​Giving your sweetheart a box of assorted chocolates for Valentine's Day is a great way to say "I really don't know all that much about you." A fine beer, on the other hand, is a bold move all but guaranteed to impress. And if it's not appreciated? Well, better to have learned that he or she isn't a beer lover before the relationship gets too serious.

Deep Ellum Brewing Company is offering a very limited run of hand-bottled Cherry Chocolate Double Brown Stout, a sexed-up version of the brewery's already-alluring Baltic porter, 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Bolsa Mercado. According to SideDish, there'll be 300 bottles and when they're gone, they're gone. Owner John Reardon adds in the comments section that each 22-ounce bottle will probably retail at $14.99 (!) and that the batch is made with Patric Chocolate cocoa nibs and cherry puree from Oregon.

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​Lakewood Brewing Company is nipping at the heels of Peticolas Brewing Company and Deep Ellum Brewing Co. to be the third Dallas-area beer maker, but it's not the only start-up on the way.

According to its Facebook page, Reunion Brewing Company last week signed a lease for a space in the Design District, and was recently approved by Kickstarter for a fundraising campaign. You can read the origin story here, but in a nutshell, Reunion is the project of three friends (Jack Sparks, Brent Thompson and Kat Stevens) who met during temporary bartending jobs and then reunited when Thompson and Stevens began homebrewing and called Sparks, who was working as brewmaster at Saya Beer in Bolivia.
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Jesse Hughey

​Yesterday at the Meddlesome Moth, you couldn't walk three feet without bumping into a brewer, beer blogger or beer-fest entrepreneur. The debut of Peticolas Brewing Company's first commercially available product brought out an impressively dense crowd, especially for a rainy Tuesday, to try Velvet Hammer.

These were some passionate, opinionated beer lovers, and I didn't talk to a single one who wasn't impressed by the inaugural offering. I really liked it as well. It's a very well balanced ale, dry with a nice nutty maltiness and an interesting blend of herbal, floral and tropical notes from the hops. The body is smooth and rich but not too thick. And despite a hefty 9 percent ABV, the alcohol was almost imperceptible. It's dangerously drinkable, tasting like something you could sip all day as easily as iced tea. I can't wait to try Great Scot!, the next beer in the Peticolas lineup.

​Tonight, Chef Roe DiLeo oversees her first beer dinner since her return to The Libertine Bar, and her creations will be paired with offerings from the Lyons, Colorado, brewery Oskar Blues -- including a two-year-old Ten Fidy for fans of cellared beers. Read on for the full menu.

Appropriate that the dinner would be this week, as yesterday was National Canned Craft Beer Day, if our sister paper in Denver is to be believed. Oskar Blues, creator of Dale's Pale Ale, is perhaps best known for being part of the vanguard of craft brewers to offer their products in cans; in fact, the brewery doesn't bottle at all. Cans are starting to lose the stigma in the beer world, and if canning equipment weren't so expensive for small brewers, they'd have surely all but replaced the bottle. They're lighter, making shipping the product more earth-friendly, and more convenient for outdoors activities. And cans are better at preserving beer, as they are light-proof and don't have the possibility of oxygen seeping in through a loose bottlecap.

Seats for the 7 p.m. dinner are $50 per person and available at the bar or by calling 214-824-7900. Or you could win a pair and go for free.

Update: Contest is over. Congratulations to Daniel M, and thanks for the art history lesson.
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​Beginning with a 5 p.m. tapping today at the Meddlesome Moth, the recently launched Peticolas Brewing Company is off to a strong start, or at least starting out with a strong beer.

Rather than start out with a lighter, more accessible beer -- not to mention one that's easier to brew -- Peticolas' inaugural beer will be Velvet Hammer, an imperial red ale with an ABV level of 9 percent. But the choice reflects Michael Peticolas' plan to let his customers guide the brewery.

"What I'm trying to do is let the market decide what my flagship beer is," he says. "We'll brew it for four months and depending on what the market says, bring it around again or not. Everyone has responded strongly to Velvet Hammer, so if everyone says it's great, why don't I give it a shot?"

The Common Table will be the next to offer the brew, tapping it Thursday -- and offering the chance to try it alongside brews from Deep Ellum Brewing Co., whose new IPA is incredibly good, by the way -- with a free 9:30 p.m. performance by Mission to the Sea. Trinity Hall and Goodfriend Beer Garden and Burger House will also have kegs shortly, Peticolas says. Following on the heels of Velvet Hammer will be Great Scot!, a malty 6.8 percent ABV Scottish ale likely to be released in a couple of weeks. Spring will bring the more sessionable Golden Opportunity, which Peticolas says falls somewhere between golden ale and kolsch, and the English pale ale Royal Scandal.

Nick Rallo

Two of us riding nowhere / Spending someone's hard earned pay

​Nick Rallo and I have both written before about how deliciously hoppy, caramelly and boozy Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA is, so no need to regale you once again with tasting notes that border on erotic fiction for hopophiliacs. Instead, just enjoy his beer-porn snapshot that shows how this 18-percent ABV ale all but throbs in the snifter, just a strand of frilly white lace separating the lucky imbiber from its soft apricot glow.

We enjoyed these puppies last night at the BlackFriar Pub, which tapped a slim keg. Here's how giddy this beer can make a hop lover: The conversation started with each of us glumly questioning our own relationships with the bottle. By the third sip, this liquid happiness -- bypassing the liver entirely and mainlining straight to our serotonin neurotransmitters -- had us flagging down a waitress for another round. Nearing the end of our second round, Nick pantomimed someone being caught in a compromising position in a bathroom stall, wild-eyed and hunched over a glass, soaking an appendage in the sweet nectar, which tragically resulted in the loss of precious droplets to a spit take. I briefly considered slurping them off the table. If I hadn't been in public, I totally would have.

120 Minute tappings are rare in Dallas, so keep an eye on Twitter (follow me here) for word. I don't know of any upcoming chances to try it, but I'd bet it'll appear at The Common Table's Dogfishtival, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 28. If not, go anyway for the 20-plus Dogfish taps with the promise of "quite a few rarely seen in Texas."

Update: As Brian Brown points out in the comments, Flying Saucer on the Lake will tap a keg of 120 at 5 p.m. today. Get there early, because it will go fast.

​Just days after Texans celebrate the state's Independence Day on March 2, drinkers can support its independent brewers and try offerings from all five of the DFW area's functional breweries. (That number won't be five forever, but more on that later.)

Corey Pond at The Common Table says Rahr & Sons Brewing Company, Franconia Brewing Company, Deep Ellum Brewing Co., Lakewood Brewing Company and, fingers crossed, Peticolas Brewing Company, will all be featured in an all-local beer dinner 7 p.m. Monday, March 5.

Each brewery (with the possible exception of Peticolas, as brewer-owner Michael Peticolas wasn't certain he could commit, last Pond had heard) will offer one beer. In the next couple weeks, Pond says, chef Mike Smith will create a menu after sampling the beers to be featured.

The dinner will be $65, with $15 from each seat going toward Open The Taps, a worthy cause if ever there was one, and Pond has pledged at least $1,000. 

Update: Peticolas sent word Saturday that he has confirmed the date with Pond and his brewery will be part of the dinner as well.

​Remember when a husband-and-wife team planned a beer festival in Fair Park and everyone was all excited about it but then it got canceled and everyone, aside from a few told-ya-so-sayers, was bummed? Well, once again, a husband-and-wife team is organizing a beer festival in Fair Park.

And, with more than a year of planning and Andrews and Ben E. Keith on board as affiliate sponsors, Big Texas Beer Fest, set for Saturday, April 14, looks like it has a pretty good shot of actually happening. Chad and Nellie Montgomery have been laying the groundwork since last July after being inspired by a trip to Denver's Great American Beer Festival in September 2010. Or longer, if you consider the inroads he's made as a vocal consumer in the passionate small but growing craft-beer scene.

"Cathy and Jay [Rascoe, organizers of Dallas Beer Week and the aborted Dallas Beer Festival] are really nice and meant well, but they are in Houston and don't know all the locals," Chad says. "I know the beer nerds in the area, and they are going to help."

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Even without Photoshop, Anchor Our Special Ale is a beautiful beer, and tastes pretty good too.

​Continuing to enjoy holiday beers well after the holiday season shouldn't make you feel like one of those neighbors who leaves their Christmas lights up through Valentine's Day. Every day's a holiday, and today you can crack open a special brew to celebrate (or rue) the fact that on this date in 1973 the American League owners voted to institute the designated hitter rule.
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Jesse Hughey

The St. Arnold Pumpkinator

​Here's what passes for my year-end list, 10 of the beers that really impressed me this year, listed in no particular order other than roughly reverse-chronological. It's late because I tend to do my heaviest drinking during the holidays. I wanted to be sure to include anything I tried up till midnight on New Year's Eve; the tardiness is not at all because of a weeklong hangover combined with post-holiday depression rendering me nearly catatonic and completely uninterested in writing about ... urp ... beer.

Deep Ellum Brewing Co. brewmaster Drew Huerter is putting out some really good beer already, even with the brewery just a few weeks old. Festivus, a sort-of black IPA created in the wake of a brewery equipment failure that nearly rendered a huge batch unusable, was a fine holiday beer, but my favorite beer they make is the biggest: the imperial rye stout Darkest Hour. It's just as dark as the name implies, with a nice dark-fruit sweetness and bracing spiciness and bitterness keeping the sugars in check. If you like dark beers, order some before it's gone.

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