Evergreen mnt, pasta, and Hop Stoopid

Today we got out to Three Sisters and scurried up Evergreen Mountain. This is an inviting hike that isn't too tough (even when you do like we did and park in the wrong lot and add extra distance hiking to/fro).

This trail has super wide and gentle switchbacks that I think offer a better summit view than most hikes of this length and difficulty level that I'm aware of. We had a lot of fun with it.

We also wandered into an artisan pasta booth today at a farmers market and it was all I could do to get out with only 3 selections. Everything in here looked good and just the dried pasta section had 20+ selections with everything from Thai orzo to chocolate linguine.. The website says all the right things and I'm excited to see if we might have found a real score on the high quality pasta front.

And to finish off the day I decided to give Lagunitas Hop Stoopid a try.
I've put off trying this beer for a long time mainly because the name makes me think of big wonk hop crazy beers that might have names like the Hop-ness Monster or Hop Cannon. As much as I love hops I don't care for screamingly "stoopid" brews that offer nothing but IBU's.

My appreciation for some of their limited release beers and the New Dogtown finally pushed me to try this offering.

Color: looks like a deep honey to almost amber color. Very Maris Otter looking to me, kinda maibock-ish or something..anyhow.

It's got tight and light carbonation..


Taste: Hmmmm.... Unexpected. My very first impression is that this beer if horribly named. To my taste this beer is not even aggressively hopped forward. I get a humongous blast of orange citrus hops and orange just isn't aggressive like pine or grapefruit can be. Construction wise it's solid as should be expected from Lagunitas.

As I try this beer at different temps and work my way to the end I'm left thinking two things.

1) This beer is much different than I imagined it might be and the name put me off for far to long.

2) This is not the type of beer I like to have on hand because it falls into the class that I call "danger beer". The lighter carbonation, smooth bitterness (they say it's 102 IBU's), and the balance of this beer make it very easy to drink. Off hand I'm not sure if this is a double IPA or not but either way it drinks like a pils to me. That might be a slight exaggeration but the point is it's a way easy fast drinking beer to my taste..too fast/easy.

I'd say if anybody has been put off by the name like I was don't be. It's not aggressive at all to my taste. Give it a shot.