I got to hand it to Patrick, the co-owner of Rattle N Hum bar in NYC, he likes to push boundaries.  Actually I’m not sure he knows the meaning of that when it comes to beer.   He is constantly showcasing the best craft beer available in NYC and some of the best beer I’ve had comes from Allagash, a small brewery in Southern Maine.  Since NY Craft beer Week started on Friday the 24th, Patrick got things off to a great start on Thursday, a day earlier, by bringing in Allagash’s owner Rob Tod and 15 amazing kegs of his beer!

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I’ve been looking forward to this beer for a LONG time.  So I figured this night was a great night to try it, why?  My birthday of course!   Besides a limited release, this bottle was special to me.  It was unexpectedly sent to me by a person I have an immense amount of respect for and I’m glad I saved it for a special day.  Thus, I’m going to selfishly have this beer by myself!

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It’s not very often in a beer blogger’s world that you come across a group of beers like this to sample.  For this podcast I was lucky enough to get several of Allagash’s Coolship beers and Russian River Beatification.  All of these beers have one thing in common, they all are products of nature, spontaneous fermentation.  What does that mean?  Well, most beers are fermented with cultured yeast strains, these beers where exposed to their environment and left to the divine power of what ever little bugs were around.

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Shhh… I change the name.  These podcasts are really no longer about several beers fighting it out to see which is best.  That concept has just become way to subjective for me.  Frankly, I love giving my opinion, but want folks to try the beers them selves and form their own opinions.  So from here on out no more Beer Brawls, just Simply Beer Podcast and with the line up of beer we have for this podcast cast, it wouldn’t be fair to have these beers brawling. 6 totally unique, über rare, and individual beers.

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Our first Simply Beer Club on November 7th was a huge success. We tasted through a half dozen+ stouts and had a blast discussing the beer in a fun and very educational forum.

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Most beer geeks, especially on the east coast, have heard of Allagash or have been lucky enough to have some of their Belgian style beers. The founder of Allagash beer sat down with me before his seminar on Yeast at the Astor Center as part of NY Craft Beer week.

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