When I actually lived in Oklahoma I wasn’t much of a craft beer drinker because, you know, I was just a little kid.  And little kids can only afford macro beers with their $1 a week allowances.  But as I got older and returned from college and beyond to visit Oklahoma family and friends, hit up the bars, I’d be stupefied by two things:

1.  Beers were often as cheap as 50 cents to a dollar a bottle.

2.  And not only was the majority of beer macro shit, it was low-ABV macro shit.

I remember just five years ago going bar hopping with an Oklahoma friend in his element and noticing that at each new bar we hit up he’d inquire of the bartender, “Is your beer 3.2?”

3.2?  What the fuck did that mean?  Well apparently, many Oklahoma establishments, perhaps even due to law (though I’m too lazy to even Wikipedia this), don’t serve your standard 4-5% macro garbage put serve even more watered down 3.2% macro garbage.

Worse, Oklahoma is one of three states that still doesn’t allow homebrewing!

This obviously did not help create a culture of craft brewing nor does it exactly lead to Oklahoma being a hot bed of quality beer.  Yet people persevere.

Without homebrewing, the minor leagues, or perhaps “semi-pros,” of commercial brewing, it’s hard to forge craft brewers in your state.  Nevertheless, Eric Marshall of Marshall Brewing was able to open a brewery in Tulsa, Tulsa’s first production brewery since 1940, and they make some pretty nifty beers.  I first became aware of them a few weeks ago when I saw a picture of their gorgeous wax-dipped bombers and instantly I wanted some.

Now they don’t distribute to New York City yet, but that didn’t stop me from sending a shameless e-mail to Mr. Marshall begging him to send me some bottles.  Gratis.  And he did.  Gratis.  (Meaning Marshall Brewing Co. is now in the Breweries-That-Send-Me-Free-Shit Hall of Fame along with The Lost Abbey and Buckbean, if you are interested FTC.*)  I received essentially Marshall’s full line with the exception of their summer seasonal Sundown Wheat and their Old Pavilion Pilsner, both of which I hope to try soon.  (A higher-ABV beer is also on the way apparently, which greatly interests me.)

McNellie’s Pub Ale

5% ABV bottled

Now the English bitter is not a style I deal with a lot, but, McNellie’s Pub Ale is ranked as one of Beer Advocate’s top of the style.  I feel like bitters can be easy to confuse for a macro if you don’t focus on their very nice subtleties.  This is a pleasantly light beer with a nice hoppy taste.  Surprisingly bready and malty, though just barely, just enough to balance it out and let you know you’re drinking something complex and well thought out.  The very bitter finish is it’s most noteworthy asset, while it’s overly prickly carbonation stands as its biggest debit.  Nonetheless, a terrific session beer I’d drink the shit of if I lived back in the Sooner State.

B+

Atlas India Pale Ale

6.5% ABV bottled

I was most excited to try this offering, more of an English IPA than your San Diego uber-hopped example of the style.  Hoppy but not too bitter at all with a solid bready malt backbone.  The dry dry finish almost makes Atlas seem more like an ESB than an IPA but there’s nothing wrong with that.  A prickly carbonation (yet again) that I wouldn’t mind having toned down a tad.  Solid and incredibly drinkable, a terrific beer.

A-/B+

Big Jamoke

6.8% ABV bottled

This highly drinkable porter introduces itself with a very rich chocolate smell.  The taste is of dark cocoa with just a hint of hoppy bitterness, smoke, and a roasted coffee finish.  A nicely mild carbonation, I thought Jamoke was a little thin on the mouthfeel but that’s my only quibble.  I really enjoyed Jamoke and it’s a great effort.

A-

One more thing on Marshall Brewing:  now the wax-dipped bombers may be what first piqued my interest about the company (I’m a sucker for fancy pants packaging) but they ended up being what I liked least about the beers.  The actual wax-dippings were more hardened plastic than silky wax, making the bottles hard to open and causing the brittle wax to keep breaking off into shards everywhere, onto my counter top, floor, some even fell into my glass as I poured.

*Brewers, if you’d like to join this prestigious Hall of Fame, please contact me:  theviceblog [at] gmail.com

14% ABV bottled

Overrated and Underrated Drinking Days

With Super Bowl Sunday fast approaching, I thought I’d take a quick glance at what are the worst, and secretly best, days of the year to tipple.

Overrated

6.  Christmas Eve — This drinking day has gained a lot of traction in the past few years but it is still mainly just a day for single Jews to get drunk with other single Jews, which in theory isn’t the worst thing in the world, until you realize that most of this Jew mingling has been collated into specially organized “Matzo Ball” events which are essentially just lame J-Date-esque mixers.*  The alienated loneliness just permeates the latke-aromaed air, believe me.  A positive:  Jewish women are normally pretty easy, but at the Matzo Ball…every little Jewish boy feels like Sandy Koufax entering a bar in Flatbush after pitching a no-hitter.

5.  Halloween — Halloween used to be an underrated drinking day at the turn of the century, back when most adults didn’t even consider the fact that they could celebrate this holiday, but the continued infantilizing of adults and the oft-repeated meme that “all women dress like sluts” on Halloween has lead to the bars being filled with a lot of moronic yahoos on both sides of the gender aisle, bumping into you because they have no cognizance of their costume’s spatiality.  A positive:  all women dress like sluts.

4.  Valentine’s Day — A certain kind of man will tell you that Valentine’s Day is an awesome day to go drinking because the bars will be littered with sad and desperate single women.  Well, actually, that kinda is the truth.  But, what no one ever considers is that the bars will also be packed with the kind of irredeemable douchebags that go to bars on Valentine’s Day simply because they think the bars will be filled with sad and desperate single women.  A positive:  Still better than going to some crummy $500 “romantic” prix fixe with your boring S.O.

3.  Super Bowl Sunday — The Super Bowl is celebrated by all.  The young, the old, the gay, the straight, the cool, the dorky, the carnivorous, the vegetarian, the married, the single, the drinker, the teetotaler, the sports fan, the Olympics enthusiast.  And when something is celebrated by all, that means that a lot of morons will be out and about as most of the world is obviously moronic.  Like #2 on our list, Super Bowl Sunday can be majorly enjoyable when celebrated in a sealed environment amongst a select group of close friends, but if you dare to watch it in public well then caveat drinker.  A positive:  the early start time for the game means one can and should be shit-faced by 8ish and will often be passed out in bed before midnight, making Super Bowl Sunday one of the few drinking holidays that doesn’t wreck your next day.

2.  New Year’s Eve — Shockingly, the quintessential Amateur Night is only #2 on my list.  Admittedly it is an awful, awful night of over-priced food and drink, dumb plastic \ 2 0 1 0 / glasses and noisemakers, and packed bars full of the kinds of suburbanites, aging farts, and tourists that choose not to have fun on the other 364 days a year and who don’t know the actual words to “Auld Lang Syne.  But, at least these people are fairly behaved because the bars are too packed and service is too slow for any one to get enough drinks to get lit up, not that I’d dare set foot in a Manhattan bar on December 31st.  A positive:  free champagne toast at midnight!!!!!  (Just kidding!  Why do bars thinks a 50 cent plastic flute of Korbel is some great attraction?!)

1.  St. Patrick’s Day – I’ve written on this topic before, but the day designated for celebrating…uh…I’m not sure has truly become a yearly celebration of daylight hours obnoxious buffoonery.  A positive:  acts as a bit of a drinking eugenics for these kind of bozos, giving them such massive hangovers and “I nevah wanna drink agains” that the bars will be pretty devoid of these fools from the late evening of March 17th til at least the 23rd or so.  Capitalize on that.

Underrated

5/6.  Fat Tuesday/Cinco de Mayo — Honestly, I have no idea what these holidays celebrate, nor even when they are celebrated–though I’m guessing the 5th of Mayonnaise for the latter–but damn if I don’t always somehow accidentally find myself in a bar on these two days.  And I always have a blast!  One would think these would just be the Cajun and Mexican versions of St. Patrick’s Day, a bunch of yahoos painting themselves purple/gold/green or red/white/green instead of orange/green, Creole stomping and Mexican hat-dancing instead of “woohoo” jigging, downing Hurricanes and tequila instead of Guinnesses, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  For some reason, I’ve only encountered cool and normal people looking to have a great–and more importantly, civilized-ish–time on these two fauxish holidays.  Plus, jambalaya and etouffee and burritos and chimichangas are vastly superior to rotten wet cabbage.  A negative:  Louisiana and Mexico pretty much only make shitty beers (I’m looking at you Abita and Corona.)

4.  Sunday nights – What kind of degenerate has all weekend to go out but waits until Sunday around 10:00 PM to do so?  What kind of subjugate goes out drinking on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and goes, “You know what?  That simply wasn’t enough” and heads out for some more?  What kind of unemployed, underemployed, or self-employed transgressive decides there’s no better way to start off his week than by waking up late Monday mid-morning with a wicked hangover?  I’ll tell you who–the kind of person we like!  A negative:  aside from the aforementioned, Sunday night bars can also be full of sloppy fat guys in tight football jerseys who have been drinking and eating wings since the 1:00 o’clock games and have just forgotten to go home.

3.  Christmas Night –  Christmas Eve may be a shitty Hebrewic drinking night but Christmas Night is incredible with bars full of true drunks of all religions and bar staff so upset they have to work they’ve decided to get sloshed, not give a damn, and over-pour your drinks and under-charge your bar tabs.  A negative:  most bars are usually not open or have limited hours.

2.  4th of July — While all the nimrods are standing outside slack-jawed and staring up into the dark sky, you’re inside avoiding the lame fireworks you’ve seen for the last 30 years–has there been a single technological innovation in fireworks in the last million years?!–getting loaded with the kind of people that realize drinking a good American beer and hitting on a bar floozy is patriotism to its core.  A negative:  you just end up watching the fireworks on the bar’s TV.  Which is actually kinda lamer.

1.  Thanksgiving Night — Now most everyone is “allowed” to go drinking on Thanksgiving night, but only a certain kind of person chooses to and these are the kind of people I really like spending time with.  The kinds of people that spent all day getting loaded to stave off the pain of having to deal with their annoying relatives and who now want to spend the evening getting even more loaded while commiserating with strangers about how annoying their respective relatives were that day.  A negative:  so bloated with Thanksgiving food you can’t find any more room to cram beer into your body.  Another positive:  not needing to pick up a drunken pizza slice at 3 AM but instead being able to go home to raid the fridge for leftovers which you of course eat straight from the Ziploc bags using your bare hands.

And maybe the most underrated time to drink is simply by yourself and at home, where I do most of my tippling.  I mean, it’s not like bars are going to be selling the delicious Alpine Great, generously provided for me by my main man in San Diego, Jesse the Hutt.

The smell of Great is right in my wheelhouse, powerfully intoxicating like J.W. Lee’s Harvest Ale, you can smell this one from across the room.  Awesomely boozy with a dark fruity richness, burnt molasses, toffee, and syrupy caramel.  It finishes with a bourbon vanilla scorch (though it’s actually Jack Daniels barreled which of course isn’t a bourbon but a Tennessee whiskey if we’re being pedantic).  A perfect dessert beer this one is just crazy complex, surprisingly smooth and drinkable for the thickness and ABV.  Minor bite on the finish but other than that no real complaints.  This one would surely be flawless with a little age to smooth out the slightly rough edges, but even youthful it’s one of the best barley wines I’ve ever had.  Sure wish I had another bottle!

A

*Remind me to tell you my best Matzo Ball story some time soon.

7.8% ABV on tap

I’ve recently started using my Twitter account to highlight, on a daily basis, the dumbest, most asinine, most asocially pathetic threads over on Beer Advocate.  It’s easier than you think.  Like today’s post by a guy fretting over how to pronounce the acronym for Double India Pale Ale (”Is it di-pah or die-pa?  Dee-pay?!?!?”).  Or yesterday’s post from a guy wondering if he’s allowed to drink a beer even though he’s just gotten over a cold.  Or last week’s pathetic thread par excellence from a guy concerned with drinking too many barley wines at a party, asking advice for whether he should spit out the potent potable after each taste so as to avoid ending the night doing the hokey-pokey by himself.  Now I may be a (shudder) anarchist libertarian, but I’m starting to understand why the government endorses nanny stateism so thoroughly.  How would these people know when to even wipe their asses if not for asking a message board of complete strangers?

One frequent thread topic that comes up though, which you make think is incredibly dumb or incredibly important, is whether some beer is “worth” whatever it costs.  For me, a beer I’ve never had is always worth paying for at least once.  And there’s no way I won’t shell out for each new release from Brooklyn’s tap-only Brewmasters Reserve Series.  Garrett Oliver has lately become obsessed with creating beers that taste like “other” things (i.e. cocktails or bacon or Indian food), and the idea behind this newest release, just out this very week, really tickled my fancy.  Take it away, Garrett:

“Last winter, while the Brooklyn brewing team sat around a peat fire drinking some inspirational drinks, brewer Tom Price mentioned that his friend’s bakery made some very fine oatmeal cookies. Before long, we were all talking about oatmeal cookies and how good they are with beer. Pretty soon we’d somehow decided that the cookies should actually become a beer. Funny, the things people come up with while drinking in front of a good fire.”

I loved this idea because I’ve long had issues with the fact that nearly all “oatmeal” stouts, whether delicious or awful, have virtually no oat-y taste in them at all.  Alas, here would finally be one that stuck the landing!  So earlier this week I popped into Rattle ‘n’ Hum for an afternoon chin chin.  I was the only one in the place aside from a handy man changing light bulbs and two bartenders comparing their manicures.

My Cookie Jar Porter was served surprisingly frigid and in a pint glass.*  Honestly, I expected a bit of a cookie sweet dessert beer and this tasted nothing like my expectations.  Quite frankly, I didn’t even much like Cookie Jar at first as I found it shockingly tart for a porter as the bitter raisins were over-powering me a bit, and not in a pleasant way as in Dogfish Head’s delectable Raisin d’Etre.**  Eventually, as the beer warmed, the oatmeal cookie flavors (courtesy of Jersey City’s Feed Your Soul Bakery) start coming out more, especially on the back-end with hints of brown sugar and vanilla.

I wish the whole beer had tasted like the finish, but really this ended up being somewhat of a standard porter.  I really don’t think if you didn’t know the story of Cookie Jar would you even take a sip and go, “Wow, what is that?”  I greatly admire Brooklyn’s ambition, but just like another recent Brewmasters release, Manhattan Project, this is a bit of a mildly flawed effort.  Nevertheless, please keep ‘em coming, Brooklyn!

Now back to the is it “worth it”?  I paid $8 for this pint, a high-average price for a pint in New York.  So would I rather have my $8 back?  OF COURSE NOT.  Then I would just be a guy with $8 still curious as hell how good this crazy Cookie Jar porter is, anxious to try it.  Now I’m a guy $8 poorer, that knows that Cookie Jar Porter is a…

B+

*I’ve never had a problem with the Rattle ‘n’ Hum’s serving glassware or temperature, but I think the JV was working the noon-time shift.

**Re-reading that review–wow–was I a tougher grader back in the day.  Now I’m all “YAY BEER!” on everything.

Drunk Promises

Nothing’s worse than waking up after a night of hard core drinking with that awful, awful feeling.  No, not the feeling of being hungover.  No, this feeling is even worse.  The feeling of recalling a drunken promise you made.

Now, sometimes drunken promises can be between a guy and girl, but usually these promises are made between two or more guys.  Late at night, more like early in the morning, 3 AM or so, when the bar has cleared out, there’s just you and a friend or two, and you guys are shit-faced.

It starts with someone bringing up an innocuous point.

“Yeah, these mojitos are pretty good, but you know where the best mojitos are?  This little Cuban restaurant on Miami Beach.”

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to Miami.”

“You’ve NEVER been to Miami?!”

“No, but I’ve always wanted to go.”

“That’s it!  We’re all going tomorrow!”

“Yeah!”

“We can borrow my brother’s car.”

“I’ll call in sick for work!”

“Let’s leave by noon.”

“I’m in!”

“I’m in!”

“I’m in!”

You wake up the next morning, hungover, and with a certain existential dread.  Fuck!  Did I really agree to road trip to Miami today?!  I can’t road trip to Miami today.  I don’t want to road trip to Miami today.  I got plans, shit to do.

You spend the whole morning fretting, praying your other drunken promise friends don’t call.  “Hey, Aaron, I’ve picked up the car and I’ll be by in an hour to grab you.”  Because we’re guys, and even when we make drunken promises, promises we’d never make sober, we refuse to break them.  We would have to go to Miami.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t pray that one of our friends breaks the drunken promise to get us off the hook.

However, after years of regretful drunken promises, I’ve finally learned a secret:  no one wants to uphold them.  So I no longer regret drunken promises.  I no longer spend the entire morning after a drunken promise fretting that I may have to do something I don’t want to do.  Drunken promises aren’t really promises.  They are just manly bluster.

Hopsecutioner

7.2% ABV bottled

There’s so many beers I want to try but it’s getting harder and harder to find them.  It’s likewise getting harder and harder to find “noted” breweries I have yet to try.  In a recent trade with The Drunken Polack, he luckily sent me my first beers from a brewery I’d been looking to explore:  Terrapin Beer Co. from Athens, Georgia.  I just love their labels, funny little scenes of terrapins doing stuff best befitting the beer name.  Hopsecutioner is their newly released single IPA–their first ever single IPA, coming on the heels of a successful DIPA release.  Unfortunately, Hopsecutioner is just so-so.  Mild in taste, with only a slight bitterness, I would have sworn this was just a normal pale ale.  Average body, average carbonation, average flavor.  There’s nothing bad about Hopsecutioner, but no there’s no wow factor either.  And in today’s exciting craft beer climate that’s just not quite good enough.

B+

Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

8.1% ABV bottled

I’d unfortunately missed Terrapin’s much-ballyhooed Depth Charge Espresso stout so I was excited to try this “cousin” of a beer.  And it was pretty good.  Roasted, bitter, very coffee-infused but a little thin.  A well hidden ABV makes this a terrific light stout, though, again, no real wow factor.

So I wasn’t floored by my first two Terrapin beers, but I feel like they got enough “there” to make me curious to try more of their offerings.

B+

7.5% ABV on cask

I was dining with a friend’s family at a nice joint when I ordered a Scotch.

“Mmm…I just had my one Scotch for the month last night.”

It was my friend’s grandpa, Mr. Gibson, a 91-year-old but fit as a fiddle, he still walked on his own, drove short distances, and had an incredibly sharp memory.

“Your one Scotch for the month?” I inquired.

He explained that though he was very healthy, all things considered, once you get old you simply shouldn’t drink that much, if at all according to his doctor, but since he loved his Scotch, there was no way he was going to completely nix that from his life.  So he came up with a solution:  one single glass per 30 days.

Wow I thought, how delicious must that single monthly glass taste?  Surely better than anything I ever drink.  He must savor every last drop of that Scotch, inhaling it with all of his senses, understanding aromatic and flavor complexities that an over-consuming hedonist like me quickly glosses over as I dump the liquid down my gullet.

I decided to try and take inspiration from Mr. Gibson by abstaining from drinking more frequently, by trying to make each great drink I have more special.*  I’m getting better.  One beer I explored recently was perfect for this focused task.

Now I hadn’t been overly wowed by the “standard” version of Jai Alai–even got in a little friendly e-mail tiff with Cigar City founder Joey Redner–but I’d been really excited to try something from their Humidor Series.  Nowadays there’s so much invention in beermaking that there’s paradoxically almost no invention.  Not that I don’t love many if not most of them, but when all breweries are oak-aging, Brett-ing, chocolate nibbing, and bourbon-, wine-, rum-barreling their beers, these things no long really seem that special and you start to wonder if there is any new ground to break.  With the Humidor Series, Cigar City shows there clearly is.

Humidor Series beer are aged on the rarely-utilized cedar which the brewery itself believes has a more “subtle” effect than a more oft-used beer-aging wood like oak.  I actually thought the flavor wasn’t that subtle but I loved it all the more for that very reason.  The tropical fruitiness and floral hop aromas still come through, and you never doubt for a second that this is clearly an IPA, but that cedar just makes it so much more interesting.  Off cask and uncarbonated the flavors just came together so beautiful and I think I really prefer the cedar to oak.

I’m a big cigar smoker and this one tastes just like a liquidized cigar you’ve pulled fresh from your humidor, evoking pleasant memories of relaxed evenings lazily smoking with friends.  Now I’m sure that kinda sounds gross to you but the cigar “taste” is more a result of mind association than actual beer content.  I really hope to try this again, along with the rest of the series, hopefully with an actual cigar in my other hand this time around.  Though that is probably impossible in a bar due to NYC’s draconian laws, so perhaps I’ll have to figure out a way to acquire some Humidor Series for home-usage.  This beer is truly one of a kind.

A

*Says the author, having just gotten loaded for six straight days and nine of the last ten.

A year ago at this time I’m not even sure if I’d heard of Alpine Beer Co.  That seems hard to believe now–now that they have four beers on the Beer Advocate Top 100–but even just a year ago they were a tiny tap-only outfit near San Diego worshiped by locals, not really known by outsiders.  Luckily, just last summer, a great man named Jesse the Hutt insisted I let him send me a growler of Alpine’s Nelson and my IPA world was rocked–it was probably the best I’d ever had.

Alpine finally started bottling stuff in the last few months, and in a recent trade, when Jesse asked what I wanted sent to me from the other coast, I pretty much just screamed:  “EVERY SINGLE ALPINE IPA POSSIBLE!”  And, indeed, last week I received Alpine’s four bottled IPAs, all of which I drank as fresh as possible last weekend.

Pure Hoppiness

8% ABV from a bomber

Seemingly Alpine’s flagship brew, I started my Friday night with this “mega-hopped” bad boy which uses hops in the boil, more hops in the giant hopback, plus an incredible amount of dry-hopping.  Honestly, I wasn’t that blown away at first, but just like Nelson, the more I drank it the more I noticed its complexities and really started to enjoy it.  Pure Hoppiness is a very citrusy hop bomb with just a tad note of sweetness. An odd but not unpleasant thin, cask-like mouthfeel too allowing it to go down easy with minimal bite.  I loved it, but was not OMG floored.

A

Duet

6.75% ABV from a bomber

Saturday afternoon I lugged Duet and Nelson over to an NFL playoff party at a friend’s apartment who, though he is a bit of a beer connoisseur, just doesn’t dig on IPAs.  Has never been able to enjoy that certain hops bitterness we all love.  I, of course, am constantly trying to force-feed him great IPAs and figured I’d give it one last go with these beauties, assuming that if couldn’t enjoy these, he truly would never enjoy hoppy beers.

My gamble paid off as Duet opened his eyes to the brilliance of the IPA.  It opened my eyes too.  I’ve drank hundreds of IPAs in my life, but never anything like this before.  An incredible smell of Simcoe and Amarillo hops “in harmony” (hence the name.)  Sticky and sweet, Duet is one of those great hoppy beers that causes two side-effects that you would think would be bad, but which always seem to denote a great IPA:

1.  Burping–hoppy beers always make me belch as the bitterness tickles the back of my throat and, you know, it’s not entirely unpleasant to keep “re-tasting” a great hoppy beer long after you finished drinking it.

2.  Phlegm production–hoppy beers can also be like a really pulpy glass of  fresh-squeezed OJ which causes the insides of your mouth to form sticky spiderwebs of throat snot, make it a struggle to just open your mouth.

Remarkable how much body and complexity comes out of a “mere” 6.75% beer.  I don’t like to quibble between single and double IPAs, but it’s hard to believe a single IPA could be better than this.

A+

Nelson

7.1% ABV from a bomber

My first time to have Nelson from a bottle and it totally stacked up to it straight from a fresh growler.  Much lighter and fizzier than Duet, almost looks like a macro beer in fact on the pour.  It’s amazing how different two IPAs of similar strength from the same brewery can be.  Nelson is far more bitter and grapefruity than Duet and lacks that sweet tinge of a finish that Duet has, but this is still a masterpiece and definitely a hallmark for those that prefer their IPAs drier.

A+

Exponential Hoppiness

10.5% ABV from a bomber

I saved them granddaddy of the all, the brilliantly named (it uses multiple kettle hop additions with the technique of doubling the hop amount each addition, thus exponentially) and beautifully labeled Exponential Hoppiness for last.  I saved this one for me, me, and only me, as my macro-swilling friends drank some Bud Light tallboys on Sunday afternoon.

Bluntly put, this is now the best IPA I have ever had.  It’s like a boozier Duet.  Sticky sweet with a bitter finish and the slightest hint of the oak chips its aged on.  Can Pliny the Younger seriously be better than this?!?!  I truly hope to find out in the next month or so.

A+

My final rankings:

1.  Exponential Hoppiness
2.  Duet
3.  Nelson
4.  Pure Hoppiness

and the first three would probably be in my top 5 or so IPAs of all time.  Alpine is the KING of IPAs!

On Monday I e-mailed Jesse to praise Alpine and ask him if they made any more delicious IPAs.  He quickly rattled off “O’Brien’s IPA, Bad Boy, Sippin on the Dock of the Bay, Tuatara, and a steam IPA called California Uncommon.”  Unfortunately, all tap-onlys.  I’ll try ‘em one day.

10.5% ABV self labeled can

What’s the point of life if not for lame achievements, especially ones you conquer near unwittingly?  It’s been about sixteen months since I last examined how many of the fifty states I’ve had a beer from.  Back then I’d had a beer from twenty-nine states but since then I’ve added Arizona (Crazy Ed’s Cave Creek Chili Beer, oy!) Georgia (various from Sweetwater), Hawaii (Maui and Kona), Indiana (Three Floyds can I get a witness!), Montana (Big Sky), North Carolina (Duck-Rabbit), Utah (Uinta), and West Virginia (Mountaineer).  That puts me at thirty-seven down, thirteen to go.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Buckbean Brewing Co. asking if I’d be interested in getting sent their newest offering for review.  Why thank you very much!  No need to twist my arm.  Oh, by the way, Buckbean is from Nevada.  Thirty-eight down, twelve to go.*

I really didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about Buckbean but I was charmed by the tallboy “silver bullet” self-labeled can I received in the mail.  An Imperial schwarzbier according to the can–a style that doesn’t seem to “officially” exist really–with double the malts and hops of their standard Black Noddy Lager, which I unfortunately haven’t had.  Since I hadn’t really heard of this brewery, I didn’t expect much but I found Very Noddy to be pretty damn good.  I’m going to call it a doppelbock and in that case it’s one of the sweetest doppelbocks I’ve ever had.  A nice malty but not cloying sweetness, like in a better barleywine.  A very nice “Americanized” example of the style.  Silly drinkable for such a potent ABV, you could put several of these back before the alcohol caught up to you.  All in all, quite enjoyable and Nevada folks are lucky to have this brewery in their backyard.  I look forward to hopefully trying more Buckbean stuff and I believe I might just send an e-mail back to the company asking for a little help on that.

A-

*Those twelve:

Alabama
Alaska
Idaho
Iowa
Kentucky
Mississippi
Nebraska
North Dakota
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Wyoming

AVB unknown, bottled

I Need to Get Paid Now

I’m always looking for easy ways to make money and by “easy” I mean:  getting paid to write shit.  Thus, I was pretty excited when a company called I Need a Paper Now hired me to write term papers and essays for high school and college kids too dumb and lazy to do the work themselves.  Though I personally never cheated in academics–too many dummies around me, who in the heck would I possibly cheat off of?!?–I have no compunction with facilitating other people’s cheating and in fact gladly signed off on a contract they made me peruse which had lines in it such as this:

You must first understand that what we do is the actual homework for college students. Some people think that what we do is dishonest and unethical and with that said, if you too feel this way then we thank you for your interest and we wish you all the best in your writing endeavours (sic). If you think like we think, everyone needs help at some point in time, then please feel free to move one.

Unfortunately, I Need a Paper Now did not make me sign any non-disclosure agreement about how shitty of company they are, and thus, I will now tell you (hoping you got to this entry after Googling something like, “i need paper now legit or moronic shysters???”)

Firstly, I probably should have been leery after seeing INAPN’s shoddily designed website.  And let me tell you, what you’re seeing in the previous sentence’s link is a redesigned and better website.  The website they had when I was hired a few months ago looked like some 1999 Geocities-hosted monstrosity.

I should have also probably been leery considering the guy (or gal?) who e-hired me never used a name of any kind, wrote e-mails like a 14-year-old texts, and frequently misspelled words.

Alas, the pay was good, the workload minimal, the illicitness enticing, and I had no easier way to earn a buck at the time.  Then I got my first assignment, reprinted in full below:

The Final Exam shall be an applied research project. Learners are provided a case, current topic, or actual archived data to diagnose the T & D problem and present a training & development solution. Learners are to use new knowledge gained from this course to prepare a comprehensive training protocol spanning needa particular occupation of the student’s (learner’s) own choosing. Creativity and application of sound training and development principles shall be drawn upon to draft up to 5-single spaced pages professional training and development schematic. Should be done in APA format.

That’s all the info I was provided.  I reread it about fifteen times.  It made no sense to me and I have a very wide breadth of knowledge.  I figured I’d be given assignments like, “What I did during my Martin Luther King Day vacation (500 words)” or “What was the one moment in your life that best exhibits your decision-making abilities? (5 pages, double-spaced)” or “Discuss why Daisy Buchanan was such a fickle cunt in ‘The Great Gatsby (7 pages).”  But this assignment actually seemed kinda hard.  Kinda above my knowledge and pay grade.

I wrote my nameless boss, asking for some further clarification on the assignment so that I might possibly be able to attempt it.  He/she responded, again, reprinted in full below:

Good question!  Here you are:

EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
STRATEGIC TRAINING
NEEDS ASSESSMENT
THEORIES AND PROGRAM DESIGN
TRANSFER OF TRAINING
TRAINING EVALUATION
TRADITIONAL TRAINING METHODS
E-learning and Use of Technology in Training

I didn’t quite understand how that had further elucidated what my assignment actually was, but that didn’t matter any more for I was now able to attempt the assignment.  You see, I now knew I was dealing with a fucking retard.  It’s always exciting when you realize you’re dealing with a fucking retard in any aspect of life because that means that your work performance can not only be at the level of fucking retard, but should be at the level of fucking retard lest you confuse said fucking retard with too much erudition.

I recall having one of those flighty, dykey, pothead English professors back in college who never said anything that made a goddamn lick of sense.  Who always cited Derrida and post-modernism and “the male gaze.”  Who made us deconstruct shit and write poems about Duchamp and often taught the class outside on the quad as we all sat Indian-style (though she would probably have called it Aboriginal-Americans-Disgustingly-Slaughtered-By-Rich-White-Imperialists-style).  I struggled in that English class for the first few weeks until one day I realized, “Oh my god, Professor Miller is a fucking retard!” and “Sitting Indian-style on dirty grass is far less comfortable than sitting in a chair!”

From that point on, any time I got a class assignment, I would simply pour myself a tall cocktail–I drank 7 and 7s at the time because I admired Martin Scorsese and was a poor hick–and then write my papers for her as quick as humanly possible.  Upon finishing, I wouldn’t even go back to reread the assignment or correct any errors.  I didn’t want to make the paper any more lucid than possible.  Not surprisingly, I got all As employing that strategy and became such a superstar in the class that the prof often made me read my weekly essays aloud as my fellow classmates rolled their eyes.

Thus, to attempt my first assignment for the yutzes at I Need a Paper Now, I employed the same strategy.  I excitedly poured myself a snifter of Central Waters Brewhouse Coffee Stout, generously sent to me by The Captain.  A BA top 100 beer from Wisconsin, I never thought I’d get to try and am so glad I did.  Chocolaty and coffee-infused but not too roasted.  A little sweet and silky with kinda a thin mouth.  This is a great beer, but probably not a complete  world-beater.  I’d still seek it out though, and I hope to try some more Central Waters stuff soon.

I drank and drank until that ridiculous assignment actually made sense to me and then I began writing.  I was expected to produce a five page paper and about 45 minutes after I put my fingers to my keyboard I had produced such a paper, chock full of ambiguities and nonsensicals and stupid buzz words.  It was probably the worst thing I had ever written in my life.

Of course, since I was dealing with a fucking retard, not an hour later I received an e-mail from my nameless boss, he simply writing:

“Perfect!”

I was pretty jacked at how easily I had made $95.  You couldn’t quite say I’d made $95 for 45 minutes of work since I’d spent about 15-20 minutes fretting over the stupidity of the question and sending clarification e-mails to my fucking retard boss and had spent another 45 minutes drinking a coffee stout, but still, I’d made a lot of money for the most minor sitting-around-in-my-underwear, TV-still-on, pounding-beers of an effort.  I thought I might like to start writing essays for lazy rich kids full time.

I was told future assignments–depending on length and research necessitated–would pay anywhere from $100 to $1000.  Of course, I decided not to attempt paper #2 until I had been paid for paper #1 and, a month later, I still sit here having not been paid.  I was supposed to be Paypal’ed the money after every assignment I completed, but that $95 never entered my account and the nameless guy or gal boss who had been pulling the strings on me quit responding to my e-mails.  I’m not mad about the minimal effort I put in nor the minimal amount of money I was stiffed, and I’m downright amused at the thought of some poor schnook having turned in the piece of shit essay he paid for and I wrote, but that still doesn’t mean I didn’t feel like wasting another 45 minutes of my time drunkenly punching out another essay, which I again won’t go back to reread and edit, to tell you about a fucking retarded company called I Need a Paper Now, hoping that this very essay will now appear on the first page when any future lazy writers Google search them.

Now…what legitimate company or person wants to pay me some dolla dolla bills to write some shit for them?!

A-

My mom gets mad I rarely call her.  The last girl I dated was always upset that I solely communicated with her via text.  Shit, the last few years of women have been perpetually perturbed that they only get electronic communiques from me.  And I kinda always felt bad about that.  But last night, while drunk on some Monk’s Blood, I started thinking–what the fuck was I apologizing for?!

You’re considered a rube or a pathetic sentimentalist when it comes to hanging on to the technologies of a bygone era, except when it comes to how you deal with women.  If you don’t own a cell phone or claim ignorance with how to use a computer nowadays, you’re rightfully mocked.  If you listen to vinyl records or read the dirty newsprint newspaper every morning you’re correctly labeled an eccentric.  But if you only text or e-mail the women in your life you’re considered a bad son and an a-hole of a boyfriend (by them).  I’m here to say, though, that that shouldn’t be the case.

I’m sure women were up in arms in the 1850s when men started sending them telegraphs instead of handwritten letters (ARE WE STILL ON FOR NEW MICHAEL BAY MOVIE STOP MEET YOU AT DOWNTOWN CINEPLEX AT EIGHT STOP WE CAN GET ICE CREAM AT COLD STONE AFTERWARD STOP).  And I’m sure they were likewise angry when, all of the sudden in the 1960s, they were being called on the phone and no longer getting handwritten letters or telegraphs.  In the 1980s women probably got mad when men left messages on their answering machines instead of calling back until they got a hold of them.  And now as we close in on 2010, women are mad that I’m e-mailing and texting them instead of calling them?!  Look, let me break it to you ladies, my voice is nice enough but it’s not exactly the kind of sexily sonorous George Clooney timbre that’s gonna instantly moisten your knickers.  You don’t need to actually hear me as I send more than enough texts and e-mails and am always reachable.

If you’re mad I don’t call you enough then you should be mad I don’t send you enough telegraphs and don’t hand-write you enough letters and don’t graffiti enough highway overpasses for you and don’t slap paint on enough cave walls for you.  But you’re not, because those technologies have passed into history and soon phone calls will too.  Oh shit!  Am I going to have to video chat with these women in my life in the very near future?!  OK, OK, OK, a few phone calls every now and then will be just fine!  Just please don’t make me video chat!!!!!

I’d liked the one or two 21st Amendment brews I’d had in my life–never enough to formally review them, nor enough to purchase for at-home consumption–but I got a very respectable tip that Monk’s Blood was a huge winner.  Indeed it was, one of the more unique beers I’ve had this winter.  Self-labeled as a Belgian dark ale brewed with cinnamon, vanilla, oak chips, and dried figs, this is more like the most boozy winter warmer you’ve ever tasted.  Really unique and enjoyable, crazy complex, I’m going to be enjoying these ass-kicking but drinkable (and affordable!) cans for the next month at least.  You should too.

A-

8% ABV from a 750 mL

I never thought I’d be a saison fan, but sure enough, I have become one late in 2009.  Coincidentally well out of saison season as we hit the snowy, bitter winter of New York.  Oh well, I’ve never exactly drank to season any how.  Of course, it’s easy to fall for these French-named, Belgian beers when you’re drinking some of the best of the style, as I did twice in the last week while snowed-in and with nothing to do but get drunk and play Cranium by myself (harder than you think).

I’d been looking for Fantome Saison for well over a year since I’m a shameless follower of the Beer Advocate Top 100, where Fantome has long resided and, luckily, I finally stumbled upon a sole bottle at a beer store in lower Manhattan.  Believe me, I paid a handsome penny too but it was well worth it.  I loved Fantome mainly because it’s not what I–probably erroneously–”expect” from a saison. It’s not thin, it’s not simplistic, it’s not bordering on non-alcohlic.  No, this sucker is like a double saison.  It opened so foamy it seemed like new life was still being created as it just oozed from my bottle.  Incredibly citric with the usual suspects of lemon, orange, and peach giving it a little tartness though this is no simplistic brew.  Very refreshing as per the style, but with some nice heft as well, though still majorly drinkable.  This was a solo drinking effort, and unlike Amelia Earhart I enjoyed every single second of the journey.

A

Southampton Cuvee des Fleurs

7.7% ABV from a 750 mL

While some of Southampton’s “little” bottles and tap-only selections are no great shakes, their big boys, specifically from the “750 Series,” are nothing but huge winners and that is again the case here.  You’d have to be an expert horticulturist to completely understand what you’re drinking as des Fleurs is flavored with a blend of edible flowers including L. augustifolia, A. nobilis, C. officinalis, R. canina and H. lupulus.  OK, whatever.  Excluding hops of course, the only other beers I can ever recall drinking that are made from, you know, flower flowers would be Elysian’s Avatar Jasmine IPA and Dieu du Ciel! Rosee D’hibiscus and neither of them hold a candle to this effort.  Extraordinarily fragrant, truly like stuffing your head in a rose garden while someone sprays perfume over you, the taste is also deliciously herby and sweet, atypically full-bodied and thick for a saison as well.  I just sucked it down like Vitamin Water.  Of course it’s incredibly unique, but this is truly one of the most flavorful saisons I’ve ever had and one of my most pleasant drinking surprises of the year.  (Then again, so was Southampton’s Grand Cru.  Perhaps I’m just not showing these Publick House boys enough due deference yet?  Never again will I folly.)  I shared this beer with my two non-beer connoisseur sisters who absolutely adored it as well, leading me to believe that us fellas can now present this beautiful flower beer to our wives instead of, you know, real flowers.  Of course, I’m not married, so why the fuck would you trust me on that?

Fantome Saison and Southampton Cuvee des Fleurs are truly at the apex of the saison style alongside only, let’s say, Boulevard Saison-Brett and, maybe, Hennepin and they should be sought out accordingly.  (And don’t think I don’t feel like a bit of yokel for having three of my four favorite saisons being from Kansas City, upstate New York, and Long Island.)

A