Time to reveal the winner in the Best Beer contest at the 36th SOTS reunion. With a score of 4.9 the winner is my daughter Jeanny. This Saint Arnold Brewery beer from 2021 Pumpkinator series was outstanding. She gets her name on the annual winners plaque and gets an engraved Yeti koozie. It also was stolen from Ryan's beer stash. This transgression, although not technically illegal, cannot go unpunished. I therefore, am banning my own Riverroamers cook team from participating next year. Great competition, so many high fours were entered. Can't wait till next year.

We are at Whiskey River Ranch in Texas for our annual SOTS reunion. This is our 36th gathering on the Guadalupe river. This is entry number twelve into our best beer contest. This is the last beer and I believe my daughter cheated. Ryan did not help her, against the rules, but she did not go out to a store to buy a beer. She went to his beer collection and picked one. Ryan and I like the same beers so...... This is a 2021 Saint Arnold Pumpkinator aged in Bourbon barrels. Never had this one before. From the bottle this gave the pumpkin and bourbon aroma. Excellent. Flavor exposed both the pumpkin puree and an oak aged bourbon with equal clarity, balanced and complementary. The middle even brought along traces of raisin or dates. Never lost its intensity through the middle into the finish. Soft texture continued throughout and long into the finish. The 5 years in the bottle only seemed to enhance the flavors. I won't let her do this again next year. But that beer almost, almost got a five.

Beer has refreshing taste citrus anf fruity

At the beach with my children and all six grandchildren. And 3 dogs. Loud screaming to be heard, dogs barking, driving me crazy. But it won't always be like this, and I will miss it. I don't know how Ryan found this beer, something about poker night. Brewed in 2013, released in 2015, and now here at the twilight of 2025. Going to be a great few days and a new 2026. I can not give this beer a rating. Some years in the past it died. Not the same beer as it was in 2015. Not the beers fault. It just could not wait for someone to open it and died alone in the bottle. RIP.

Blondinette, légèrement épaisse. Notes d agrumes. Vraiment agréable avec un goût de reviens y ! 🕯️🪬🪞📆👀

Ganz gutes Kölsch aus Amerika. Kommt einem deutschen Bier recht nahe.

Ryan and I have been saving this for a special Duo evening. We both fly out tomorrow for Kansas City to visit Boulevard Brewing, one of our favorites. We also have tickets for the Kansas City Chiefs versus the Baltimore Ravens, football game and have family that have invited us to their tailgating party. We plan on visiting several breweries while there. And now the beer. It's from Saint Arnolds, another one of our favorite breweries, that's in Houston. Opened the cap and the aroma was excellent. Strong bourbon, and a dark fruit, probably prunes. Dark Brown color, a modest deep tan head that dissipated. Texture was soft and creamy, not what you'd expect from a porter. The bourbon was immediate, super sweet, like dark molasses. More of the dark fruit, turning more toward dates. Leaves a heavy coating in the mouth. As it travels into the finish, something unusual happens. The flavor drops off a cliff, almost disappears. It only leaves a modest bitterness on the back of the tongue and it turns very dry. At first I believed this was going to be a highly rated beer, but the finish was disappointing. Perhaps it's the aging, or maybe it was supposed to be like this. Anyway, I'm still giving it 4.4. But if the flavor had maintained, or even evolved, it could have been much higher.