Wow...that grouper sounds great. I really need to start cooking fish. Well, John, glad you were able to find some Peroni and I look forward to hearing your impression. I was out of town this weekend (Baton Rouge and Alexandria) so I was able to find a few new brews. Here's the list:

Boddingtons (England)
Rogue American Amber
Abita Christmas Ale

Of course I also picked up a Chimay Red since I can get the big bottles for $6 a pop. Here it's $11 a bottle. I still can not figure out how they sell it SO cheaply down there. I'll probably try a couple of the new brews this weekend so I'll let you guys know.

I did find another favorite last week, Paulaner Hefeweissbier. I've never tried a Hefeweizen so I gave it a shot and WOW was it good. Nice wheat taste with a tasty mix of citrus (orange and lemon I think). I can see this as a perfect hot summer day beer. Very refreshing. I'm getting ready for stout/porter season though. Bring on the cold weather!!

I believe the company that imports Chimay (Belukus Marketing) is based in Texas.

$6 for a big Chimay Red?! Time to borrow a pickup and stock up. An amazing price. It's in the $11 range in Nebraska.

Boddingtons is good stuff, and I have yet to try anything from Rogue that I don't like. Haven't tried the Abita though, make sure to give some thoughts on that one. As for the Chimay price...I don't remember exactly but I know I used to get the blue for $10 in philly. There's a place I could buy cases of it there and I forget how much they were, I believe right around $100.

Well guys sorry to hear that Chimay is so expensive, but I had another cheap buy today. Duvel for $8 a 4 pack. It'll be my own private stash. The other place in town has it for $18 a 4 pack. *OUCH!!*

well, i am a little late, but i have my Peroni review.

i took the sixer over to a buddies house on tuesday evening and we drank it while he was showing me some new programs on his computer. the beer had a very slight skunky smell, but it was extremely faint. the flavor was slightly sweet, but not too much so. it was a medium body, not very much bite at all. and i thought it went down pretty smooth, but my buddy commented that he thought it was 'less carbonated' than regular beer. hence, maybe why it was going down smooth? no extra carbonation to irritate the throat. who knows. but we both noticed that the beer had little to no 'head' in the glass. even when you poured it kinda sloppy, it formed almost no head at all.. kinda weird?? anyway, it had a bit of a malty after taste, but nothing memorable.

overall, i thought this was a nice beer for a change, but nothing worth writing home about. it was basically average, just a nice, non threatening, easy to drink beer. could go well with any meal, but dont expect it to turn any heads. my buddy compared it to rolling rock. ? definitely a good choice for a change of speed every once and a while.. and at under $5 bucks a sixer, a relative bargain for a foreign beer. overall scale of 1-10, i give it a 6.5..

i think my next shot will be at a japanese beer that i saw. they also had some canadian beers that i havent heard of. i am still having a good time being experiemental. havent found a 6-pack yet, that i didnt finish..

bigjohn

Thanks for posting your impressions, bigjohn. I really enjoy your reviews.

I finally got a six pack of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale yesterday. It is one winter seasonal that I always enjoy.

This year's batch is, to me, much less balanced than in the past. Perhaps it is revisionist history; obviously, it would be very difficult to conduct a valid vertical tasting of a style that really should not be cellared, and I don't have any of last year's batch left anyway. Nevertheless, I found the 2004 Celebration Ale to be a little disappointing, if only because it did not meet my expectations.

It is a deep copper color with a robust and creamy head. The aroma absolutely slaps you silly with Cascade-variety hops - huge and citrusy. The flavor is completely consistent with that impression, as the grapefruit hop flavor dominates. It is quite bitter, but the hop flavor is much more pronounced than the bitterness, leading to the vision that they just dumped a truckload of Chinook hops (or Columbus or whatever "C" hop) into the boil at the very end.

It's a big, strong beer - and would have to be, to be drinkable with the hop levels. But the malt just never really presents itself in an interesting way, and the whole thing comes off rather one-dimensional. It is much more accurately characterized as an American IPA than a winter warmer or Old Ale.

Yummy for hop heads. I'll easily finish the sixer, but had somewhat higher hopes.

Ken and I are going to a nice German restaurant today. Their beer list looks yummy. I'll report back tonight or tomorrow.

Cool. Nice list. To me, it's pretty hard to beat good, fresh German beer and German food for "comfort". Genetics.

I'm interested in the Weltenberger Helles and Dunkel. Report back!

They have a beer sampler. I'll start with that.