“I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize for the events of the night of the 23rd.  I’m not accustomed to drinking alcohol.”  –Max Fischer, “Rushmore”

I woke up near noon, still completely dressed in what I’d worn the previous evening.  Jacket, shoes, jeans with wallet, cell phone, keys still in it, everything.  My head pulsated in pain.  Not surprising considered I’d celebrated my birthday the previous night at Rattle ‘n’ Hum, chasing pints of 13% Bourbon County Stout with shots of Irish whiskey in a perpetual Mobius strip of aggressive drinking.  But even worse than the pain in my head, was the pain in my gut.  What exactly had happened twelve hours previous?  Had I scarfed down too many orders of fried calamari and Buffalo wings?  Yeah, probably, but that wouldn’t cause this kind of pain.  A pain so intense it hurt for me to sit upright and killed when I tried to piss.

Oh right, I’d entered myself in an impromptu gut-punching contest Friday night.

Seems that after drinking steadily from happy hour til midnight, after all the women and responsible men had left my party and the bar, leaving only a quintet of degenerates remaining, someone, probably me, had gotten the wise idea to start a quasi-Fight Club in our little corner and we began exchanging a series of gut punches with each other.  I’d never done something like this before, never even had such a desire to do something like this before, but I’ve never been accused of not having strokes of genius when too lit up to remember them the next day.  And, this gut-punching stroke, did I only barely recall engaging in.

I have a long history of alienating friends, ruining relationships, losing my dignity, and flat out humiliating myself on my birthday.  It’s an annual tradition.  But in this case it seemed like none of the above had occurred.  I spent the day writhing in pain, staying supine, and texting with my friends to recount the night.

How many gut punches had we exchanged I wondered?  About fifteen, recalled Tony.

How hard were we hitting each other?  About 75% our maximum punching power, thought Graig.

And why the fuck weren’t we getting tossed out of the bar for such childish shenanigans?  Because Rattle ‘n’ Hum is the most awesome bar in the world, thought I.  Though, honestly, because my friends were probably racking up a combined grand in drinking tab.  Never let any one tell you that money can’t buy you happiness.  Or the ability to have an impromptu gut-punching contest in a heretofore civilized establishment.

But apparently the night wasn’t completely peaches ‘n’ cream at Rattle ‘n’ Hum.  Sal chipped in that eventually, after about a half hour of gut-punching, some guy, en route to smoke a butt outside, had told us to cut it out.  And apparently, I had told said guy where to stick it.

Oh God!  Who was this man?  A bartender?  A manager?  Hopefully not…the owner!

Typically, I wouldn’t care.  Wealthy Charles Foster Kane wasn’t worried that his beloved newspaper was losing him one million dollars a year because, as he noted, “at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place…in 60 years.”  And I’ve long realized that I can get 86ed from a New York bar this week, and one next week, and one the week after that, and at the rate of fifty-two 86ings per year, I’d have to move to a new drinking town…in 60 years.  But the circumstances were different here because Rattle ‘n’ Hum is my favorite bar in the world.

Now normally I’d just lay low for awhile til my statute of drunken limitations had expired.  But, in this case, that simply wouldn’t work.  You see, just three days later, Rattle ‘n’ Hum was having one of the greatest beer-drinking events in recent memory as the esteemed Tampa brewery Cigar City was coming to town to unleash more than their full lineup of beers.  There’s no fucking way I was going to miss this event.

I consulted with my friends.  Who exactly had I mouthed off to and exactly how mouthy had I gotten?  Was I truly 86ed?  Would I be recognized if and when I returned to the bar?

“You’re not exactly the kind of guy that people forget, Aaron,” noted Graig.  I don’t think that was a compliment.

After fretting all day, I had no choice.  I would have to attend the Cigar City event incognito.

In preparation, I shaved an uneven goatee into my scruff, wore some particularly shabby clothing (which is saying something for me, I normally dress like a hobo), put on a Syracuse cap pulled low as possible over my eyes and sharp eyebrows (my most prominent and memorable features), and even wore my nerdy reading glasses that never leave the house, just to have another thing blocking my face.  Of course, I had to fly solo, I couldn’t risk returning to the scene of the crime with any accomplices.

I felt nervous when I entered the fairly empty bar, especially when I saw the afternoon’s bartender was the very same kind Irish lass we’d had at my birthday.  I couldn’t recall if I’d been offensive to her as well.  I walked with an intentionally unconfident slouch, my head meekly drooping to hide myself further.  I looked down at the bar, never making eye contact, feigning intense nervousness as the bartender approached and slid a menu in front of me.

“What can I getcha, hon?”

My ruse had seemed to work.  She didn’t recognize me from Adam.  (If Adam was the name of one of the countless beer nerds that would be infestating the bar soon enough.  Damn, perhaps I should have stuffed a pillow under my shirt to create a faux-beer gut.  I didn’t need my flat belly giving me away.)

I decided to open my drinking with probably the manliest, not to mention priciest, flight of beers ever assembled, pictured above.  A straight boozy stout quartet of Marshall Zhukov’s Imperial Stout, Hunahpu’s imperial Stout, and their bourbon-barreled counterparts.

Marshall Zhukov’s Imperial Stout

This 11% ABV brew is bursting with distinct flavors of coffee, chocolate, toffee, and molasses.  A rich syrupy mouthfeel and great carbonation, this is an awesome effort.  (A)

Bourbon Barrel Aged Marshall Zhukov’s

I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I’m not sure I’ve ever said this in my entire life as I’ve long stood by the reasoning that awesome beer + bourbon barrel aging = awesomer beer but in this case I thought the incredible booziness here overwhelmed the subtler flavors.  Or maybe I’m just becoming a little pussy in my old age.  I’d love to try this one with a little age on it but even hot and young it’s quite good.  (A-)

Hunahpu’s Mayan Chocolate Imperial Stout

Currently resting at #38 on Beer Advocate’s Top 100 beers on earth after an amazingly meteoric rise, this 11% beer takes a base of Marshall Zhukov’s and ages it on pasillo and ancho peppers as well as vanilla, cinnamon, and cocoa nibs, giving it a nice little spiciness with a surprisingly sweet finish, and making it taste truly like no other imperial stout around.  As a huge fan of Latin spices, I absolutely adored this effort, and, for me, it was my clear stout winner of the day.  (A)

Bourbon Barrel Aged Hunahpu’s

Just like the bourbon-barrel Marshall Zhukov’s I think the intense bourbonness of this effort blocks out the awesome spices and makes it a less complex and enjoyable beer.  Having said that, it’s still quite good.  (A-)

After my first flight, I thought, let’s see, twenty-four total Cigar City beers available, if I keep flighting in out, I could knocked off the full lineup in only six total plate appearances.  Flight #2 coming up!

Creamsicle IPA

This sounded like an intriguing premise, an IPA that tastes just like a Creamsicle, but I doubted the execution was possible.  I was so wrong.  This straight out tastes like a bitter IPA backed by the orange creamy goodness of a popsicle.  Amazingly drinkable and quaffable.  (A-)

Flora IPA

This standard IPA with cedar and lavender added smells like a sack of weed and tastes like a flower garden.  And that’s a compliment.  Absolutely delicious and unique.  (A)

Humider Series Juniper IPA

I’d been floored by Cigar City’s Jai Alai IPA aged on cedar so I was excited to try yet another IPA from their exciting Humidor Series, and this was just as good.  Like drinking a box of wood.  (A)

Brandy Barrel Winter Warmer

I honestly ordered this one just to fill out the foursome, but it absolutely floored me.  The normal Warmer Winter Winter Warmer–an old ale I still hadn’t had at this point so I can’t compare–aged on Laird’s apple brandy, this would end up being my favorite beer of the evening and one of the best beers I’ve had year to date.  Silky, syrupy, and sweet but not cloying, this reminded me of J.W. Lee’s delicious Harvest Ale Calvados, but even boozier and more delicious.  A huge winner.  (A+)

At this point I was getting pretty drunk and began fretting I would soon break into Leonard-Duran gut-punching numero dos.  I really had to focus and say “No mas” as there is surely some demon inside of me that now likes me to get punched in the gut.  I had brought a paperback and had planned to quickly drink my beers with my head ducked into the book, but, ironically, I kept finding myself talking to people over the two hours I was there and even made two new friends.

I now realized that having all six flights was probably out, but I figured I could squeeze in two more.  Unfortunately, their pricey cask selections, of which they had several, were not available in flight form so I had to go with full pours.  The remaining beers I slugged:

Double Cream (cask)

When I prepared my drinking order the night before I’d flagged this 9% strong cream ale as one I was particularly excited to try, but its corn and honey sweetness simply didn’t fully deliver for me and it would go down as the worst (relative term) beer I had for the day.  (B+)

Mango IPA (cask)

This IPA loaded with dry hops, mango acai tea, and a hint of lavender was my third favorite effort of the day.  As it warms the intense mango flavors come through nicely.  Flawless mouthfeel and drinkability.  Amazing.  One of my favorite IPAs of the year.  (A)

Maduro Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

After the mild failure of Brooklyn’s far more ballyhooed attempt at making a straight-up cookie tasting beer I didn’t expect any one could execute in that regard.  I was wrong.  This brown ale does taste just like an oatmeal cookie as the tart raisiness comes through nicely.  (A-/B+)

Cuban Espresso Maduro

Wow, just like the previous beer, this 5.5% brown ale aged on Naviera Coffee Mills #3 Espresso blend with chicory tastes like a flat out iced coffee.  Intense and smoky, simply delicious if you’re a coffee nut.  (A-)

At this point, the major-league beer nerds starting filing in, wielding their note-taking pens like rapiers and setting up their cameras on tripods (tripods!) to take pictures and videos of the scene…and I knew I had to make my exit, stage left, before I caught anything.

I had twelve of the beers, coupled with three others I’d had in the past, meaning I’d tried fifteen of the twenty-four available.  A 0.625 batting average.  Not bad and I hope to some how, some day, try the ones I missed, especially their Peach and Papaya IPAs which just sound phenomenal as well as the standard Warmer Winter.

Oh, and I’m putting myself on a self-imposed one month ban from Rattle ‘n’ Hum.

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

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.

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

9.2% ABV from a bomber

So after Jay at Hedonist Beer Jive proposed we make our first cross-continental trade, one of the first beers I knew I would ask for from him would be Moylan’s Hopsickle.  The great-named imperial IPA, never available in New York, and long a mainstay on Jay’s all-time top 75, this was a beer I had long wanted to try.  Of course, and this sounds like a joke, literally the same week Jay’s massive beer package arrives–thanks man!–I notice that Manhattan bars and bottle shops are now stocked with Moylan’s.  Uh yeah…guess The Empire State finally got a distribution deal.  Alas.

Hopsickle just smells fantastic, absolutely excreting delicious grapefruit fumes.  The taste is dry and bitter, very herbal, with a nice little tinge of sweet grapefruit.  Packed with Tomahawk, Chinook, and Anthanum hops, this beer is incredibly fresh and earthy tasting.  Massively drinkable for the ABV with no bite whatsoever.  Just a terrific example of the west coast style.

A

A few days later I got to try Moylan’s “standard” Moylander DIPA on tap at Rattle ‘n’ Hum.  Everything great about Hopsickle, Moylander simply lacked.  While it was bitter too, it was quite simple.  No real body and despite the 8.5% ABV a quite thinnish mouthfeel.  The smell was solid but the taste simply didn’t match up.  Decent if this is the only Moylan’s around, but Hopsickle easily tops it as the brewery’s best DIPA.

B-

Nevertheless, I greatly look forward to trying more Moylan’s offerings as I come upon them.

5.7% ABV bottled

The Most Underrated Brewery Around

This is an era of hype and of overrating things.  Of proclaiming each new thing the “best” and the “greatest,” and constantly trying to rank things in an easily digestible top 5 or top 10 or top 100 order. Even I had thought of doing a list of the most overrated breweries in America.  Because, of course, everything in this world nowadays is overrated in some way or other.  In fact, it would seem impossible for something, especially something well-known, to be underrated.  But sometimes things just slip through the cracks.  And today I want to talk about the most underrated brewery in America:  Smuttynose from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

I’ve been guilty of underrating this fine brewery for far too long.  So has everyone else.  Why is that?  They have nicely named beers with great labels, their taps and bottles are ubiquitous on the East Coast and always at an incredibly reasonable price, and, naturally, all their beers are delicious.  But for some reason, I’ve never intentionally sought out Smuttynose beer, nor even reviewed a single one of their brews on The Vice Blog.  For shame, Aaron, for shame.  That’s all about to change with this post.

The odd thing is, aside from their popular pumpkin seasonal beer, I’m not even sure if I’d ever even had a Smuttynose release until I tried their eye-openingly good Smuttynose Gravitation Quad at this year SAVOR event, finding it to be perhaps the best American quadruple around, and good enough to stack up with the legendary Belgians.  It was maybe my favorite beer at a festival that had dozens of rarer and more ballyhooed beers.

Now you would think my experience at SAVOR would have been a watershed moment for me and I would have begun to intentionally start seeking out Smuttynose beers.  But, dumbly, I still didn’t.  I still passed over the countless reasonably priced offerings for sale at my bottle shops, avoided their taps while tying one on, eschewed their offerings completely.  Perhaps it was the simple fact that I always knew I could get Smuttynose beers if I wanted to that led me to avoid them.  Like the slutty girl on your dorm floor that you never hook up with because you know you can always hook up with her if need be.

The next time I tried a Smuttynose offering was the next time I was forced to.  At a mediocre Williamsburg bar with all macro offerings save Smuttynose IPA “Finest Kind,” I obviously had no choice.  And so glad my hand was forced because this is one of the most unique beers I’ve had this year.  Far and away the most pungently bitter IPA I’ve ever had, on my first tasting I alternated between sips of “this is amazing” and sips of “this is absolutely wretched.”  But for the rest of the week I couldn’t get the beer off my mind, and with future tastings I came to adore it.  Finest Kind now stands as one of my favorite single IPAs that are readily available, and if I’m at a bar with a tap of it, I now always have to have a pint.  (A-)

Yet even with that experience I was still not a Smuttynose acolyte.  Next, while trying to find a beer my sister might enjoy, I gave Smuttynose’s Hanami Ale a whirl and I was greatly impressed by this spring seasonal.  A nice and refreshing beer, this is the rare fruit beer that isn’t too overpowering, nor does it have a phony, artificial syrupy taste like most fruit beers.  Hanami Ale is now one of my go-to recommendations to girls-that-claim-they-hate-beer-but-are-forced-to-drink-beer-with-me.  And, you know, they always love it.  (B+)

Later this very summer, while at Rattle ‘n’ Hum one Saturday afternoon, I noticed Smuttynose’s Baltic Porter as being the only beer on the menu I had never tried.  Interestingly, as much as I had ignored Smuttynose, I had been ignoring porters for even longer.  For some reason, I assumed them to be the red-headed step-brother of far superior stouts.  I’ve since learned that is very much not the case and, in fact, though they are similar and this is purely anecdotal, I’ve found, ceteris paribus, that I actually often enjoy porters more than stouts.  Whereas a bad stout can have that overly roasted, burnt taste like a Starbucks coffee, porters often have a more pleasant, sweet and malty taste.  Such is the case with this phenomenal Baltic Porter.  Big bold flavors of sweet dark fruits with just an underlying hint of chocolate, this is one incredible beer.  (A)

Shockingly, I still wasn’t on the Smuttynose bandwagon.  What the fuck did I need?!  Am I such a dope that I need a brewery to have multiple entries on the Beer Advocate Top 100, that I need them to have a slew of barrel-aged beers, that I need them to have countless small batch release parties and overpriced beers for me to hail their greatness?  I guess so, because, again, just this week while watching the Yankees clinch #27, I only ordered Smuttynose’s Star Island Single because I was forced to with nothing else appealing on tap.  Glad my hand was played again because this Belgian pale ale, Smuttynose’s newest regular lineup release, is imminently drinkable and quite tasty.  Strong tastes of banana Laffy Taffy-like esters, honey and a nice citrusy yeastiness, I could drink these all night.  And, in fact, I did for 9 innings.  (A-/B+)

Finally, after having liked, loved, and been blow away by five Smuttynose beers in a row, did I decide last night to intentionally purchase one, grabbing a bottle of their Robust Porter to enjoy with the “Mad Men” finale.  Of course, such as life, this was my least favorite Smuttynose beer so far, but it was still very solid.  Dry and roasted, with a nice coffee and chocolate taste, this is a no-frills beer that is quite drinakble.  (B+)

I feel like it’s taken me a full year, if not a whole beer-drinking lifetime, to “discover” a brewery.  A brewery whose beers have been around me since I first started tippling the good stuff.  I’m excited to now have tons of new beers I want to try from Smuttynose.  Their Really Old Brown Dog old ale and their Big A IPA and their imperial stout and wheatwine and barleywine and all their others I have yet to have.

I still don’t understand why Smuttynose is universally underrated, maybe it’s due to their odd name, maybe due to getting overshadowed by their sister brewery Portsmouth and their legendary Kate the Great imperial stout, but I will no longer underrate what has easily become one of my favorite breweries in America.  Nor should you.

?% ABV bottled

The 3XL Underwear Date

I never am late but I was running late for this latest first date, if I can evoke the white rabbit a bit.  This was back in the early-2000s when preparation for a big weekend date involved polishing off a six-pack of Yuengling while watching the tail end of the afternoon’s college football games, opening my eyes and regaining some energy by drinking a can of Sparks while I showered, and finishing it off with a nice cocktail as I got dressed.  Not exactly a recipe for running on a tight schedule nor for impressing these women I was supposedly wooing.  Then again, they were often more drunk than me.

On this particularly night, out of the shower, I quickly prepared myself a gin and tonic to enjoy as I garbed myself.  I reached for one of the fresh unopened packs of boxer briefs I had just purchased.  Ripped the pack open, grabbed a pair, and quickly pulled them up and…they fell back down to my feet. They were fucking huge.  I glanced at the label.  3XL.  Shit.  I grabbed another pack.  3XL.  And the third and final pack.  3XL.  Fuck!

Earlier in the day I had been downtown near price-choppin’ clusterfuck par excellence Century 21 when I had fortuitously recalled that all my underwear were dirty and I had a date that very night.  I could, of course, just have hurried home and done laundry, but eh.  I rushed into the mess of a department store, plowed over some slovenly Slavic tourists like Adrian Peterson hitting the hole, and grabbed a stack of $5 three-packs of Hanes unmentionables.  (Undergarments are the most egregiously priced of all clothing and thus, as a miserly Jew, I always make sure to buy them at Century 21 where they sell for like 75% discount.)

Alas, in my haste, I had stupidly forgotten to check the size of the boxer-briefs, partially assuming I suppose that one size fits most, but, what with Century 21 being a tourist mecca, of course the default sizes were for the typically girthy Nebraskan or South Dakotan rather than being an M or L like most New York stores would stock.  I should have known better.  But there was no time to damn my luck at the moment, I had to come up with a plan for my date.

Going commando was out of the question.  It was a sweltering 98 degrees out and going sans-knickers in the city of the Knickerbockers would be a surefire recipe for having a most swamp-like crotch before I’d even arrived at the bar.  There was my old standby of teeny tiny soccer shorts as a proxy for undies, but that had gotten me into major trouble the last time I’d done such a thing and I didn’t want that evening’s date shrouded with such an anti-talisman.  Perhaps a “cleaner” pair of dirty underwear?  No, that was too disgusting even for me.  Alas, I had no choice but to wear the 3XLs.

I don’t exactly wear drainpipe jeans now and I certainly didn’t back then, but I’ve always favored a slim fit as I hate the jostling from non-sleek clothing.  Suffice to say, it was near impossible to pull my denims up over this brand-new blousey girdle.  It entailed a lot of constant tucking and shimmying and smoothing before I was finally able to get my jeans up.  And even then, the waistband of the offensive boxer-briefs was exploding from my dungarees, like a mushroom cloud, forcing me to fold them over my belt line and into wearing a thick, longish shirt so as to hide the craziness.  If I ever forgot and accidentally did a big yawning stretch, revealing my littleclothes, my date would surely think me Mormon.

I go to some upscale-for-a-dopey-24-year-old bar and I meet up with Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? but I’m unable to focus.  Unable to be my funny, charming, roguish self since I’m so concerned about my 3XL underwear, so uncomfortable with the saggy cloth surrounding my loins.  I’m can barely think of anything else, I can barely pay attention to my date, I’m writing my own prophesy as I almost don’t want my date to be a success for if it is a success of course we will go back to her place and start getting all inflagrante delicto and next thing I know she’ll be laughing at me and mocking me for my apparent sick fetish of wearing gigantic Pampers.

So I decide to drink heavily, which kinda eliminates my anxiety but which also makes me need to keep pissing which is another conundrum all to itself for once in the restroom I fear that if I pull too much of my pants and 3XLers too far down, then I’ll never able to get everything back in place again.  Meaning, I had to employ the most dreaded of all devices, the underwear piss hole.  I’m still have post-traumatic stress over that.

Amazingly, after countless cocktails I’m loosening up and Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? is becoming charmed by my slightly fidgety neurotic besotted behavior, and maybe she’s a little drunk too, or wanting to use me as a slumpbuster, so she invites me back to her pad.  And, despite my fears from before, I accept.

I had drunk so heavily at dinner that I thought I’d be unable to get my lumber out of the bat rack but, amazingly, once Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? started kissing me, all the biological things that are supposed to happen started happening.

I’m usually aggressive in bed but here, in this situation, I was being quite slow and tender, caressing and fondling Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? with her clothes completely on because, despite my stoned state, I know once I take her clothes off, she will take my clothes off and see my most unfortunate parachute of granny’s panties.  This incredibly slow progression toward love-making thus makes me appear to be a man interested in an incredible amount of foreplay, which makes Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? like me all the more as most men her age–including me when I was wearing boxer-briefs that fit–were probably a little too wham bam, thank you madame.

Eventually, Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? reached a fever pitch of foreplay ecstasy and there was only one final frontier left to explore.  She excused herself to the bathroom to do whatever it is girls do when they excuse themselves to the bathroom right before coitus.

(My top three guesses:

1.  Last second depilatory work
2.  Vigorous gargling
3.  Quick Google search of my credentials)

This was finally my chance and I sprung to action!  I quickly pulled down my jeans and whipped of my dreaded 3XL panties which had somehow become stretched out to 4XL or perhaps even 5XL underoos in the last five hours as these babies were expanding faster than the universe.  I took the Hanes and tossed them under Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha?’s bed and then quickly pulled back on my jeans.

Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? returned from the bathroom seconds later, placing some condoms on her nightstand.  She then attacked me, taking my fate in her own hands.  Although now I was at ease.  She pulled back down my Lucky’s and a pleased look came across her face.

“Commando…?  Mmmmm…sexy!”

Sexy is right.  I was finally free from my prison of skivvies and eager to celebrate my midsection’s liberation.  I pulled a perfect Cael Sanderson reverse and threw her to the mat, positioning myself on top of her.  She may have seemed a bit confused by my sudden personality change, but she was greatly enjoying it.

So was I.  I had done it!  I had triumphed over these Herculean jockeys determined to defeat me!

I reached for the nightstand and a prophylactic.  Expertly opened the package and put its contents on my manhood.

But something felt off.  Way off.

I looked down to see the condom hanging on my dick like a latex poncho.  Sagging and droopy, unweildy and unusable.  What the hell?

I grab the discarded packet off the floor.

Durex XXL.

Stacy or was it Laura or possibly Alisha? noticed the look of fret on my face, the tears now welling up in my eyes.

“Oh sorry,” she said, “I stole those from my roomie.  You should see her boyfriend.”

The Oracle

This limited, Michigan-only release from the legendary local brewers, was procurred for me by my good buddy the Drunken Polack.  With a meteoric rise onto the BA Top 100 putting it alongside Bell’s two other IPAs, Two-Hearted and the legendary Hopslam, I was certain The Oracle would be epic.  But all I can report is…eh.  I was great underwhelmed I’m sorry to say.  And you know that has to be the truth because I am nothing if not a grade inflater!  I found Oracle to have the nose of a malty barleywine, yet, oddly enough, one of the more dry and bitter tastes of any DIPA around.  But not in a good way.  I would hail Smuttynose’s “Finest Kind” to be the uber-bitter IPA The Oracle should aspire to be, but it’s simply just not quite as good.  A bit of a lacking-in-flavor grapefruit mess.  Oh well…at least you folks that will struggle to locate this beer don’t have to be too bummed out about that fact.  If you’re like me, I almost get excited when someone reviews a highly-rare, highly-sought-after beer that I shall never taste and then semi-slams it.

A-/B+

BONUS REVIEW!!!!!

Founder Harvest Ale

6.5% ABV bottled

While we’re on the subject of hoppy beers, I got to make mention of by far the most enjoyable one I’ve had in the last weeks.  Oddly enough, BA lists this as a pale ale, but you know I hate to quibble about stylistic persnicketyness.  I’d generally liked all of Founders hoppy IPA-type beers I’d had in the past, but this was the first one that absolutely floored me.  One of the most fragrant beers I’ve ever had, with quite possibly even a more fresh piney smell than Pliny the Elder.  The taste is not quite as good as the otherwordly smell, but this is still some amazing shit.  Citrus, pine, and so much juicy hoppiness.  Wet-hopped beers are all the rage at the moment, even someone woke up the NYT to write an article about the phenomenon, and I finished off the sole four-pack I had of Harvest with a quickness.  Unfortunately, I can’t get Founders in NYC, but if I could, I would be absolutely plowing through bottles of this like some frat boy participating in a power hour until this fall season’s limited run was completely drank up.  It’s that good.  Not to be missed.

A

In late-1800’s New York City, the top spectator sport at bars was dog versus rat fights.  This replaced the previously most popular sport, a man in heavy work boots trying to stomp out one-hundred rats as fast as he could.  Which, replaced the previously most enjoyed sport:  bear wrestling.  Yeah, the New York bar scene was pretty goddamn badass a way back when I have learned from reading Luc Sante’s essential compendium of New York vice “Low Life.”

Back then, many dive bars–known as “blind tigers” or “blind pigs”–didn’t even have glassware.  Men were issued a rubber tube which they then connected to a keg and from which they were allowed to drink as long as they could on one single breath of air for each beer purchase.  Predictably, always-savvy New Yorkers developed incredible lung capacities and devised ways to cheat the system.

But it wasn’t all days of wine and roses back then.  For one, most dives, usually located on the outskirts of Manhattan island, had actual trap doors in the floors in which deceased customers could be kicked into the East or Hudson Rivers.  Besides murder and suicide, frequent in-bar deaths might have been due to the fact that this rubber-tubed-sucked beer was abject swill, laced with all sorts of poisons that quickly got you drunk…and then killed you.  Or, at least blinded you.  Not exactly good for repeat business.

And the only women hanging at these dives were of the sporting kind.  Hookers who would, at best, fuck you full of STDs.  At worst, slip you a “Mickey Finn” when you weren’t looking and steal your wallet as you lay prone in an alley.  OK, so I guess I’ll quit complaining about the annoyingly shrill JAP habitues and hipster too-cool chicks so often surrounding me at the bar.

Suffice to say, craft beer was nowhere to be had, and, begrudgingly, I guess that means I have to admit that the 2009 New York City bar scene is better than the 1889.  Even if all we have to do at bars nowadays is play darts and “Big Buck Hunter.”  Not exactly a stomping-on-rats level of in-house excitement, but surely less messy and grizzly.

This past week I had the fortune to drink six beers that could of and would have never existed back in seedy 19th Century New York.  Six beers from Boulevard’s esteemed Smokestack line.  Three of which I’d had before and three of which added new notches to my brew bedpost.

Double-Wide India Pale Ale

8.5% ABV from a 750 mL  (1st in the series)

Double-Wide emits the always popular sack of weed aroma we’ve come to know and love in many West Coast IPAs.  A nice bitterness and packed with sour citrus.  Boozy yet drinkable, I was very impressed and if I was an east coast elitist man I would add that I was very impressed that this great IPA came out of Kansas City.  A part of me, though, wonders if this is an out of date bottle from when the initial Smokestack offerings were first released nearly a year ago.  That seems impossible because, damn, this beer was fresh and juicy.  Well worth locating.

A-

Long Strange Tripel

9% ABV from a 750 mL (2nd in the series)

This is a very respectable, damn good American tripel.  And, tasting it side-by-side with maybe my favorite tripel in the world, La Fin du Monde, Long Strange was outshined (outshone?) sure, but by not that great of magnitude surprisingly.  It’s incredibly yeasty with just a hint of nice sweetness.  Bubbly, fluffy, and pillowy, I really enjoyed putting this back in the mid-day patio sun, and was shocked at how easily it went down.

A-/B+

Two Jokers Double-Wit

8% ABV from a 750 mL (8th in the series)

Dangerously, shockingly, drinkable for such a high ABV beer, but then again, witbiers are so fucking lame, maybe I was just trying to get it down, slurping it down like flat apple juice, so I could move onto something more interesting.  You know, Two Jokers ain’t terrible–and I love the label–but it’s just not that interesting.  Packed with cardamom, coriander, orange peel, lavender, and the always sexy grains of paradise, I will admit this was a great beer to begin a long day of college football watching with.

B

I have now had six of the nine Smokestack releases* and here are my current overall rankings:

1.  Saison-Brett (an absolutely epic beer well deserving of all its acclaim)
2.  Double-Wide
3.  The Sixth Glass
4.  Long Strange Tripel
5.  Saison
6.  Two Jokers

*I have still yet to locate bottles of the 5th and 6th Smokestack releases, their Imperial Stout and BBQ (Bourbon Barrel Quad), nor of the newest release, the 9th in the series, the Seeyoulator Doppelbock.  I would kill to try any and all of them, especially the BBQ.  Hit me up at theviceblog [at] gmail.com if you can make a little Jewish boy’s dreams come true.