Dark Kriek - Gone, But Not Forgotten

For those of you not familiar with New Belgium's "Lips of Faith" series, I'll enlighten you a bit.  It's a very limited run, often not even enough to keep the Fort Collins residents happy, and there are usually only 2-4 offerings available.  For quite a while, the only place you could get these was the brewery, though they've recently started putting them in bombers available at a few liquor stores around town.  As far as I know, there is only one permanent Lips of Faith, a sour brown ale called La Folie.  We'll discuss that a bit later.  These beers fetch a heavy premium, usually between 9 and 20 dollars a bottle, but more often than not, they're worth it.  Before I ramble too much, we'll get to the task at hand, one of the best Lips of Faith in the series, and one that is likely almost all gone: Dark Kriek.

Bud Light: Why not?

So there's a new Scrubs on (vaguely reminiscent of the failed Saved By The Bell college try) and I've had a long day rescuing my handicapped Jeep from the clutches of the Colorado mountains.  Thus, I need a beer.  Yes, I have one Frambozen left.  Yes, I have a bomber of Dark Kriek (one of the last ten or so in the world I believe, saving it for a special occasion).  Those are just not quite up to par.  A night like this needs substance.  A night like this needs class.  A night like this needs Bud Light.

New Belgium Frambozen: The Secret Seasonal

If you're a beer nut like me, you're well acquainted with New Belgium. You've had enough Fat Tire to know it like your favorite book, you've tried the majority of their other offerings, and you are always delighted to find their new seasonal gracing the shelves of your local liquor store. They have a couple of old timers in their seasonal lineup (Skinny Dip in the summer, 2 Below for winter) and have been playing with the spring and fall seasonals for a while (they are currently Mighty Arrow and Hoptober, though they will likely change again next year). But few outside of Northern Colorado know of this well kept secret. It's a bonus winter seasonal that appears around Thanksgiving and is usually long gone by New Years Eve. It is Frambozen.

A brief aside before we continue

Before I get too deep into this, I think I should give the reader a better idea of my tastes and thoughts for this blog. As I may or may not have mentioned, I recently relocated to Loveland, Colorado. There are three big reasons I love this area: the mountains, the food, and the beer. This is (in my humble opinion) one of the best regions in the world for the educated beer drinker. Two of the worlds biggest breweries, Coors and Anheuser Busch, are less than an hour away, and the area is peppered with craft breweries, including the 3rd largest in the country, New Belgium. For those curious like me, numbers one and two are Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada, respectively. Other notables in the area are Boulder, Breckenridge, O'Dells, and Left Hand, all of which are just a quick jaunt down I-25.

Round 2: The Mickey's Locomotive

As I said less than an hour ago, I purchased a big boy bottle of Mickey's alongside my 24 oz can of Max Vibe. I'm about halfway through the aforementioned copy of "The Blindside" and I'm feeling pretty good. The Max Vibe was tasty, but I'll admit, the Mickey's is more up my alley.

The inaugural drink: Max Vibe

It's not often that I'm compelled to blog, but occasionally I get the urge, and after a quick google of "max vibe" led me to www.thedrunkpirate.com, I decided that this was a good use of my time. Everything that appears here is the direct result of that awesome man and his choice of internet ventures.