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.

9% ABV on tap

Aaron is Celebrity Spotted.  (Almost.)

The cute blond walked into the bar and instantly I knew that I knew her.  But how?  From college?  Naw, she was too young.  Had I drunkenly hooked up with her in my past?  No, too good-looking to forget.  Then what?  She sat five barstools down from my friends and then it hit me.

Nearly a year ago a girl had discovered my blog and sent me a nice e-mail.  We wrote back and forth a bit, semi-flirtatiously in that way people who have no chance of having anything ever happen write–she lived several state away–but we mainly focused on beer talk.  And oh boy did she know a lot about beer.  Far more than me.  Eventually, we friended each other on Facebook and I saw that not only was she smart, she was damn cute too.  Cute for a normal girl in society, smoking hot for a beer geek.  Alas, we eventually ran out of things to talk about and, thus, quit talking.  And now she was sitting ten feet from me.

There are obviously bad things about being a celebrity but the good far outweigh them.  Getting to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game.  Instantly turning women 500% more promiscuous.  And having people walk up to you and go, “Say, aren’t you…HIM?!”  As a shameless narcissist, I have always dreamed about having someone come up to me and go, “Say, aren’t you Aaron Goldfarb?!”  Now was my chance for this to finally happen.  But she just wasn’t looking my way yet.

I didn’t tell my two buddies what was occurring, wanting to blow their minds while acting super-smug if and when she finally approached me.  Their eyes agog as I responded, “Why yes, yes I am Aaron Goldfarb, but hey, keep it down, don’t want to get mobbed.  Here, I’ll autograph this cocktail napkin for you.”

But she still wasn’t looking my way.  I began jutting my head out well over the bar so she could see my face in all its glory.  Didn’t work.  I started laughing uproariously loud at my friend’s jokes.  Didn’t phase her.  I began inserting my name into my own conversations.  (”So then the guy looks at my driver’s license and goes, ‘AARON GOLDFARB?  That’s funny, my best friend’s name is AARON GOLDFARB, who would think there’s another AARON GOLDFARB in this city?”)  She remained unflappable.  My friends must have thought I was losing my marbles with my atypical behavior.

I began to pull out the big guns.  I loudly inquired about incredibly obscure beers on the bottle menu, even asking what vintage they were.  I made pedantic explanations of style to my layman drinking friends (”…and that is what differentiates a saison from a biere de garde…”)  Started throwing out all sorts of arcane beer argot (”I expected this one to be more phenolic and less diacetyl…”)  Quizzed the bartenders on the taps (”And what’s the original gravity of that?  Say, is that on nitro or cask?”  I began drinking my beers like a beer geek loser par excellence, histrionically swirling my glass, sniffing it with a aggressiveness more akin to a coke fiend, and slurping my sips with my tongue in order that it tickle each and every one of my taste buds.

Didn’t matter.  I got nuttin’.  She totally ignored me.  I thought about going up to her, tapping her on the shoulder, “Hey, aren’t you a fan of mine?!”  But I figured that was uncouth.  Not to mention it kinda negates the coolness factor if you celebrity spot yourself.

Eventually she left and I was left with just my beer.  Bear Republic’s Racer X.  A draught-only offering I’d been wanting to try for quite awhile.  This is a bit of an oddball of an IPA.  Actually smells like a barleywine, while tasting like a DIPA.  Bitter and slick with an intense sweetness on the back end, I greatly enjoyed this beer.  And, following it up with Bear Republic’s 7% Rebellion IPA–I found it very bitter and not complex at all, a little too light and watered-down as well (B)–I got a good comparison for how very good it is.  The Racer X absolutely dwarfed Rebellion.  Still, I’m not sure if it’s a Top 100 beer in the world–and I’m pretty sure I prefer the smells-like-a-dimebag hoppy freshness of yet another Bear Republic IPA, Hop Rod Rye–but this is a very good brew nonetheless.

A-

9% ABV on tap via Randall

I was pulling out all the drunken tools in my seduction arsenal.  I asked kindly.  I begged.  I pleaded.  I whined.  I cried.  Offered money.  Solicited.  Played the “Don’t you know who I am?!” card.  I enlisted my lady friend to help out.  She fluttered her peepers.  Showed some cleavage.  Insinuated sexual favors.  Eh, it was no use.  The Blind Tiger’s bartender would not be swayed.  Could not be cajoled.  He simply refused to let me go into the basement keg room.  (Something about breaking New York City health codes.  Yeah, like I’ve never done THAT before.)

And why did I want to go into the keg room?  For no reason other than to be face-to-face with Randall the Enamel Animal.

And who is this Randall fella you ask me?  Why none other than “an organoleptic hop transducer module.”  Say what?!   “A three-foot-long, cylinder-filter packed with a half a pound of whole leafhops [affixed] to the beer line leaving a keg.”  In this case, the beer was Dogfish Head’s legendary 90 minute and the whole leafhops were of the amarillo variety*.

I didn’t get to see this process take place in the keg room, nor did I get to snap a picture–the one above is from DFH’s website–but I did get to try the motherfucker.  And whoa Nelly!  What a beer!  I’m an inveterate 90 Minute fan but the Randallizing of the beer makes it even more spectacular.

Whereas 90 Minute has a strong, almost barleywine-like malt backbone propping up its pungent citrusness, the oily soaking of the amarillo in the Randall module smooths out the whole beer making it far more balanced, surprisingly bitter for the ABV, and remarkably drinkable.  It was truly a treat to have, and truly a one-of-a-kind drinking experience.  The kind of experience that you can only luck into in a place like Manhattan.  I had meager Sunday night drinking plans, and never in a million years did I expect to run into a beer I had so long desired.

Sam Calagione is without question the mad scientist of the craft beer world and his invention of the Randall is yet another avant garde touch that I simply adore.  Now some of you may think this is nothing more than a gimmick, but I can most certainly assure you that it is not.  The Randallizing of 90 Minute turns an already great beer into something sui generis and spectacular.

I hope you all are lucky enough to try it one day.  Hell, I hope I’m lucky enough to get to try it again.

A

*Some other noteworthy Randalls in the past have been filled with stuff such as lemongrass, mint & bourbon balls, melon & assorted fruits, pine & spruce, roasted pine nuts & dried oregano, and warrior & Columbus hops.  Wow.