Monday is here, and it’s time to start another week. Pick of the Weekend is our weekly post where we recap our favorite brews of the weekend past…

We had a blast at the LA Vegan Beer Fest and got to sample a bunch of goodies there, though this weekend was more focused on old favorites than on trying a bunch of new beers.

Green Flash Brewing was pouring at the Vegan Beer Fest and we wrapped up our visit there with their delicious Palate Wrecker. Later that afternoon we opened a bottle of the Pretty Things flagship beer: Jack D’Or; a “Saison Americain” that is dry, refreshing, and perfect to sip on the patio while the sun was setting. Pretty Things eschews traditional beer styles, and Jack D’Or drinks like a hybrid of a traditional farmhouse beer and a hop-forward and bitter IPA. If any of Pretty Thing’s beers begged to be distributed in 12oz servings, Jack D’Or is it, and we would simply love to see some cans of this flavorful and unique “table beer” in our fridge!

We love Pretty Things, and they have a few events coming up this month in the Boston and Cambridge areas, so if you’re in New England you should check them out!

We also sampled a couple of new (to us) stouts that were both quite good. A friend of the site recently provided us with a great sampler-pack of beers from Schlafly Beers in St Louis, who does not get distributed in California (yet). We had their Coffee Stout, and found it to be a rich and roasty stout that wasn’t too heavy or dry. The coffee flavor was strong without overpowering the malts, and the finish was bitter but brief. The second stout was Bear Republic’s Big Bear Black Stout a much bigger dry stout with strong chocolate notes and a punch of west coast hops.

Stouts seem to be finding our glasses more and more over the recent weeks; what are some of your favorite craft stouts? Did you have any stand-out beers this weekend? Lets hear about them in the comments.