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November 23, 2015 by Tupper Leave a Comment

“A well-informed, well-written and highly personal look at drinking beer in two dozen of the greatest cities in Europe. …If you love beer and want to know where to go in Europe and what to drink and eat, you will find no better guides than Bob and Ellie Tupper.”

Martin Morse Wooster, MidAtlantic Brewing News

“If you like craft beer and if you are interested in travel to Europe, you will love this book. Bob and Ellie Tupper have compiled a personal database of over 25,000 beers and have developed their own award-winning beers with regional brewers. They know their beers as well as anyone anywhere. They have also been travelling extensively around Europe since the 1970s. Their book is the perfect guide to the beer culture of 24 European cities in 10 countries, and also features numerous side trips for the adventurous traveler. For each city, they give you a quick orientation to the city and then, for those truly in need of a drink, they point you to the closest place to the train station for a good drink. The heart of the book, however, are the “sixpack of drinking experiences” in each city. The Tuppers know that the best part of travel is the discovery of great, authentic places where one can meet new people, see interesting things, and discover great flavors. Their knowledge of the beer culture of each city is amazing. I’ve lived in Prague and know the Czech Republic well, but they found both out-of-the-way cloister breweries that I know and some that I don’t, and they tell you clearly which places are the tourist traps that may be worth a look and which are the places mainly filled with locals. I’m now dying to go to places I never thought much about before, like Manchester, Stockholm, and Leipzig, and I’m dying to go back to places I’ve been but didn’t see what the Tuppers saw, like London, Berlin, and Salzberg. Do yourself a favor: buy this book and start planning your next trip. You will be salivating for that next beer all the way to Europe!”

  Joel D. Seltzer

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What’s New Inside

Thanks, Chris Elliott:

Chris Elliott provides a wealth of useful information for travelers in his Washington Post column and other publications.  This week he included us in his article which you can read if you click here.  His article talks about our time in Bologna- and you can read more about the beers there by clicking here.

Meet the Tuppers:  We hope there will be a strong beer tasting at Mad Fox again this year.  Stay tuned.

NOW PLAYING: on Beer of the Day—  Our list of the some great beers to start the New Year.

>>>>>Scroll down below this entry to find the featured beer of the day.

 

 

Beer of the Day

only beer pub 27 IMG_3154

 At Pub 27 in Pompeii

Cellaring Beers:  Otter Creek Russian Imperial Stout — Middlebury, Vermont    At Four Years From our “Vault”

Date:  February 18, 2018

The Story—  Otter Creek  has been brewing good craft beer for decades, so it’s not a bad brewery to drink during the February Flagship month.  An Imperial Stout isn’t anyone’s flagship, but the brewery is a veteran worth celebrating in this time of a dazzling array of newcomers.

We’ve had this beer twice when fresh and it was an exceptionally good example of the style both times.  The better of the two was a glass of draft at the Northern Virginia Beer Festival in 2009.  Despite the fact that there are far more beers on the market today, some of the great beer festivals have given up the ghost.  The Northern Virginia festival was one of the best– spread out on a hill in the Bull Run Park, it reminded us of some of the rural German beer festivals.   Our notes then  showed a HUGE roast– very dark  with chocolates. Hops! sugar and a deep dark finish. Creamy yet balanced.  There was something in that draft that didn’t make it to any of the bottles we’ve had, but the bottles are still special and this four year old bottle was at least as good if not better than it was when it was fresh.

The Beer—Ash and rich dark malt.  Sweet with soft and even milk chocolate.  Even and rich and dark.    Creamy with dark malts with echoes of vanilla and bakers chocolate and very even from start to finish.   Acrid edge has dissipated almost entirely.  Ellie like the super dark roast with an  unctuous feel with much less chocolate than I found.

We also tasted an Imperial Series version in a big bottle, but it was  far less smooth.   Ellie found it more tart, which really isn’t appropriate for the style.

Value — Good to very good if you have the patience to let it sit in your vault.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 In February, we’re digging into our legendary “vault” where we’ve been storing hundreds of bottles of beer waiting for the right time to taste them (or sell them for charity).   The charity market has slowed, so we’re working through them in front of a fire and finding some disappointments, but more very surprising delights.   You can find the full list –eventually– here on this “index post.”

 We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

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Meet the Tuppers

About Bob and Ellie Tupper

Drink the best local beers—with the locals

Find the most scenic places to drink great beer

Visit historic breweries

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