by a slim margin, I've spoken to the few of you who were outliers on the poll and decided that the best day to pull off this shindig will be this Saturday at my place. It's going to be cold out, but I'm going to brave it to throw some burgers on the grill. For the meat I'll be using a set of special ingredients never before used that will be designed to fuse perfectly with the brew I've lined up for this month's proceedings. I may also just use whatever's in the fridge.

Place: Girard
Time: Dec. 10, drop by as early as 3pm and stay until the keg's gone
Quantity: 1/2 barrel keg (so bring your growlers if you've got 'em)

Our place is ground floor just above the basement apartment. The doorbell's broken, but you can give my cell a call or knock on the window that's to the left when you're facing our front door.

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for...this month's beer will be Diesel, brewed by Brooklyn's own Sixpoint Craft Ales. It's been released in cans for a short time now and only made its keg debut in DC this past week with a local premier at ChurchKey, and now we're getting a chance to try it out without having to fight the bar crowd.

And one last thought: if you don't own a growler and don't know where to pick one up, but you know you'd like to get one before we meet up, let me know, and I might be able to grab one for you while I'm out running errands.

[Click on the image to be taken to the Beer Advocate review.]

Beer Advocate rating: A-
IBU rating: 69
ABV: 6.30%

Description from Sixpoint:
As flaccid dark beers limp their way across the finish line, the Sixpoint Diesel powers itself to victory with extra horsepower. Should you expect anything less from "stout" beer?

The Diesel is our version of stout, and with a name like "stout" we needed something with character…something with substance. Something with a deep roasted flavor, something with a full-bodied toffee sweetness. Something with cleansing, citrus, and grassy hop bitterness after every swallow.

Diesel stout has actually been offered each winter since 2005, the year after Sixpoint was founded. Rich, robust and deep brown-black, this beer will linger in your mouth like a streak of tar. Yet it’s surprisingly sessionable and effervescent, too. It starts with nutty roasted malts, which get combined with Columbus and Northern Brewer hops. Another dose of Columbus in the dry-hopping stage gives it a defiantly hoppy character. Poured in a glass, the head becomes thick and cappuccino-like, with lacing down to the last sip.

New York Times article about Sixpoint.