Beer ‘N Golf

So The first time I tried this beer, I thought to myself, ” Self, if Stone ever decides to make a belgian ale, this is what it would taste like.” Well…. after tonight, I can tell you that this is not how Stone makes a belgian. But I am still impressed. Here’s what I am impressed with.
1. And I preface this by saying that beerngolf.com is an equal opportunity employer….. A woman brewed this tasty west coast inspired belgian IPA. I have to applaude the husband that has the vision to let his wife out of the kitchen long enough to travel to California from Belgium to learn how to make a real beer (Please don’t sue us!! We are far too poor to adequately defend ourselves in a court of law (I’m assuming it’s a little hard to slip a judge a roofy)).
2. This wonderful homemaker did exactly what Stone did in making their belgian. She took the best of what California has to offer, and brought it back home to her beloved belgian ale. HOPS!!! The only thing missing from any true belgian is HOPS. And I am pleased to say that Urthel has brought plenty to  the table in this ale. This is the perfect introduction for any european to see what a real beer can taste like.
With that I probably should end this as I see at least 3 possible lawsuits in the making and here at beerngolf.com, we try to offend only three minorities in a post.
Cheers!!!!! 

When you are looking for a nice golf vacation, Costa Rica is not usually at the top of the list. But when you are looking for a nice fishing vacation and wife #5,  there is no place better. So the first thing I did once I found out I had a new step mom, was to see what courses the country had to offer. Now there’s not many to pick from, and beggars can’t be choosers, but La Iguana is one of the top courses in the country. The course weaves it’s way through the rain forest and finishes at the beach alongside the resort. The architect did an amazing job preserving the natural beauty  and let the land determine the flow of the course. The result is a difficult course that plays like … well…. like playing through a rain forest. Imagine that!! It’s not uncommon to see monkeys scampering across the tee box, or approach the green only to see that you have a gallery of toucans waiting to watch you putt. The par 72 course is 6700 yards long, but with the constant drizzle (at least), it plays much longer. Hacker’s beware!!! Take twice as many balls as you normally would,  as searching for errant shots is futile. OB means STAY THE FUCK OUT FOR YOUR SAKE!!! That is unless you have a snake bite fetish and think you can find the needle in the haystack. Besides, thats what your caddy is for….. Oh did I forget to mention that caddies cost about the same as a sleeve of balls. $25 for the caddy, $20 for the sleeve of NXT’s. I really could go on for days about this course, but instead I’ll leave you with a shot from the 4th green where I literally thought the rain forest was going to swallow me and my caddy, but I guess that’s the risk in dropping acid while golfing.

A month or so ago, I tried an Urthel Hop It, and thought to myself, ” Self, if Stone ever decides to make a belgian, this is what it would taste like.” Well, over the weekend, I got an email that made me wet myself. And tonight I can tell you, that no one can make an ale like Stone can. I applaude Stone for this reason. They have not tried to recreate the great belgian ales of yore. Stone took only what was necessary and left the rest for europe to deal with. Make no mistake…..This is a STONE IPA. All the hops…..All the Bite……… All the bitter bullshit you have come to know and love, with a little culture thrown in to educate your spoiled palette. Stone has incorporated belgian yeast into the brew, and thus created an IPA with just a bit more sugar than usual. It’s just sweet enough to keep me drinking all the way through the arrest and booking process. Damn!!!! This mugshot is going to be one for the record books. Well….. they’re taking my Iphone from me now, so i betrtwerlhha;’kjsdh  \nl.
Update - Just woke up the morning after, still clutching the bottle in my hands. Strange though….. my colon hurts…… 

Normally, a Double IPA reminds me why there is a hop shortage, as most of the available hops went into making these DIPAs. However, Left Coast has successfully created a very drinkable Double IPA. If port got the award for most drinkable IPA, Left Coast gets the award for the most drinkable Double IPA. I don’t know if it’s because I had already blacked out when I took my first sip, but Damn!!! I like drinking this double. 

A couple of weeks back, the BeerNGolf crew suited up in our matching pinstripe knickers to sponsor and play in a tournament benefiting an outstanding charity, fightald.org. Now I can’t say with a good conscience that we here at BeerNGolf actually participated to benefit the charity. We really are genuinely sometimes quasi-decent people, but when Stone Brewing Co is the main sponsor and kegs will be on the course, we would sponsor the National Suck-a-Dick Foundation’s disc golf tournament at Sun Valley with our mouths agape in anticipation. (for the beer of course!)But, on this glorious, mostly heterosexual day we were sponsoring Fight ALD’s tournament at Twin Oaks so let’s discuss the course, and by discuss, I mean you reading and me writing . So, if you didn’t already know, Twin Oaks is located in the “Sunshine” area of north San Diego, San Marcos. If you plan on playing Twin Oaks without kegs of beer available, you might want to think about getting in an early round, as it gets toasty and sober quicker than you can crap kittens. The course is a good blend of everything you like at other courses, which makes you change your strategy every couple of holes. The course is a little dry but is well maintained. The weirdest thing is the greens…. They seem to have smaller holes and invisible breaks. Now I will admit that I was a little plastered and played the back nine with a putter I found in a bunker that strangely resembled a big back scratcher. But I guess that’s the beauty of a scramble. And boy! it was a damn good scramble! Stone KNOWS how to sponsor a tournament! Dollar Beer! Yeah!…. you heard me, DOLLAR BEER. And we aren’t talking about your typical golf course selection. We are talking about straight outta the keg, Port Wipeout, Green Flash IPA, Port Amigo, and Stone Pale Ale. I know, your probably thinking 8oz dixie cups half full with head. NO! As you can see from the picture below, It was 12-14oz cups or “Dump out your still full 32oz Gatorade, we’ll give you a bottle of water to rinse it out with and refill it with 32 ounces of pure heaven, and you don’t even half to pay for it, because it’s technically a suggested donation!” … How I am alive, I could not tell you. But I sure wished I still had that gatorade the next morning.

Most sites will ask you to ‘pardon the dust’ while their website is in development. Here at beerngolf.com we take pride in our dust. We want you to experience our dust, because we think we have pretty damn good dust. Our dust is our history and legacy, and we want you to be a part of this. We don’t give you a page with a clever little animated construction worker. We give you what we’ve got, tyops and all. Check out the site, sign up for our mailing list, and go have a round on us. Damn lawyers!! Apparently we can’t blatantly lie to you, so go have a round on yourself. Cheers!

Normally I would review each beer individually, but since I tried them all in a sampler, I figured I’d pass along the review in the same fashion. Now for those of you who don’t know where or what the f#*k Brewbakers is, don’t feel bad…… In fact feel good that you haven’t spent any considerable time in Visalia, CA. Now, for a brewery in the middle of nowhere, I was rather impressed. They had six beers on tap and 3 homemade sodas. Now being the father of frugality, I noticed that a pint of beer was $4 or I could get the sampler paddle ( Not platter, PADDLE!) with 5oz samples of all 6 beers and all 3 sodas for only $6.  Now about the paddle. The beer was served on what I can only describe as the paddle that my parents used to spank each other with. (they really must have been naughty, cause they spanked each other way more than they ever spanked me)But we are here to talk about beer, not my childhood. so here’s what they had.3 of the beers were exactly what you would expect them to be. The hefewiezen, the apple “beer” and the raspberry apple were all very predictable.The others were a bit more exciting.Brewbakers’ Honey Wheat Ale made me feel as though I was prancing in a field of daisies. If there was ever a quintessential Spring beer, this was it.They also had an IPA worth mentioning. So I am mentioning it. Brewbakers has an IPA.Now….. On to the flagship of the Brewbakers family. The Sequoia Red was one of the easiest drinking reds that I have had in a very long time. It renewed my faith in red ales, and reminded me why I love my job. It drank almost like a brown but with that very distinct roasted red feel and taste.So….. If you find yourself driving through or for some god awful reason living in Visalia, check out Brewbakers and try a paddle of your own. 

Eureka!!! I finally found a Brown Ale exactly like every other brown ale. I have come to the realization that brown ale is like an American Lager. The only difference is that brown ales are usually made by decent hard working people. Ohh yeah, and they taste good. Other than that, the label will usually tell you what to look for. For example…… Raspberry Brown Ale- look for a raspberry flavor…….Hazelnut Brown Nectar- hazelnut… get the point? ok good. Now I know that some of you are going to be livid that I said every brown taste the same. I understand … but go grab a bottle of this and you will agree….. I promise….. If not, just think of this as a very clever marketing campaign. 

AHHH, Bonita…… Rarely does a course come around that actually embraces all of its deficiencies and doesn’t try to disguise them. The course is situated in Bonita Valley just west of the Sweetwater reservoir on the flattest piece of land imaginable. While most courses would break out the shovels to create at least a few feet of elevation change, Bonita embraces it’s flatness in a way that would make Kiera Knightly proud. In all fairness, Bonita does live up to it’s claim as the best course in bonita. It is a pretty nice track that reminds you why the game is so fun. The straight tree lined layout makes this an easy course to score on. Sadly, the milfage factor is limited to the adjacent jogging trail, so unless your willing to run for it you won’t have a chance to score with any locals. Bonita ranks in as a Coors Light. It’s not very hard, and you always seem to have a good time, even when you’re not scoring.

YES… I know that I grouped Sun Valley in the beer section. It is intentional and here’s the reason why: There is no way you can call this a golf course. I have certain standards that determine whether I am at a golf course, or whether I am passed out drunk in the alley behind Hometown Buffet. As I recall, Sun Valley is more of a beer than a golf course. Here’s what I’m thinking. —1974, La Mesa, CA. There’s not much to do. So you take a hit of acid and turn on the TV to watch the last round of the US Open. Four hours later………. Sun Valley is open for business. Ok. It’s a small stretch, but it’s actually a decent beer. I lost my temper, I drove home, and beat my wife. I don’t know how that can’t be labeled as a beer. Really though, Sun Valley needs to close the course. The greens are made of asphalt and the rest of the course gets mowed once every 2 months. It has a decent disc golf niche, and it should focus on that.