7.7% ABV bottled

“Get up, Aaron! Get up!”

I was being shaken awake courtesy of a whispered yell from a female voice I did not recognize. I could barely open my eyes, a wicked hangover permeating my skull. I squinted trying to read the alarm clock. 6:00 AM.

I rose my head from the pillow. I was naked under the covers. Standing beside me, shaking me, was a girl freshly showered, hairdo done, makeup made up, and in a nice but woefully unfashionable dress. She was either going to a funeral, a wedding, or Reagan’s first term presidential inauguration. Around me, on the floor of the swank hotel room were six other young women, sleeping wherever they could.

“It’s 6 AM…” I’d forgotten her name, “What’s the problem?”

“Don’tchoo remember what I told you last night?”

Of course I didn’t. I was visiting friends in Boston and we’d gone out drinking near Fenway. There were six of us and we played a game with the waitress called “Bring-us-two-pitchers-of-beer-every-five-minutes.” We were tired of flagging her down and asking. She was seemingly impressed by our machismo and Beerculean drinking abilities and told us if we could keep that up for an entire hour she’d give us a free pitcher. Only days later did I realize, “Huh…she pretty much just convinced us to drink $200 of shitty beer in sixty minutes in order to get a free $10 pitcher.” Smart girl. Er, dumb boys.

Blotto by 10:00 we headed to a dance club slash lounge for God knows what reason. Oh, wait, I remember. It’s because in Boston the only girls in taverns, pubs, and normal watering holes are hooded-sweatshirted fatties that can easily drink you under the table despite the fact that they’re spending twenty minutes out of every hour outside smoking and purchasing sidewalk sausage.

I typically avoid dance clubs at all costs because dancing is stupid and my seduction skills need a little bit of quiet so I can actually speak, but when in Rome….

At the dance club I was bored with the long lines to get an overpriced and watered down cocktail and by the terrible club music. Then, I noticed one of my favorite drinking sites: a tiarred women leading a group of girls in matching t-shirts into the bar and onto the dance floor. Yes, it was a bachelorette party.

I always feel sorry for bachelorette parties. It’s like, if your ceremonial final night as a single woman is in the same bar where I’m drinking, well that’s just pathetic. If she only knew what her soon-to-be-better-half was doing at the same moment. Come to think of it, he was probably just sitting in a piece of shit Chinatown strip club, doing Kamikaze shots, and trying to muster the courage to tip a dancer’s snatch with his teeth while his douchebag Southie friends cheer him on. OK, that’s not so cool either.

My always supplicating friend had just been approached by two of the more raucous and boisterous members of the bachelorette party (read: two fatties) who had revealed that during the night of drinking they were simultaneously taking part in a scavenger hunt of sorts and could they have his underpants in order to check another box off their list? As he pathetically retreated to the bathroom for underpants removal, I studied the girls in the group, all loud, all drunk, all ugly, except one. She was decent looking, downright hot for Boston, and stood off to the side sipping on her Cape Codder with a look of mild disdain, mild shyness.

I approached her, “You part of this group?” I said, overly stressing “this” to denote that I had little respect for them. She confirmed that she was though revealed that she was a high school friend of the would-be bride while the rest of the girls were college friends. Thus, she knew none of them and had been excluded all evening from their reindeer games. I told her big deal, those girls were annoying and ugly any how. She agreed and I whisked her away from the group and to a side bar.

Remember fellas, in big groups of women there’s always at least one that pretty much hates the rest of the group. Find that woman and use that fact as a fulcrum to pull her away from the group and into your arms.

So for the next few hours we got drunker and drunker and more and more insulting toward the rest of the bachelorette party. By closing time, it was evident we were going to hook up. And, as I had lost my friends I had no choice but to go home with her.

Women are quite different from men. My friends upon departure most likely saw me in the corner, huddled up with each other for about five seconds (”Should we tell him we’re going?” “Leave him alone.” “Fuck it.”), before leaving me. And that’s fine. Men know that other men want to seize the night and may the morning be damned. We’ll all deal with finding a way home when we need to deal with it. Women on the other hand will all but drag their friends away, both hating the thought of their friend scoring while they are going home empty-handed…and, well that’s about it. All women are like the Gore Vidal quote: “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.”

Women will literally remove their friends from a guy’s face and arms, refusing to allowing her to make her own decision like a grown-up. I usually just sit back and watch, trying to intervene only exacerbates the friends’ furor. While acting aloof only makes your pick-up desire you more.

Should a women finally convince her friends to let her be, to let her go home with the guy, at the least they will give her all sorts of warnings and instructions, “Call me when you get to his place so I know you’re safe,” “Text me every hour so I know you’re well,” “Here’s ten condoms,” “Here’s an on-the-spot STD test be sure and gets a cheek swab for later analysis,” “Here’s a google map I’ve printed out and safety-pinned into your underwear so you can find your way home afterwards,” “Here’s some emergency cash in five different currencies…”

But guys aren’t like that. And though that’s usually a good thing, it wasn’t this time.

As Laura shook me awake and began dressing me as I struggled to orientate myself, she re-explained the circumstance. She was from Albany–this now made a lot of sense in light of her bad bangs of a hairdo, her accent, and her promiscuity–and had to be back in town to attend her sister’s baby shower brunch–and this made sense in light of her garb–by 10:00 AM.

We went to the hotel parking garage to retrieve her car, my head ringing, and she confirmed that I knew how to get back to my friend’s place so she could drop me off en route out of town. “I sure do, ” I told her, though I didn’t even know my “friend”’s full name, much less where he lived. You see, I am a rare man that is terrible with directions. I can never remember street names, I can never orientate myself north/south, east/west, I never take the correct highways, I’m just an absolute train wreck when it comes to directions. And that’s why I’m usually taking trains and never driving and why I live in New York City. You’d have to be a retard to get lost in Manhattan, what with its beautifully designed grid and near exclusively numbered streets. I rarely even venture below Houston lest I get lost on some “name” street. When I do, I’m forced to hail a cab to bail me out of my jam and drive me back to numbered street civilization.

But this time I wasn’t lying. Though I didn’t know the street where my friend lived, I was pretty sure I knew from memory how to get back there. The drive from his apartment post-pre-gaming to the bar had seemed so simple. We backed out of the driveway, a right turn there, a left turn onto that major street, drive past that big building, and park. Surely I could reverse the directions and get us home–despite being simultaneously drunk and hungover, a most horrific state of existence–I was certain of it.

We left the garage and there was that turn, ah yes, and that turn, everything seems swell, and, here we go, I recall that long road, and, I’m positive the turn will be on the right in any second now, Laura, where is it, OK, now it should be coming up…

But that turn never came. I had surely forgotten something. We were lost. It was 6:30 AM and we were lost. I was tired, I was drunk, I was hungover, we were lost, and Laura was quietly seething. At least I thought she was. She was indeed very shy.

We aimlessly drove around the “area” where I thought he lived for the next half-hour. Everything looked so familiar yet so unfamiliar.

“Let’s go get breakfast.  I could go for some hash browns.”

She glared at me.

“Well what town does he live in?” she asked.

“Town? He lives in Boston.”

I was a 23-year-old yutz back then and Laura had to explain that pretty much no one actually lives in Boston. It was a city of only about half-a-million. Most everyone in the metro area lives in small towns surrounding Boston proper. After the quick geography lesson, I had to admit I didn’t know what town my friend lived in.

“Can we call you friend?” she used the royal we like a condescending grammar school teacher.

“I don’t have his number.”

She was incredulous. “You don’t have your friend’s number?”

“He’s a friend of a friend.”

She was looking angrier as she pulled into a gas station and parked at a pay phone booth. “There’s a phone book, go look him up.”

“I don’t know his name.”

“You don’t know his name?!”

“Everyone just calls him by a nickname.”

She wasn’t as mad as I would be in dealing with such buffoonery. “Well do you know any one in town you can call?”

Yes, I did, but that guy was a world-class alcoholic and he wasn’t picking his phone up after some fifty calls. He was probably sleeping it off in an alley somewhere.

At this point, I was absolutely certain that Laura was just going to drop me off in the middle of an Arby’s parking lot and speed away. Luckily, women can be so much nicer than men. I would have surely dropped her ass off on the side of the road if I had somewhere important to be.

And then my cell phone died and I could no longer even call my one friend.

We drove around in concentric and ever-larger circles for the next four hours before finally I saw something I recognized and led us back to my friend’s home.

It was 11:00 AM. Laura had already missed the baby shower.  She had said about three words to me in the previous three hours. It was kinda remarkable.  A quiet woman can be quite frightening.

As we sat in the driveway of my friend’s house, I didn’t know how to end things. A kiss on the cheek was quite inappropriate after the morning’s events. A handshake was too formal, as if we’d just played a round of golf. So I was simply honest:

“You really are the sweetest girl I’ve ever met,” I said as I got out of the car, slammed her door, and never looked back.

She peeled rubber out of the driveway, loud enough that my besotted friends finally awoke.

“Why are you hanging on the porch, Aaron?” they wondered, Laura’s car long gone by now.

I just smiled and went inside to sleep.

I still think about Laura. That was truly one of the nicest things things a stranger has ever done for me.

Something about the name Hell Hath No Fury reminded me of the Laura events.  Maybe because I had some selfishly scorned her.  My friend had gotten me a bottle of the ale as we don’t get Bell’s beers in New York.  I was excited to try it but it has one of the worst labels I have ever seen.  It’s almost so bad it’s good, like the cover to a goofy Hallmark card some lame adult is so proud they got you.  (”Isn’t it great?!”  “Yeah, real impressed you spent two minutes instead of thirty seconds sifting through the trite cards on display.”)

Luckily, the beer is quite good.  Roasted with the typical line-up of dark fruits:  plum, cherries, and raisins.  I really enjoyed it and though only 7.7% it seemed to pack a bit of a punch.  A nice tingly mouthfeel and went down smooth.  I would definitely look forward to having it again.

I’m almost positive Laura hasn’t forgotten me.

A-/B+

7.5% ABV from a bomber (BATCH 4)

My Drunken Amateur Haircut

Now I understand why smalltown hicks use crystal meth and are always impregnating each other. When you’re drunk and there’s nothing to do, bad shit happens. Friday was dreary and I wasn’t in the mood for going out. Decided to make it a chill night in with a friend. We were quickly bored. There was nothing to do and Friday night television nowadays is less than stellar. Where have you gone Jaleel White, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Thus, we began drinking. Steph went with dry Tanqueray martinis which I gladly stirred up*, while I was thrilled to pop the cork on a bottle of Allagash Black my friend Derek had procured for me. One of his all-time favorites. It poured a dark, dark nearly-black purple with the gorgeous smell of a flawless strong ale. I had thought this beer was a stout for the longest time, what with the name and all, and despite the fact that the bottle calls it a “Belgian stout,” most beer sites regard it as a strong dark and that is indeed what it is. In fact, it both smells and tastes a little like America’s most famous strong ale, perhaps, Arrogant Bastard.

I drank the first glass a little too warm, more befitting an imperial stout. It was quite boozy, just like I like ‘em. And you know what, it does actually have a bit of stout characteristics. Slight roasted coffee tastes most prominently. With a little chill added, Black became much superior, and the Belgian yeasts and hops started to shine through. Somewhat of a hybrid, this beer tastes a bit stoutish while being a thinner strong ale on the mouthfeel. I really dug it. It’s quite drinkable. With a few more sweetness characteristics, we might have had a masterpiece on our hands.

As we got drunker and drunker, more and more bored, we tried to find ways to entertain ourselves. Heckling teenage nerds on the Facebook Scramble chat was pretty fun, in a childish way, but that didn’t last long as we grew bored with their abominable grammar and e-speak (lol). We ordered “Love Guru” On Demand and after about ten minutes had to turn it off, it was torture, and I say that as a Mike Myers fan. Were we really going to have to go out that night to find any sort of fun? No, it was just too rainy and we were just too lazy.

As we continued drunkenly brainstorming, I casually remarked that I was tired of my long hair. It was making my head hot and kept falling into my eyes and over my ears.

“I’ll cut it right now,” said Steph.

Really?! An interesting proposition.

“Do you have scissors?”

“Yep, right in that top drawer over there.”

I went to investigate. She had a nice pair, they looked very sharp. Professional.

“Do you know how to give a haircut?”

She gave me a you-must-be-kidding look. “How hard can it be? It’s an industry dominated by junior high dropouts.”

I couldn’t argue with that. She was right. How hard could it be? Actually I knew. I had twice given drunken amateur haircuts myself. Our first year out of college, my roommates and I were underemployed and overly cheap. Why waste a drinking money twenty on a snip when you have a perfectly willing roommate to handle it? And, handle it I did.

My first drunken amateur haircut I gave to Tim, using nothing more than a poorly charged battery-powered beard trimmer. Amazingly, I did a remarkable job. He had never looked so handsome. It was such a good cut that for literally the next ten days, everywhere we went, strangers would comment on how sublime his trim was. I even credit myself with landing him a one-night stand or two.

I was riding high after that one but my second drunken haircut would bring me back down to earth. I did my friend John, this time using slightly better tools. However, that time I was a lot more drunk, doing the trim at 1:00 AM after an evening of vodka tonic drinking. We thought I did a good job, but the next day at his sister’s wedding, the entire family roundly mocked him for the length of the day, calling it one of the worst haircuts in the history of mankind. Oh well. Suffice to say, I was never asked to do any tonsorial work again. My reputation ruined.

But this was different. Somewhat. This was a mature woman, an artistically skilled woman, who had only had a single martini. Surely she could do a stellar job. And if she didn’t, so what? Big deal. I was tired of paying $40 for haircuts at my gay and fancy midtown salon any how. And it’s not like I even care that much what I look like. True, I try to stay thin and in shape but I rarely shave and all I wear are cheap black t-shirts. My goal is simply to look fuckable enough that my quick wit can carry me the rest of the way with a lady.

It was settled then, I would let Steph cut my hair. I went to the bathroom to shampoo up while she googled “how to cut men’s hair,” leading her to a ten minute instructional video she watched carefully.

After my shampooing, I returned to the living room finding newspapers laid down to catch my hair droppings. I sat in a rolling desk chair and handed her the scissors. Later, I would learn that she had neglected to tell me that these were actually poultry scissors. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. She actually cut my hair with fucking poultry scissors! I probably got a case of salmonella through my follicles. Likewise, the next time she serves Cornish game hen it will probably be covered in festering Hebrew head lice.

As she cut my hair I tried not to pay attention, listening to the stereo and continuing to imbibe. I had longish locks for as long as I could recall. This was due to the fact that from an early age I was certain I would be prematurely bald. My father was bald at like age eighteen, a huge hole in the middle of his stylish Jewfro. Every other male in my family, whether mother or father’s side was likewise bald. Thus, I figured I had no chance and from an early age learned to appreciate my tresses, to love, cherish, and honor them. I rarely cut my hair, always wearing it long in case I one day no longer had that ability.

But now, I was nearly thirty, finally old and mature enough to realize that hair doesn’t make the man. That even if I was as bald as Larry David I would be no different of person and would still be able to attract or not attract women just the same. At least that’s what I tell myself. Then again, that’s probably what all men with hair tell themselves, while the baldies of the world know otherwise.

The worst thing about a drunken amateur haircut is that it takes forever. Usually, my beautiful Ukrainian hairdresser Nelli takes fifteen to twenty minutes tops to service me, but Steph’s drunken amateur haircut took over an hour. When she was finished, I anxiously sprinted to the mirror. It looked…pretty good. I was impressed. She’d cut a ton off, but that’s what I had wanted. I even used a two-mirror system to check the back, sides, and crown. Everything seemed to be in order and it was refreshing and nice to no longer be so shaggy. I thanked her accordingly.

The next day I arose and zombied it to the bathroom for a morning beer piss. Afterward, leaving to go back to bed I casually glanced in the mirror. Did I have bedhead or was I staring at the worst fucking haircut in the history of the world?! You can never tell with a dry head so I quickly hopped in the shower, shampooed, came out, dried, and tried to style my hair into a nice, sexy do. But I couldn’t because it was so lopsided, so mangled, so fucking ridiculous looking, that I was screwed.

I wore a hat the rest of the weekend and today marched down to my gay and fancy midtown salon. I explained my situation to Nelli who, though she only typically seems to understand 10% of what I say to her, this time understood every single word. She laughed uproariously and soon the entire staff–the big fat gay shampoo boy who gives scalp massages that make me question my sexuality, the Dominican desk girl who always screws up my debit card billing, the fellow Latvian, Vietnamese, and Jersey hair stylists–were laughing at me, recounting the story to each new customer that entered the salon.

It wasn’t that difficult of fix for Nelli and within minutes I had a normal haircut again. The shortest I’ve had it in over a decade, but it looked normal, professionally done, sheared with something other than poultry scissors. I didn’t like its length, but I made my bed and would have to sleep in it for a few weeks until it grew back out.

Afterward, still embarrassed, I reached for my wallet to pay Nelli. She refused.

“Thissa one is a free. So-a long as you promise to only let professionals cut your hair in the future.”

Deal.

A

*I never understood why Bond wanted his martinis shaken. Only an asshole who doesn’t understand mixology would ask for that. Shaking bruises the gin and allows too many ice particles to water down the cocktail. But I won’t insult 007.

THE FOUR STAGES OF A BAD HAIRCUT (Shock, Grief, Anguish, Acceptance):

10% ABV from a bomber

My reviews this week have been pretty off-beat:  I had one for a mysterious (and possibly poisonous) homemade Bangladeshi whiskey, one for an artificially-colored red Barbadian lager that tasted like cinnamon soda, and tomorrow’s post will be a bit oddball as well.  Thus, I realized that I’d better get up a review for a legitimately good craft beer tonight, lest all the nerds in my audience feel alienated and desert The Vice Blog (”He used to be good.  Now all he reviews are pickle-flavored pilsners and malt-liquors with fruit roll-ups infused in them.”  “I agree totally.  And I think he makes up most of his stories too.”)  Naw, I can’t play my beer geek audience like that.  I couldn’t live with myself if they left me and were forced to read about quality beer on the websites of annoying and humorless pedants that use words like diacetyl in ordinary conversations (”I’m sorry, Mike, I’m not much of a beer guy, I don’t think I know the term ‘diacetyl.’  Could you speak to me in layman’s terms?”  “Uh…that was layman’s terms, Jim.”).  Pretentious twits that don’t even swallow.  The beer that is.  They don’t want to get drunk.  Not that their wives would allow them to, it might fuck up their chances of completing tomorrow’s “honey do” list.

My friend picked up a bottle of Unibroue’s Seventeenth anniversary last weekend and I was itching to try it.  Thus, I had to peer pressure him into letting me have some.  I’m still not sure how that works.  I don’t know why I don’t drink more Unibroue beers when I love them so much.  Heck, they produce one of my ten favorite beers on planet earth.  And their selections are both plentiful and cheap in NYC.  Maybe I take them for granted.  Or maybe I’m embarrassed that I have no idea how to pronounce the French-Canadian brewery’s name.  I always say “unibrow” as in, “Man, Ernie, your boyfriend Bert sure has a prominent unibrow.  Has he considered waxing or plucking?  Lasers even?”  But I know that pronunciation has to be incorrect.  Any how, I’m an American jingoist and I don’t like to say things with a nose-in-the-air, snotty French accent that sounds like you’re dry-heaving:  Oooo-na-brrrrrrrrrreeeeh.

Whatever the case, Unibroue makes great fucking beers and this special one-time-only release is quite swell too.  The fun thing about anniversary beers is that you rarely know what style you’re getting.  It’s always exciting to pop the cork or cap and–”Whoa!  I didn’t expect something that dark!”  I had no clue this was going to be a bottle-conditioned Belgian strong dark.  And a good one at that.  Smells and tastes of tons of purple fruits:  plums, grapes, raisins, and cherries.  Some nice potent heat, like a Scotch or red wine.  But still very drinkable, though I only had about 30% of the bottle (let’s just say my friend I was sharing the bomber with ”enjoys” quality beer at a slightly faster rate than me).  As with most potent brews, I enjoyed this one more the warmer it got.  Search it out and nab it if you can find it.  17 reminded me that I need to start reviewing more Unibrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeehs.

A

8.5% ABV from a bomber

Today brought the news that a wealthy and apparently eccentric man from Alabama is offering to pay $50,000 per for Jewish families to move down to his shitty unpopulated mega-Christian town. I guess he needs some like-minded buddies. The relocated Jews will have to agree to a five-year stint in the Heart of Dixie during which they have to actually act as committed Hebrews, attending shul, wearing yarmulkes, hanging mezuzahs, and…I guess eating corned beef sandwiches and quoting Woody Allen movies. Who knows?

$50,000?! Shit, I wouldn’t move to the Upper East Side for a lowly $50K. And to shlep to middle-of-nowhere-Alabama I’d have to be paid a least $10 million lump up-front. Probably more.

You think I’m kidding? I have certain needs. People often wonder why a human would put up with all the bullshit, all the chaos, all the dismay, stress, crampedness, filth, and overwhelming expenses to live in New York. They oddly think, “Does he like museums and Broadway theater and Lincoln Center ballets and operas that much?!” Of course not. Actually, I’m not even that big on culture. “Culture” meaning stuff that hasn’t been truly relevant and exciting since “A Tale of Two Cities” was on the new release rack at Ye Olde Barnes & Noble.

My reasons for living in the Moneymaker are far more pedestrian and mundane. Here are all of them, in decreasing importance though they are all crucial factors to me.

1. Public transportation — I fucking hate driving. I like to walk wherever I can and in fact do so for any journey under thirty blocks north/south or any distance cross-town. Above that, I love to use public transportation. I abhor sitting in traffic jams listening to shitty classic rock stations while wasting my life away. With public transportation, while some high school drop-out on potent union wages does the “driving,” I’m able to read, write, do crosswords, sleep, or just ogle hot women, which brings us to…

2. Hot single women and plenty of ‘em — Self-explanatory. Besides the fact that most cities have ugly women, most of them are married-by-24 with several-kids-by-28. No thank you. I could handle dealing with having to try and pick up potentially cuckolding wives due to a lack of sexy singles, but not when they’re all so fat and ugly.

3. Terrific food — We all know New York is the best dining city in the world, but it’s not like I can afford to eat at per se, Gordon Ramsey at The London, and Alain Ducasse every night. Or ever. No, in my opinion, New York is also the best city for cheap eats. From $4 Halal “street meat” platters to of course pizza and bagels to mind-blowing cuisines from more countries than are even in the worthless U.N. You can eat better for cheap here than you can eat for a gorgeous penny in most other American cities.

4. Bars open all hours of the night — I hate to temper the hero worship, but you may be surprised to know that the Vice Blogger doesn’t stay out til dawn four times a week like he used to when he was a young lad. In fact, he’s lucky to do that once a month these days. But he still likes to have the option. Nothing worse than being in a subpar city drinking subpar beers at a subpar bar when at 1:30 the lights go high and the bouncers start yelling, “Get the fuck outta here! LEAVE!!!” It’s ridiculous. The difference between cities that stay open til 2:00 and ones that stay open til 3:00 are immense. That is such a crucial hour. And New York stays open many hours more. Plenty of time to get in trouble.

5. Movies — Being a film buff, if not a full-fledged cinema geek, I need to know that every single movie that is made and put into theaters will screen in my city. And, not only that, screen in my city on the absolute first day of its release. It was murder when I lived in places such as Oklahoma and Syracuse and had to wait months upon months for more obscure pictures to make it to my city — if ever.

6. Pro sports — I couldn’t live in a town that doesn’t have an MLB, NFL, and NBA team. It doesn’t hurt if there’s easy access to college football and basketball watching too.

7. Access to obscure beers

With the exception of just a few American breweries (Russian River, Lost Abbey, Three Floyds, Founders, etc), pretty much every other breweries’ beers are stocked in full in New York. I hear about a great beer and I basically just need to leave my house and walk five blocks to find it.

And my supermarket across the street, which isn’t even particularly great, sells stuff such as Delirium Nocturnum. You think the fucking supermarket in Dothan, Alabama has Delirium? You think they even have Bud Light Lime?! Doubtful.

Delirium has a great, borderline offensive name to the PC crowd–delirium tremens of course referring to the severe manifestation of alcohol withdrawal which causes symptoms such as tremors, insomnia, nausea, hallucinations, confusion, and “the shakes”–and absolutely iconic bottle labels, the pink elephant logo a harbinger that you’re about to get done fucked up good.

Nocturnum has a great dark chocolate pour with a nice slightly medicinal alcohol smell. Tastes of cranberry and fig, perhaps some apple and caramels. Nice spiciness with some balanced yeast. Goes down easy. Not mind-blowing or exactly sui generis, but a good beer that’s well-crafted and incredibly drinkable.

A great way to spend an evening in the greatest city in the world.

Thanks for the offer Mr. Blumberg, but I’m staying put in my beloved Manhattan.  Your state’s beer laws are retarded.

Don’t you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here. –Alvy Singer “Annie Hall”

A-/B+

8% on draught

Friday I went to Dinosaur BBQ Harlem to have my death row meal, their Jumbo Roaster Bar-B-Que chicken wings, spice rubbed, pit smoked, then finished on the grill. Were I about to be put to rest, for my final feast I would simply have the prison officials pry open my gullet and dump several hundred of these wings down my throat (with a gallon of Maytag blue as lubrication) in the same way they feed a foie gras duck or goose. But this would not be gavage, it would be pure ecstasy. I wouldn’t even need to go to the electric chair or get a lethal injection, I would eat these wings until my liver exploded and I perished. The foie gras I created no doubt sold off to rampant Vice Blog fanatics in some charity auction at the next VBCon.

While sitting at Dinosaur’s better-than-you-would expect bar waiting for my dining companions to arrive, I marveled at the terrible drink selections everyone was making. Dinosaur has a quite respectable craft beer menu yet everyone was getting shit. Blue Moons and Stellas aplenty. I thought of the reaction of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” character Jimmy when Vincent and Jules are so impressed that he actually has some good coffee to serve them.

Jimmy: I don’t need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I’m the one who buys it, I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping, she buys shit. Me, I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it, I want to taste it.

Well just like Jimmy, I drink the gourmet expensive stuff while everyone else seems to drink shit. Why is that? I suspect it’s because most people don’t truly like the taste of beer like I do. That’s cause all they’ve ever had are crummy macros. But they like to get drunk–without the liver-scorching potency that hard liquor brings or the effete stigma that delicious fruity cocktail concoctions bring–and thus are forced to drink beer. And so the number one thing I suspect these people look at when ordering a beer is what is the cheapest shit in the place. Thus, they order macros.

Now this always amused me. True a macro is almost certainly going to be the cheapest beer in the joint when ounce-age is the only factor considered. But is that what should be measured? I propose these folks should look at PPAP (price per alcoholic percentile). As in, where I live in New York, Bud Light is usually $5 a pint. At a 4.2% ABV that’s $1.19 cents per alcoholic percentile. Meanwhile, at Dinosaur the ubiquitous Blue Moon was $5. At 5.4% that’s 92 cents per alcoholic percentile. But what I got was Dogfish Head’s Raison D’Etre. True, at $6 the most expensive pint on the menu, but at 8% ABV it was also the most alcoholic beer on the menu giving me an PPAP of 75 cents! By far the best value in the place gettin’-drunk-wise.

You would think these people that are only concerned about alcohol as a vessel for drunkenness would use their basic math skills and figure out that in the long run it would be much more thrifty to drink “expensive” craft beer all night than “dirt cheap” piss water macros. And, then, they might realize–shit!–these microbrews are so vastly superior in flavor than the swill I’ve been drinking my whole life.

Back to Raison D’Etre. Dogfish Head is one of my favorite breweries but I’d avoided this beer for years for reasons twofold. Firstly, it’s so easy to find that I never saw any urgency in picking it up, and secondly, it gets pretty mediocre reviews online. I really don’t understand that at all. From the first sniffs and sips, I really liked this one. Pun-ish raisins (not raisons), chocolate, and maybe a little coffee immediately nail you. Tastes like some unique stout/strong ale hybrid. A sweet finish and a sour aftertaste.

I must admit I liked this beer less and less the more I drank it, but that’s just cause it’s so overwhelming. The first 8 ounces or so were flirting with greatness indeed and I would definitely have this one again. Just not so much of it again. And I would also tell amateurs to totally avoid my earlier PPAP treatise because there is no fucking way you macro-drinking lifers could handle this one.

B-

10.4% ABV from a bomber

This is the beer that had the great misfortune of being drunk after my most previous Utopias imbibing.

That’s a shame, as this is a classic and it took me a while to realize it. The Utopias is so penetrating that my tongue was still in shock. I literally had to eat half a loaf of bread just to cleanse my palate. I’m still not sure that both my mouth and my mind were in the best state for enjoying this beer.

Odyssey is the second of Allagash’s Barrel Aged series, this one aged in oak barrels and then bottle-conditioned. It would be perfect for cellaring, but this one I drank pretty fresh. Tastes of chocolate, caramel, and some dark fruits. As with all of the potent Allagashes it is incredibly drinkable and refreshing. It’s a very, very, very good beer, no doubt, but I wasn’t in awe of it as much as I expected to be.

At the least I would rank it behind Allagash’s Jim-Beam-barrreled Curieux (definitely an A+), and maybe their Interlude (probably an A+) as well, but it’s probably better than the Victor and Victoria which are both also brilliant. In all honesty, Allagash doesn’t make a bad beer and I’ve never had an Allagash aside from their White and maybe the Dubbel that I would even rank below an A-.

I may not sound that enthused about Odyssey, but I am. It’s terrific, I just drank under most unfair circumstances. It is yet another winner from the amazing Allagash Brewery and I hope to have it again soon under more favorable conditions. For now I’m giving it an A, but I’ll always wonder if it’s only an A compared to Utopias.

A

9.5% ABV on draught

Another Valhalla selection from my recent trip there.

The bartender told me this was a brown ale and indeed it kinda tastes like one, but one on steroids. It’s actually a Belgian strong dark ale, technically, and thus is slightly different. Nevertheless, if you like brown ales and are not a pussy, you’ll probably like this one. Most brown ales are solid, and there really aren’t any bad ones out there that I have tasted. Perhaps because it wouldn’t be very lucrative to mass-produce a watered-down brown. Best to just produce a crappy lager if you want to attract the masses.

Not the best brown ale, or strong dark ale, I’ve ever had, but it’s still good. Tastes too alcoholy, but at 9.5% what should I expect? I wish they had done a hair better job of masking the potency. Could use a sweet component or two. Just a hint. Nothing more. Just enough to make it a tad more quaffable as they say.

A-/B+

9.5% ABV bottle

Yet another Tria selection.

What the fuck is a Grand Cru? I know beer, I understand beer, I can differentiate from dozens and dozens of different styles of beer. Yet I have no fucking clue what a Grand Cru is. It doesn’t even appear to be a style per se. Just something certain types of foreign beers are called. And wines are often Grand Crus too! Let us google…

The Grand Cru term is often used in craft beer production, specially in Belgium and France…In Europe, the term is traditionally used to designate the finest beer that a brewery produces. In the United States, the term grand cru does not necessarily have this connotation, and is most commonly given to beers that are Belgian-style, such as Grand Cru from the AleSmith Brewing Company. (Wikipedia)

Aha! So indeed Grand Cru is not a style. It is simply a sign that a beer is highly-esteemed in Europe. I guess America’s version of this would be the “Blue Ribbon.” Something even rarer than the Grand Cru designation for as far as I can tell it has only ever been awarded to a single canned beer that often sells for a buck in hipster Brooklyn bars.

So what to say about the Brasserie Des Rocs Blue Ribbon beer?

It is sweet, fruity, winey, and even a little spicy. Potent too. Perhaps too carbonated. Not half bad.

B+