Stouting Off with Founders: Breakfast, Imperial, KBS, + Co.

Image credit to downtownbarandgrill.com

Imperial Stouts are like Ivy Leaguers in at least one way - they're over-represented at the top. For their part, Imperial Stouts make up 6 out of the top 10 and 27 out of the top 50 on RateBeer's 2013 Best Beers list and 8 out of the top 20 on that of Beer Advocate. The corresponding figures for Ivy Leaguers, by the way, are 6 out the 10 schools with the highest number of super-wealthy alumni (>$200 million net worth) and 14 out of 43 US Presidents.

Of the many great breweries in the world, one from Grand Rapids, Michigan is particular well-represented in the Imperial Stout category - Founders Brewing Company. This post draws on both single and comparative tastings of several of their brews in this style, including Founders' Breakfast Stout (8.3% ABV), Founders' Imperial Stout (10.5% ABV), and Founders' Kentucky Breakfast Stout (11.2% ABV). Read on to hear the Founders story and the verdict on which brews of theirs takes the crown.

Beer Spot Review: Tørst

Tørst's bar - photo credit to NY Grub Street

How well-respected do you think you'd need to be to have one of the oldest, most famous, and well-regarded breweries in the world specially make a beer exclusively for you to purvey? To get an answer, you'd have to check in with Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø of Evil Twin and Ølbutikken fame. Since 2005, Brasserie Cantillon of Brussels has specially made Blåbær Lambik for Jeppe: he sends them blueberries, they incorporate them into a blended series of wild-fermented lambics that they ship back to him in Copenhagen, and he then sells them out of his world-renowned bottle-shop, Ølbutikken.

Up until a week ago, you couldn't buy Blåbær Lambik anywhere but Ølbutikken, which, given the plane tickets required to reach Denmark, made it a challenging value proposition for all but the most intrepid beer nerds.

Last Friday, the necessary journey got a lot shorter for New Yorkers with the opening of Jeppe and Daniel Burns' (of Momofuku and Noma fame) new beer bar, Tørst. Located in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, this sleekly decorated spot instantly attracted hordes of beer connoisseurs interested in trying not only the bottles of Blåbær Lambik that Jeppe brought along for sale, but also the dozens of other rare, obscure, and otherwise impossible to find brews that Jeppe had stocked from Evil Twin, Mikkeller, Beechwood BBQ, Cantillon, and more.