Replete with tangents about bottle dates and general beer geekery, we present another episode of our Happy Hour series with Mike, Jason, and special guest Brandon. Clocking in at just under one hour, this week’s Happy Hour circles around the reviews of two beers: Schlafly’s (St. Louis Brewery) Bière de Garde, and Oskar Blues’ Gordon. The Bière de Garde is a timely summer seasonal farmhouse-style ale, and we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try out a second beer from Oskar Blues. Hear our plea, Oskar Blues: we would love to have your beer distributed in Iowa. Thanks for listening everyone, cheers! read more…

If you’re not on the email list at Flat Earth, Jeff just shared some information regarding special releases for this week. Jeff is a huge Rush fan, and as such, he’s named many of his beers after songs or song references. Rush will be playing at the Minnesota State Fair on August 27th. To commemorate such an event, Jeff is re-releasing some of his Cygnus X-1 porter infusions. He will also be having a special keg tapping of each release around Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Here’s what he shared:

Starting today we will be selling different infused Cygnus X-1 Porter growlers each day at the brewery. Additionally there will be a special keg tapping each evening at select bars in the Twin Cities. The first 10 people getting an infused Cygnus will receive a free Flat Earth pint glass. Here is the schedule of events for the week at the brewery and abroad:

The Great Taste of the Midwest 2010 is occurring on Saturday, October 14th in Madison, Wisconsin. Here’s a list of pre-parties, program, maps, but it looks like tickets may be sold out. Speaking of #GTMW, New Glarus Brewing will be releasing two special beers at their Hilltop Brewery on August 13th: Gueuze and Bourbon Barrel Kriek. Summit takes on Minnesota’s disparity in laws for beer and wine. August Schell Brewery will be celebrating 150 years on September 18th. And finally, the “Brew Beer Here” legislation passed in Minneapolis to allow for local breweries.

We’re going to try something a little new here in one more effort to keep the content fresh and continuing with our goal of providing educational information about beer culture for ourselves and readers. The Roundup will be a weekly collection of some of the most interesting articles we come across during the week, as found through Twitter, Facebook, blogs and word of mouth.

DMjuice this week had a feature on homebrewing in the Des Moines community, Steel Toe Brewing is setting up in St. Louis Park, The Food Network is creating a craft beer television show, New Glarus puts their next beers to a vote, Beeronomics ponders the consolidation of the craft beer industry, and the BeerDorks don’t mind being beer snobs.

Brew days can certainly be one of the more social beer events. When visiting Minneapolis, Shawn and I joined up with our friends at Ryan’s house for a day of beer creation and discussion. The crew at New Brew Thursday arranged a trade with Shawn, where he scored a bottle of Cuvée de Tomme from The Lost Abbey (a division of Pizza Port Brewing Company).

Similar to the beer we explored in our previous episode, Cuvée de Tomme is an example of the American Wild Ale style of beer – meaning sour or tart. I’m loving the diversity this style of beer brings. It seems the age of each one of these beers can change its flavor profile. So, a beer might have a flavor you may or may not love – yet you have to revisit it at a later point in time just to see how the beer has changed with age.

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