So Much Beer, So Little Time

I'm sitting here in the Dentist's office while the wife gets some wisdom teeth pulled. Luckily I can hop on some random wireless network so I can blog about nothing in particular errr get some work done. We are doing pretty well right now I'm looking at my beertinerary for our upcoming trip to the Mid-Atlantic, and I am blown at how much opportunity we'll have.

First off we will fly out of Bush Intercontinental, so we can prep with some Heineken on draft. Not great, but we land in BWI and they have a slew of brewpubs and beer bars in the Baltimore/DC area. I don't care who your daddy is, we're going to Brickskeller in DC. They say it's the best beer bar in the city. Maybe I'll get my main man Obama to come have a beer with me. But I'm looking at hollering at Fell's Point once again in Baltimore and just wallow in the good beering.

Afterward we're taking a trip to Long Island for a wedding. While we're there, we'll be down the street from a meadery, and just a couple miles from places like Bobbique's for some good beering. Turns out a brewpub out there has Watermelon Wheat in a can from 21st Amendment. Almost worth the trip to find that beer.

After a couple more days back in Maryland, we hit up Lafayette, LA for another wedding. Probably just relax at Zea and party it up for New Year's Eve. And then we'll relax.

Um what else is going on. I've lost just over 4 lbs after getting back on Weight Watchers. Good stuff, but we're racking up on beer b/c I only have points for maybe one 12 oz a night.

I tried some Old New Orleans Cajun Spiced Rum. Had a LOT of alcohol in this one, but not enough to overpower all the random spices they threw in this thing. Formal review coming later. Holla.

Mikkeller's Santa's Little Helper

State: Eating corn on the cob with Lagunitas Brown Suggah Burgers.
Beer Log: Right now

Mikkeller's Santa's Little Helper
The wife picked this one up today at Specs. Pours a dark brown color with a decent tan head. Nose is very citrusy hops, orange, and plenty of cinnamon with a handful of malt. This one makes you take a walk through flavor profiles. First you get the malt, then cinnamon, followed quickly by the strong citrusy hops, and wraps up with a belgian style sourness I do kinda like. No hint of the 10% alcohol. The wife says "if Anchor sets the standards, this blows away Anchor". I just love hot there is more orange character comes out as it warms. Probably a 5 star beer if cellared properly and allowing all those flavors to mellow out. Right now, a STRONG 4 Star beer. Very well done Mik, the Dogfish Head of Denmark.

Looking forward to trying the very single hop ipa's as well one day.

Beering in Ontario: Pepperwood Bistro

I know I visited this brewpub in July and it is nearly 6 months. But honestly it could be six years from now and I wouldn't forget Pepperwood Bistro in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. After beering it up in Toronto, I started to make my way back to Buffalo and had this spot as a must-visit in my beertinerary. Maybe it was the weather, smackdab at 79 deg and sunny, right across the street from Lake Ontario. This touristy area of Burlington was like those fancy outdoor upscale malls. Took me forever to park, but it made up for it when I sat on the patio with my book. The outdoor patio just exuded class. I didn't even bother going inside.

Pepperwood Bistro is a brewpub that seems to make it's money on the fantastic food. I believe I had mussels yet again. But with 6 house brews and 15 others on draft, it works out well for a guy like me. Too bad they don't do samplers. So I had to just throw caution to the wind and try three beers. Anything more and I couldn't make the drive back to Buffalo.

Pale Ale

Wanted to see how hoppy they would dare to make this one being that we're in Canada and all. Bready grapefruit nose. Good bread with grapefruit hops on the flavor and aftertaste. I get somewhat moderate carbonation. It's not my cup of tea as the malt doesn't quite balance the hops. Low 3 Stars. I'm interested in how this one sells out there.

Monkey Brown

Deep brown color with a tan head. Nose is chocolate. Taste is surprisingly bland. Second slug gets me some chocolate and roasty flavors. Low carbonation and very smooth. Great beer for newbies. Low 3 Star.

Framboise

Gold and hazy. Figured I'd switch it up with a fruit beer. Raspberry nose, smooth and bready with moderate raspberry taste. 3 Stars.

The fram is pretty good, but even better with the linguine Fruit Del Mar. One of the more tolerable I've had as it's not as sour.

Pretty obvious that although the beer was just okay, the entire experience was great. Food was even better, and the ambiance was fantastic. I can only imagine how they work it out when it's winter time and that lake effect comes in. But such a nice spot in the summer time. Fantastic.

Hit me with another Avery

It's the December UFC event, which means it's time for Avery Old Jubilation. Whether they plan that or not, seems like every time I get some AOJ, on the same weekend as a UFC.

So the wife was beering it up in Calgary and I dropped the baby off at my cousin's house to enjoy a nice visit to ye olde Flying Saucer. And nice to know that Avery was not going to disappoint.

Beer Log: December 11, 2009
State: Chilling out at the Saucer

Avery DuganA
So nice to be back at the old Saucer. Only 93 beers to go before. Not to be confused with the acid trip like cartoons of Tex Avery, Adam Avery seems to believe the world does not have enough imperial style beers. And my 2008 Brewery of the year did not let me down. No clue what type of beer this was when it showed up to the table, but it had a strong malty and piney/grapefruit hoppy nose. Seemed like I got a touch of cherries in there as well. Dark copper color with a thin white head. Could be the bartender just didn't give me any head on this one (no homo). Taste is a syrupy earthy malt with a strong balanced piney hops. Aftertaste is hoppy as well. Very strong all around. 4 Stars. Fantastic big beer once again. Double IPA style. Doesn't hurt that that label is HOT!

Avery Old Jubilation
Had this one last year almost to the day. Last time I got a lot of alcohol and plum. This time, I got more malt, chocolate, and smooth low carbonation. Not as raisiny. Could be last time it was in the house in the bottle, and this time it's on tap at the bar. Dark brown with a tan lac head. Moderate to high hops for good balance. 3 Stars this time.

Fantasy Football and New Belgium Frambozen

I made the playoffs in one of my leagues, and I'm sitting here with 3 players left: Kurt Warner, Crabtree, and Weaver, RB for Philly. My boy Alan has Antonio Gates playing right now and after that only the Cardinals defense. I'm just holding my breath all game while watching the Dallas-San Diego game. I win this I go to our leagues final. Right now I'm up by 5. Just need Gates to have a quiet day and it's pretty much wrapped up.

I went ahead and ate the tickets to the Texans game today. Just too depressed to dragass all the way out to the stadium, especially when I had to keep the baby with me. And wouldn't you know it the Texans blowout the Seahawks. Actually had some measure of aggression. Oh well.

New Belgium Frambozen
Picked this up the other day at the massive Specs at Jones and 290. I'm drinking it in my champagne flute although the beers says it's a raspberry brown ale, not some sort of super Belgium bottle conditioned beer. Nose is malty, toasty, and strong raspberry. Brownish-Ruby colored beer has actually has a nice blend of brown ale and raspberry. Low carbo, nice raspberry all the way through, but backed up by some earthy malty brown ale character. I prefer this much more than the pureblood framboise. High 3 Star. Man this stuff is just plain awesome. I'm drinking it down big time. New Belgium is coming out with hit after hit like Master P in the late 90s.

Rumming it up

Well I'm looking at expanding my paradigm into rum, and why not start 'em out with whatever the hell we have in the house. The wife is out of town in Canada and if she doesn't come back with some beer reviews, I'll know she's stepping out on me with some other dudes.

Beer Log: Right now

State: Sitting by the fireplace, listening to Toucher and Rich Podcasts.

First off, a few hours ago we hit Baker's Street Pub in Cinco Ranch. Very good Smithwicks. Funny how laying off beer will make even English ales taste malty.

Malibu Caribbean Rum with Natural Coconut Flavor

First off, you gotta wonder why not just say it has "coconut" in the rum rather than coconut flavor? Anyway, this rum looks just like water save some increase in viscosity and lots of little legs. Nose has a nice strong coconut and syrupness to it, no alcohol. The first sip I get the taste of simple sugar, with coconut "flavor" all the way through it. No real alcohol burn to go along with all those legs. The second sip is just like the first, with maybe some alcohol burn in your tongue. Goes down very very smoothly, and hardly has any alcohol taste at all. Talk about great for getting your girl in college drunk. Amazing. 3 barrels out of 5.

Ron Maarten Virgin Island Superior Golden Rum

Seems like rum-folk have NO problem putting up very long names. This one looks like apple juice in the bottle. First sniff gives me a strong apple nose, followed by a chill that made it all the to my spine. I'm getting LOTS of alcohol burn in this sniff. The last one I could probably breath in a respirator. This stuff is working on your nose hairs. Taste is a strong strong alcohol burn. On this first sip, I don't think any of it even went down my throat in liquid form. I more or less breathed it in than drank it down. I had a lot of trouble picking out much of any flavor. I guess 80 Proof stuff will do that to you. A stronger sip this time gets me a touch of pepper, not unlike gin. 10 seconds later and my body still has that warmth shiver thing going on. Feels like I'm in the middle of Russia with some strong vodka. If someone told me this was gin, I'd probably believe them. If you are trying to prove your manhood at the party, shoot this stuff straight. Good luck getting your girl in college to drink this stuff. She'll smell it a mile away and run off to the football team. 2 out of 5 barrels.

BeerBrotha Sports Review: Two Rows Holiday Spice

Well, this weekend was decorated with bullsh*t. First my main man and DTSA Affiliate Tiger Woods is sleeping with more white women than Lance Steel. The kicker is he's married to one at the same time. I mean come on. What ever happened to just paying the money to hush these women up. And how about you itznay the whole affair and just have the little random one-nighters. And then he goes and leaves voicemails to his mistress, using his real name, etc.



He didn't even go to his own tourney because his wife put the NORD back in Nordegren and messed up his face. These Swedish/Norweigan folk seem pretty nice with decent beer, but that Viking blood is very strong. And ol' girl is a PURE BLOOD. Kinda like that West African warrior blood with really dark skinned black folk: Chiek Kongo, Terrell Owens, DMX, Ron Killings, Kimbo Slice, you get the point. Moving on.

We made it out to Two Rows to watch local boys Univ of Houston play in East Carolina. Things were up and down all game but the Coogs couldn't put it together in the end with the last drive. Very sad. But at least I got to try the Two Rows Winter Seasonal.

State: Whatever, eating their BBQ Chicken Pizza
Beer Log: Last weekend

Holiday Spice
Dark amber beer with a strong cinammon nutmeg scent. The taste is even stronger cinnamon, all the way up and down the taste. I got some stale bread like thing going on as I searched deep into the first beer I've had in quite some time. High 2 Stars.

Later on I made it to my good friends house with the baby to watch the GA Tech game. To test my supposed allergy to alcohol, I had a nice Left Hand Fade to Black and some Pyramid Howl. I'll have to review them later as we were celebrating Tech getting the big win over the Klan Country's own Clemson Tigers on the way to the ORANGE BOWL BABY!

The Texans were on the road this past weekend against the soon-to-be Los Angeles Jaguars, and I've been so disheartened with their entertaining yet choking performances that I couldn't even watch the game. So instead the wife made the decision that a full 99 hours of DVR and a queue of literally 5 years worth of Netflix is not enough, that she went to damn entrance of the Wal-Mart for the Redbox of Transformers 2. Pretty good movie, a basic CGI and explosion orgy with a healthy amount of racism. Three of my favorite things. All we needed was for Megan Fox to pop out of that top for the brothas out there. The movie ended just in time for us to see the Texans blow it again.

Carolina won in football but UNC lost to Kentucky in Men's Ball. FAMU men's ball is like 0-10, playing a murderers row schedule once again. Damn shame. Maybe I should find something else to do on the weekends. And with the Dynamo losing in the MLS playoffs and US Open Cup, we don't have any winter soccer games to go to. All we have are Tracy McBaby and Rockets. Oh well. Maybe I should just keep working through the weekend or something.