June 27, 2009
My girl Vered sports a new Founders tattoo.
I sport a bottle of Angel’s Share. The BA nerds were right. No carbonation. How they have framed Angel’s Share with a massive email/message board sense of outrage. No carbonation. Such complaints associate taste with bubbles. They were right. The beer sat still in the glass. But it didn’t matter. The bourbon and vanilla took control. Molasses and maple. The virtuality of affect. An intensity, as they like to say. Enjoyable. Pleasure. The pleasure of the drinkable text.
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June 21, 2009
No reviews but in things:
Highly anticipated based on reputation. Found on the shelf in Chicago. Nice, but not the specific Pelican beer that has earned the reputation. You can order directly from the brewery. Anyone in?
Another amazing IPA with the best labels in the business. The label tells a story. This one goes out to the economic bust.
Sticky. Sweet. Malty. No sense of a city under rain all year round.
Chocolate. Roast. Fairly decent body. All the topoi of imperial stouts. Commonplaces dictate taste and knowledge.
Mystical. Rich flavors that defy description. In my notes I wrote: “First taste is of caramel and cherry.”
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June 13, 2009
The things that used to make us excited:
- Comic books
- The draft (NBA or NFL)
- Action figures (when we are much younger, of course)
The things that now make us excited
Once again, Father’s Day comes early. Two years as a dad. Two years of reaping the rewards: A box of beer by mid-June. I think my father would get a tie he didn’t want when he first became a dad. I get beer.
Nothing says your wife knows you better than anybody else than her handpicking a box of beers you want. How did she know? A little thing called soul-mateness. She honors your fatherhood with the pleasure of beer. She knows you are an obsessed nerd. And that is fine by her.
And the little one? In addition to the great joy of constant crying for no reason, being told “NO DADDY” many times a day, and the insistence to put rocks and necklaces and markers in her mouth, the little girl does make being a dad wonderful. I imagine one day, when she is 18 or so and off at college (Berkeley?), she comes home to visit with a box of Russian River as a gift. That is my fantasy: my daughter brings me beer. Does being a father get crazier than that? And when she is 21, we take a beer tour around California together. San Diego to the far north. The gift is repeated when her brother (who we have not yet made) turns 21 as well. By then I’ll be in my 60s.
This is the father’s day dream defined by beer.
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June 10, 2009
Collecting is the mark of obsession.
By showing the bottles, is it exaggeration or bragging? By keeping the bottles hidden in boxes, is it exaggeration or bragging? Showcases. Displays. Ownership. These are the signs of the collector’s obsession. And then we drink the collection. And it is gone. Only to be replaced by another round of collecting.
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June 8, 2009
A couple days in Chicago. Shopping at Binny’s and Sam’s. Drinking Alpha King in the hotel room while the little one slept on the bed. All our vacations now belong to our daughter. Our food and drink quests are now second fiddle. The girl is first. We tried to do Hot Doug’s:
But by the time we showed up, the line was down the street. Damn you Children’s Museum for taking up the first part of our day! No dice for the glorified hot dog made famous by Food TV and word of mouth. With a two year old at hand, we passed on the two hour wait.
Our major beer highlight was Flossmoor Station. A little old something in a little old nothing suburb/town thirty miles south of Chicago. One major street and Flossmoor is on it. Across the street was a fancy restaurant with no one inside. We eat on two year old time. When we showed up around five, there were other families already eating. Two year old time changes how you eat. Sixty year olds and two year olds like to eat at five o’clock.
I stayed with the Brewmaster’s Specials. A Time Out IPA: not an overpowering IPA, but nicely hopped with citrus and pine. Well done. And a White Lady Double Wit (above). Lots of banana and clove and a bit of the “imperial” its description afforded. Quite good. A lingering Belgian yeast flavor to it as well. At the hotel room, we shared a red waxed IPA (otherwise known as The Curse) and it was fantastic.
Flossmoor is one of those “brewpubs” in your local town that exceeds local town expectation. Great Dane is another. We have a decent brewpub in our Missouri, college town, and no offense to it or its hardworking, honest Joes who keep the beer flowing. But its beer and food still do not compare to a Flossmoor or Great Dane. Our version is a tad shy of adventure, willingness to push taste out of its comfort zone, and interest in turning up the flavor. It stays its course. And that is not a terrible thing to do. . . . unless you are committed to the kinds of brewing that make beer as exciting as it is, and you are committed to being the kind of beer drinker who wants to be excited when he orders a beer. The same holds true for cheese or bread or ice cream or pizza. There is a level of acceptability to each of these areas of consumption. Then there is the area that exceeds acceptability, that ventures into flavor and excitement. Flossmoor is in that second zone. Our brewpub in Missouri is not there yet. It’s decent, but not yet in the zone of excitement.
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May 28, 2009
Accomplishments. Getting married. Having a baby. Getting tenure. And 1000 Ratebeer ratings. I’m a made man.
I should be beyond 1000. When I joined Ratebeer in 2004, I didn’t rate. I drank, but didn’t rate. I was more interested in eavesdropping, seeing how people talked about beer, learning about new beers. Technically, I should be beyond 1000. Where oh where are the lost ratings. In search of.
Like any of my accomplishments, this one was based on what was already in the fridge. Pisgah Vortex I is a Double IPA that has massive malt, caramel, and fruit. My wife wouldn’t drink it. That usually is a sign of so-called “extreme”ness to a beer. A massive Double IPA. A sour. An intense imperial stout. Mine, all mine, as my two year old might say. The alcohol is there, but not overpowering. The sweetness and hops mix nicely. I gladly finished the bottle by myself.
I place my accomplishment side by side with Pisgah’s. This little brewery from north of Asheville continues to amaze. A couple weeks ago, during my daughter’s second birthday, I finished off a growler of their IPA. That IPA sat in the bottom of an RV for two weeks before it reached me. When I popped the cap, it was completely fresh and wonderful. If I were a brewer, I’d consider RV IPA as the name for a beer. Alas, I am not a brewer. No regrets. I’m a drinker, not a brewer.
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May 23, 2009
We we drink when we drink. We drink regional. We drink local. We drink far away states and cities and counties and various imaginary places.
A little North Carolina is in this picture:
A Highland Kashmir IPA beat out by a Pisgah Valdez. I say “beat out” as if beers compete with one another. On rating sites, they do, but only because we ask beers to compete (like fantasy sports or having your Star Wars action figures fight one another when you were seven). The best stout? The best IPA? The best barley wine? A Daily Devotee listing on Ratebeer lists that person’s Top Ten. Who is the best for me, the Top Ten proclaims. The battle is imaginary, of course. But even in that imaginary, Valdez wins.
All coffee. I said: all coffee. I should have been tipped off by the name (”Juan Valdez”) but I wasn’t. Until that first sip.
A fantastic stout. Full of all the roast and coffee and taste I want. That you want. That we all want. I don’t need to say much more except that this little regional brewery out of Asheville is fantastic once again.
And tonight, a Cisco Indie Pale Ale that my wife brought back from Austin a few weeks ago (though it is not a Texan beer):
I hate to admint, beer maverick that I am (I once had an awkward beer moment - just to see how it feels), but I had never heard of Cisco (Cisco is the name of the mammoth food service, no?). This beer was sweet, malty, close to a Double IPA in flavor. Very nice. A pleasant surprise - as should our tastings be.
Yesterday and today should have been the ultimate celebration of taste. On Friday, I got tenure. And for some time now, I have done the typical beer nerd imaginary (like beer style battles) and fantasized over what I would open to celebrate. The Valdez, I suppose, fulfilled that immediate role since it was in the fridge and ready to be opened. But with the wife still recovering from a cold, and with the need to share some of this love with others….I hope to do a more approrpriate celebration at some point soon with some of the finer beers sitting in the basement. A Consecration….An Allagash Confluence maybe? A Damnation 23 maybe? A Captain Lawrence Nor’Easter maybe?
Something like that.
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May 12, 2009
Two clans of family are coming to visit. The occasion? Our two year old’s birthday. Lucky for me, the men and sister in this clan (and I use this word to mean “TRIBE” or relative or whatever…Clan of the Cave Bear kind of thing) is very beer-centric. I am composing menus in my head. Everything is subject to change. All hands on deck. Get out of my way.
Day 1 The Nebraska Clan arrives. We’ve only got a night really. Unless we drink the next morning too. That possibility lingers….I’m hoping for some Upstream to be brought.
- A growler of Pisgah IPA
- Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
- Lost Abbey Devotion with Brett
- Amager Batch One Barley Wine
Day 2 and 3 The Atlanta Clan arrives. A little trickier. Two days! Let’s see if they bring the Terrapin I asked for. I know an Allagash Confluence is on the way.
- Port Wipeout IPA
- Lost Abbey Gift of the Magi
- Brugge Black
- Three Floyds Alpha Klaus
- Schlafly Grand Cru
- Schlafly Tripel
- Southern Tier Oat
- Three Floyds Brian Boru
- Three Floyds Black Sun Stout
- New Glarus Raspberry Tart
- Three Floyds Dark Lord 09
North Carolina Clan that has been here a few days already and is really a mix of the Atlanta Clan: They don’t drink beer. Bell’s Oberon suffices for now. A New Belgium, too, will serve its purpose.
For no reason other than to post a picture and be visual in the age of new media, here is a recent beer haul from Bruisin Ales (minus a pic of the Pisgah growler. It is in the fridge already).
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May 4, 2009
Short beer responses:
Legacy Hoptimus Prime
The smaller version of the photo is shown because, for some reason, this is one of the blurriest pictures I’ve ever taken. $500 camera and five years later I still have no idea how it works. From my notes:
Did not pour with much head. Sweet, malty taste. Pine. Hoppy. Not heavy though like a West Coast hop bomb. Caramel. Bit of a bitter finish. Enjoyable, but maybe I expected more.
And Three Floyds Popskull
A slightly bigger picture since I have a slightly better photo. Bought at the brewery during Dark Lord Day. This is the Three Floyds/Dogfish collaboration we began whispering about while standing in line. “I want one!” “Me too!” Desire is more catchy than the swine flu. Once we had bought our allotment of Dark Lord, we all headed to the next room where another crowd gathered to buy another allotment, three bottles of Popskull. Pours dark and malty. Tastes a lot like Palo Santo. But that is a good thing. Sweet, Syrup. Very nice.
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May 1, 2009
Day who knows what of me waiting to be the RateBeer Daily Devotee. Even left a few comments hoping to get caught into the algorithm that plucks a name out of the database and shoves it onto the front page of the forums. No luck. Still a RateBeer nobody.
So I opened a Loterbol Bruin to forget my nobody-ness. Bought two trips ago (how much is that in dog years?) at St Louis Wine and Cheese, this Belgian gem turned out to be quite good. Dark and full of caramel and plumb. I was too lazy to take a picture, so let me link to one (as we used to say back in the day: deep linking).
I spend all day linking. Linking ideas. Text. Web pages. Concepts. Pedagogy. I’m a perpetual Ted Nelson machine. The Facebook of beers would be a site where the beers run the status updates and make each other friends. They link to one another. We, the humans, are not invited to be friends.
It’s a dream. And last night I dreamed of a bar that always circulates in my dreams. It may or may not be a bar I’ve actually visited, but in the dreams, it is a bar that one time I visited and didn’t realize how good the selection was. That lack of realization suggests some kind of regret I carry from dream to dream. Each time the bar returns to my dreams, I’m peeking in the windows or checking out the menu as I pass by, hoping to get a glimpse of that selection again. Last night, I dreamed we went into the bar, and there was a big poster advertising Russian River. Russian River. In our town! Something I had never heard of, something like Hubjed, was advertised. I ordered it and it came in a tiny glass and looked like a rosé wine. When I double checked the menu, it was no longer called Russian River but rather Sacramento Beer Company. Yet I knew it was Russian River.
After I poured that Loterbol, a big creamy tan head pillowed in the glass and then sank. As I’ve been writing out this dream, I’ve been waiting for the head to settle. It has settled and laced the glass. Very nice.
Posted in daily devotee, Belgian, beer 1 Comment »
