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

5.7% ABV canned

I’ve been too precious with my beer lately.  Just keeping it on the shelf, in the fridge, admiring it more than drinking it.  Almost scared to uncork my bottles if not for a special occasion.  Right, like I have special occasions.  I’d become like some douchebag who owns a fleet of Porsches and Ferraris yet never takes them out of the hangar, instead pedaling a beat-up Schwinn to the store every time he needs a carton of milk.  So this past weekend, with a load of looming trades headed my way, I decide to take some inventory and free up some space in my cellar.*  By drinking through my bottles one by one.

I’ve been drinking a lot of porters lately–a style I’m starting to think I can only differentiate from stouts in my mind–and each one of these three came in a trade from my three favorite fellow beer bloggers.

I don’t know why, but I’d wanted to try Maui’s CoCoNut porter for a long time.  Maybe because it just sounds exotic.  Maybe because it would be the first Hawaiian beer I’d ever had.  Maybe because I have a weird fetish for quality canned beers.  Or maybe just because I’m a fan of unnecessary midWord capitalization.  Alas, I finally got a can courtesy of my man Jay at Hedonist Beer Jive.  I’m sad to report, though, I was a tad disappointed.  Much like the Stone’s Ken Schmidt collaboration (which, yes, also included some help from Maui), I think this is another middling review that we somewhat have to blame on my own faulty expectations.  I don’t know why I keep expecting these coconut beers to taste like a liquidized Mounds bar, but I just can’t shake the desire for that taste.  Just like Ken Schmidt though, this one tastes nothing like that but instead is a very, very roasted offering.  I also found it somewhat lacking in complexity for such an ambitiously created beer.  A slightly thin mouthfeel would be another debit, but this is actually a pretty nice drinking porter for the low ABV.  I may not sound like I liked it, but I truly did, I just wasn’t floored by it.  I’d love to get my hands on the rest of Maui’s offerings as well.

B+

Minneapolis Town Hall Odin

8.4% ABV from a growler

Minnesota has become a craft beer mini-mecca and luckily my man The Captain lives right in the eye of the storm and, even luckier, has no compunction with mailing heavy ass growlers halfway across the country for, you see, two of Minnesota’s top breweries–Town Hall and Barley John’s (which I have still yet to try an offering from)–are tap/growler only.  After their legendary Masala Mama, Odin is the second offering I’ve had from the Town Hall boys and it’s another very good one.  Full bodied and roasted but with a hint of nice sweetness on the back-end.  Beautifully complex and quite enjoyable.  Not too boozy but a little too heavy to be super drinkable, then again, I had no clue the ABV on this was so high until I just this second looked it up on BA.  I enjoyed this one quite a bit and hope to continue stockpiling Town Hall growlers.

B+

Williamsburg AleWerks Bourbon Barrel Porter

ABV unknown from a bomber (#0334/2009)

This final offering comes from Dave the Drunken Polack.  I had, quite frankly, never even heard of this Virginia brewery but when Dave asked if I was interested in this beer I saw those three magic words–BOURBON.  BARREL.  AGED–and I was sold.  Wise decision as this is a very solid offering in perhaps my favorite sub-style of beer.  Aged two months in oak bourbon barrels with tastes of caramel, chocolate, toffee, brown sugar, vanilla, and bourbon this is a very complex and very strong beer.  It smells like a masterpiece but the taste doesn’t quite deliver as it’s a little hot and a little bitter.  Well worth seeking out though and along with Williamsburg’s absolutely outstanding Pumpkin Ale that I had back in October but never formally reviewed, I’d definitely have to label this relatively-known brewery as one to watch.

A-

*Like I have a cellar!  Ha.

12% ABV on tap

“You’re not sthupposed to review that.”

I turned to see some weaselly-looking pot-bellied virgin in a Blue Point pullover addressing me.  He had a slight lisp which is always more annoying than a full lisp for some reason*.

“’scuse me?”  Usually when I go to beer bars to geek out I go by myself and at off-hours so no one will see me nor bother me, the same strategy most XXX theater fanatics employ.

“You’re not sthupposed to officially review sthuch a small serving size.”

The pot-bellied weasel aimed his unkempt pointer finger at the flight of four beers I’d just ordered.  Rattle ‘n’ Hum was hosting a winter beer blowout and with dozens of brews I wanted to try and only an hour or two to spare on a Tuesday afternoon, I had no time for full pours.

The pot-bellied weasel had apparently seen me making a few reviewing notes on my iphone and, wanting to show off the sort of annoying pedagogy that would assure a lonely life for him, had pounced on me.

“You’re sthupposed to at least have an eight ounce pour to officially review something.  You’re not sthupposed to review so many beers in one sitting either.”  He started into a stuttering chuckle.  “You’re what, what, what we call a ‘ticker.’  Someone who tries to quickly review as many beers as possible just to say they drank them.”

I smiled knowingly and calmly, sipped one of the four beers in front of me.  I like being berated by asocial nerds with slight lisps.  It’s like getting dressed down by Don Rickles except totally the opposite.  I said nothing.

“I’m just telling you for your own good, man.”

The pot-bellied weasel had finished his rant and looked down, ashamed of his standing in life.

“What are you, on Beer Advocate?” I finally spoke.

“BA?  Yes I am.”

“What’s your user name?  I bet it’s something like stoutslurper69 or something.”

“I’m totallyhopsome.”

“And your avatar?  Which ‘Star Trek: The New Generation’ character did you pick?  Data or Geordi La Forge?”

He didn’t respond as I quickly looked up his profile on my iphone.

“Ah…Number Six.  Sexy.”

I held up one of my tiny glasses of beer.

“Let me tell you something.  It’s just beer.  Repeat after me:  it’s just beer.  Just a liquid.  You see, cool people like me use this liquid to enhance our lives.  We use it to make us feel good, to help us celebrate life, to aid in our understanding of the universe.  I’m already interesting enough as it is but this beer is going to make me even more interesting and in a few hours I’ll use that turbo-boost of charisma to perhaps pick up a woman, take her home, and then Greco-Roman wrestle with her.  So yeah, I suppose my beer reviews could be lacking, but at least I like myself.”

I may not go back to a bar for the rest of the month as over-flowing NYC bars seem to be currently divided between these people that don’t like themselves at all and people that like themselves a little too much.  Rattle ‘n’ Hum last night was a Sharks and Jets battle between these two incredibly annoying populations.  On one side we had a bunch of drunken yahoos who had just come from their official work Christmas parties.  Idiots in cheap suits and tacky skirts, flirting with that fat HR girl, the guido idiot in the mailroom.  Ripping on their a-hole bosses.  Slobbering, slurring, trying to dance.  What happens at the Christmas party stays at the Christmas party and I unfortunately had to witness it.

On the other side we had the self-loathing beer geeks, pedantic in their pseudo-scientific non-enjoyment of beer, embarrassing in the nerdy browbeating way they ordered from the bartenders (”Uh…could I have a tulip glass please!”), pitiable in the “big dick contest” way they bragged about what saught-after beers they’d tried recently, aloof in how they presented their disgusting visages to the world.  You’d think the kind of person that cares so much about the look, smell, and craftsmanship of a silly liquid would care as equally much about the look, smell, and craftsmanship of their own person.  Naw, better to just rip on beers with bad carbonation than to worry about getting the orange wax out of your ears and do a few deep-knee bends.

Flying solo I had just four beers, all in smallish serving vessels the geek was right, but you’d have to be a dunce not to “understand” these beers after only 4 or 5 ounces:

I love the concept of The Bruery’s 12 Days of Christmas vertical and I too one day, when I open my own brewery, hope to have my own holiday themed vertical:  The 10 Plagues of Passover series.  (”Trade you two Death of the First Born quads for a Locusts barley wine?”)  2 Turtle Doves is, no duh, the second in the series set to conclude on Jesus’s bday 2019 when I’ll be 40 years old, still unmarried and without kids, but with 12 dusty bottles of beer to drink.  Yay for having dreams!  2 Turtle Doves is another boozy winner from The Bruery, maybe the most buzz worthy beermakers around at this second in time.  Chocolaty, nutty, caramely and roasted with perhaps some dark fruit flavors, slightly sour, a cordial finish, it gets better with each sip.  Glad I have several bottles of this.  A-

N’ice Chouffe is an odd little bird.  Like a Christmasy Belgian strong pale.  Which is as exotic and weird as it sounds.  Spicy and yeasty, a true Belgian take on a winter warmer.  A-/B+

I’d been searching for Ramstein Winter Wheat for awhile as I’d heard this New Jersey–New Jersey?!–offering was in the Aventinus ballpark.  Ha, not quite.  Aventinus is an utter masterpiece and a paradigm of the weizenbock style.  Ramstein Winter Wheat is dark and boozy hot, especially for a mere 9.5% beer, packed with banana esters and cloves, a little lacking in complexity, flavor, and expected silkiness.  Still enjoyable though.  B+

Pretty Things Babayaga is a rich and roasty 7% stout with a nice thick but not too viscous of mouthfeel.  It apparently has rosemary in it which I love in concept–it’s a favored addition to naan for me–but don’t taste in execution.  A solid effort but not sui generis or extraordinary.  Like the best crafted Guinness Extra Stout you’ve ever had.  B+

*I greatly admire the genius that decided to name the condition for people that can’t speak correctly a word that they could never pronounce correctly.  Listhp.  Maybe that’s the true test.  As soon as you can pronounce lisp correctly, son, then we’ll know you don’t have one no more.

8% ABV from a bomber

One of the fun things about beer trading is getting sent stuff you absolutely have no interest in.  I’m being serious.  Every place in America has those certain beers that locals know about, and love, but that for some reason no one else seems to know about and love. Everyone knows about California’s Russian Rivers and AleSmiths and Stones, etc., but few have probably heard of Marin Brewing Co.  So, of course, when a local Californian like my pal Jay at Hedonist Beer Jive hooks me up with some West Coast beers I surely know, and had asked for, something like this White Knuckle DIPA stuck out like a store thumb and you can’t help but being like, “What the hell is this?!  I’ve never seen this on BA’s Top 100!  I’ve never heard about this being released on a one-day only $15 a bottle, four bottle limit party!  Surely this beer sucks.”

But of course it doesn’t.  There’s a reason why a smart guy and a savvy beer drinker like Jay insisted I have it.  And God bless him cause Goddamn is this good.  Wow!  Just a juicy, juicy smell and full of tasty hops goodness.  Packed with grapefruit and a tropical mango/peach/apricot-like melange of fruit flavors this is one complex sucker.  Piney yet with a balanced bitter/sweetness finish it just tickles the tongue.  I loved every sip of this one and drew out my enjoyment of the bomber so long you would have thought I was Tantric.

I really don’t understand why this beer isn’t more notable.  It’s even more bizarre that it get a solid, solid “A” on Beer Advocate.  Yeah, well then why in the heck isn’t every non-California beer dork demanding his California buddies send him some?!  You really should as it’s honestly one of the best IPAs I’ve ever had and one of the more unique ones too.  I really see no flaw in it AT ALL.

A

Telegraph California Ale

6.2% ABV from a corked-and-caged 750

A second heretofore-unknown-to-me California beer that Jay insisted I try was the aptly named California Ale from Telegraph Brewing Company.  Listed as a “California Common,” the only beer I’ve had of that style, and I would guess you have to, is the iconoclastic Anchor Steam.  But I haven’t had an Anchor Steam in ages so I don’t exactly remember the calling card of the style.  This beer poured incredibly frothy and foamy.  I loooooved the aroma of it and the first taste was fairly enjoyable.  It tasted like a malty saison to me if that paradox could possibly makes sense.  “Belgianish,” it was yeasty and bananay yet caramely.  A bit of an oddball.  I found it a little too carbonated, a little too thin of mouthfeel, but overall not too bad.  I was glad to try it.

B