We’ve all been entering NCAA tournament pools for years if not decades.  $10, $20, win, usually lose, big deal.  They’re fun, sure, but last year I had a better idea.

An NCAA tournament pool where your entry “fee” is beer.

So here’s the deal, to get into this tournament pool you just need to offer up a nice local beer from wherever you live.  Doesn’t have to be rare, doesn’t have to be expensive, doesn’t even have to be good (although, what kinda dickhead would offer up a shitty beer?)  You live in Wisconsin, offer up a bottle or two of New Glarus.  California, how about some Russian River?  I will probably offer a fancypants New York beer (Black Ops, hmmm?)  Now I’m not saying you have to be as generous of course.  I don’t want this be a burden or expensive.  A bottle or two of beer, plus shipping, will cost you max $10-15, around the same as any NCAA office pool.  The picture above is just a portion of winner John Martin’s haul during this year’s NFL Boxes of Beer contest.

Here’s our private group, “Boxes of Beer”

Password is of course:  beer

No one’s forcing you to enter, so please, if you do enter, don’t be a jerk and not live up to your end of the bargain if and when you most likely lose.  I’ll be really pissed if that happens.  And I’ll be insanely jealous at the thought of the winner receiving box after box after box of beers all throughout April.

If you enter, you must send an email to associate commissioner Mike Zambotti at mjz119 @comcast.net.

Cheers!

(And let’s go Syracuse!!!!)

Aaron Goldfarb

*You must be 21 or older to enter.

**And, buy a copy of HOW TO FAIL if you haven’t yet.  Come on, it’s all I ask.

2010 was a shitty year for movies.  I typically see several hundred movies per year, just about anything and everything of note, but this year I was so busy putting the finishing touches on my novel and then completely consumed for most of November and December with touring the east coast to sign copies of said novel that I had little time for cinema.  Returning to normalcy the last couple of weeks with plans to do a cram session on what I’d missed, I realized…I hadn’t missed much at all.  There really weren’t many good films this year, only about a dozen quite frankly, and, thus, my list–just like most other critics’ lists–is simply a rearrangement of those dozen or so quality flicks.  So it goes…

TOP TEN FILMS OF THE YEAR

1.  THE KING’S SPEECH

Perhaps the only masterpiece of the year and, oh!, is it inspiring.  Colin Firth has never been so interesting, or captivating, as King George VI (”Bertie”), the first truly modern king, who had to overcome a lifetime stutter in order to rule the radiowaves during wartime.  Surprisingly funny, Geoffrey Rush gives typically great supporting work as Bertie’s unaccredited speech therapist and first ever friend.  I was elated leaving the theater and still can’t shake it from my mind.  It’s absolutely shameful the pathetic MPAA gave it an R rating (simply due to a few stray “fucks”) because this is the kind of movie that any child with a stammer–heck, any shy, lacking-in-confidence person–could totally find strength in.  I know I did.

2.  TOY STORY 3

The annual Pixar film is pretty much a lock for my top 10 each year and this one is no exception.  Darker and sadder than most other “cartoons,” this is a nice treatise on growing up and losing a little of your childhood.  Hopefully Woody won’t serve as Andy’s “ROSEBUD” in some “Toy Story 4″ in a few years, though that’s a pretty good idea I suppose.

3.  127 HOURS

I really didn’t see any way that this story I already knew like the back of my hand could be made into a captivating two hour flick, but damn if director Danny Boyle and James Franco don’t pull it off.  Boyle uses great innovation to get “away” from the scene of the boulder-on-his-arm and delivers an exhilarating movie about perseverance and liiiiiving, man.

4.  THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Another “story we all know,” but with a typically snappy script by Aaron Sorkin, delivered perfectly by Jesse Eisenberg, and filmed in pure “Zodiac” style by David Fincher–making a strong push for America’s best director (I now rank him third behind PT Anderson and Tarantino).  I suppose this will ultimately be the movie that “defines” the year, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

5.  WINTER’S BONE

I avoided this movie for so long cause it sounded like the classic indie borefest.  A young daughter tries to locate her possibly-dead meth cooking father in Hicksville, USA?  Sure, but when that young daughter is played startling well by Jennifer Lawrence and the movie features a spot-on script and sumptuous direction…well, damn if this wasn’t a great one that joins the pantheon of other recent “backwoods” classics like “Shotgun Stories” and “All the Real Girls.”

6.  BLACK SWAN

Along with the aforementioned Boyle and Fincher, Darren Aronofsky is another genius director in the upper patheon and this is the film where he finally puts his incredible talents all together.  Natalie Portman is remarkable, there’s great supporting work from Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis (!) and, though I’m still not quite sure what occurs in this movie, it’s something a legend like Stanley Kubrick would be damn proud of it in all its dark eeriness.

7.  THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

Surely the best movie ever made about two highly educated, wealthy and urbane lesbians raising children in California.  Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are a perfect match as said lesbians and this is a film that is smart, funny, and all heart.

8.  A PROPHET

The “French ‘Scarface’” is a mesmerizing picture about a seemingly harmless young Muslim’s indoctrination into a Corsican prison mafia leading to his eventual creation of his own crime syndicate.  It also features perhaps the most gruesome murder in movie history.  Stream it on Netflix after you’ve put the kids to bed.

9.  THE GHOST WRITER

I’m not sure if this film is really about anything, but it’s a perfectly taut and tense MacGuffin thriller directed by Roman Polanski.  I was never bored for a second, an all-too-large accomplishment in 2010.

10.  THE FIGHTER

A friend described this film thusly: “The first half is the best Massachusetts movie ever.  The second half was one of the best boxing movies I have ever seen.”  He’s not that far off.  Christian Bale stakes a claim on “Best Actor in the World” too.

Notables: TRUE GRIT, INCEPTION

TOP PERFORMANCES

1.  Colin Firth  (”The King’s Speech”)

2.  Christian Bale  (”The Fighter”)

3.  Natalie Portman  (”Black Swan”)

4.  Jennifer Lawrence (”Winter’s Bone”)

5.  Jesse Eisenberg  (”The Social Network”)

6.  James Franco  (”127 Hours”)

7.  Geoffrey Rush  (”The King’s Speech”)

8.  Melissa Leo  (”The Fighter”)

9.  Hailee Steinfeld (”True Grit”)

10.  Jeff Bridges  (”True Grit”)

And there you have it.  2010 was such a weak and boring year, there weren’t even a wealth of shitty films to give me a schadenfreudal kick as I made a “worst of the year” list.  Nope, it was just a year with a lot of mediocre stuff in the middle.

*The few notable as yet unseen by me:  “I Am Love,” “Somewhere,” “Blue Valentine,” “Tangled,” “Cyrus.”

**Also see:

The Top Movies of the 2000s
The Year in Movies 2009
The Year in Movies 2008

Discover a great degree at therapist programs

I drank a lot of great beers over the past 365 days–no surprise considering I spent 30 consecutive days going from beer bar to beer bar–but these are the ones I remember most fondly.

(Note:  If I included it on my “best-of” list for 2008 or 2009 then no matter how good that same beer is/was, I made it ineligible for this year’s list.  Also of note, Thank Heaven For Beer’s super-high ABV imperial stout homebrew was easily one of the three best beers I had this year, though I chose not to include it for the simple reason that none of you out there have any chance to ever purchase it.  For the moment at least.)

TOP TEN BEERS I DRANK IN 2010

1.  The Bruery Black Tuesday (2009 vintage)

I quaffed this during an epic high-ABV, highly-rare imperial stout tasting (some pictured above) to celebrate a friend’s marriage and this one easily took the wedding cake.  Due to the immense hype surrounding it, you might think Black Tuesday couldn’t possibly deliver, but it does big time.  Just a boozy, complex, and delicious big boy stout.  Everything I could possibly want in a beer.  Though you truly do need about five guys on hand to finish a 750 mL bottle.

2.  Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout

I had this several times during the year, including during the aforementioned epic stout tasting, and this was the only one that was able to go a few slug-’em-out rounds with Black Tuesday.  Regular Bourbon County seems to have been specifically created for me.  Deliciously hot and boozy, packed with chocolate and vanilla and about as un-subtle as a beer can get, the Intelligentsia Black Cat espresso added to Bourbon County Coffee makes it a little smoother, a little more palatable, a little more “user-friendly.”  It may be the best coffee beer ever made.

3.  Cantillon Blåbær Lambik

This had long been my “most desired” bottled beer in the world, one which I never thought I’d get to try, so I guess it’s good to have generous friends, ain’t it?  The Drunken Polack, that saint, a splendid acquirer of rare stuff, was kind enough to split his rare bottle with me one Saturday afternoon and we both just absolutely luxuriated with this blueberry lambic, surely one of the best sour ales in the world.

4.  Brooklyn Wild One

I’d long heard of this somewhat urban legend of a beer, but never thought I’d get to try it.  Never released commercially as far as I know, a small, small batch of Brooklyn’s Local One was bourbon-barreled with Brett added.  Local One is a terrific beer, one fit for countless occasions, but adding Brett makes it truly majestic!  I would stand in line in the freezing cold for this beer if it was released at a yearly one-off event, that’s how much I adored it.  And, I am going to assume it is only lack of knowledge of its mere existence that prevents this beer from being one of the most coveted rarities on beer trading forums throughout America because, simply put, it might be the best American wild ale I’ve ever had.

5.  Alpine Exponential Hoppiness

The brilliantly named (it uses multiple kettle hop additions with the technique of doubling the hop amount each addition, thus exponentially) is sticky sweet with a bitter finish and the slightest hint of the oak chips it’s aged on while dangerously drinkable too at 10.5%.  ALL of Alpine’s IPAs are massive, massive winners, but Exponential Hoppiness, perhaps until I finally get to try Pliny the Younger, is the best DIPA I’ve ever had.

6.  Cigar City Brandy Barrel Winter Warmer

Cigar City entered the fray for “best brewery in America” honors this year and, luckily, I got to try dozens and dozens of their rarities at a few events around the city.  This was a beer I honestly ordered just to fill out a flight foursome, but it absolutely floored me, more so than anything else from the Tampa beermakers.  This is their normal Warmer Winter Winter Warmer–an old ale–aged on Laird’s apple brandy.  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.

7.  Nebraska Hop God Reserve Series Aged In French Oak Chardonnay Barrels

Nebraska Brewing Company burst onto the scene this year with some great efforts, but this was easily their best.  The taste is more God-like than hop-like, but that hardly matters.  This was one bottle of sour tart deliciousness.  Strong wood flavors come through with the oak and the Belgian yeastiness is accented nicely by some subtle wine flavors.  Just a hint of citric sour fruit flavors as well.  Tastes not Belgian IPAish at all, more like a wild ale, though I’m not sure there’s any Brett in the barrel to make this officially “wild,” but whatever the case, this was an incredibly memorable brew.

8.  Surly Abrasive Ale

Surly does not fuck around and it’s quite likely they’ll have a beer appear in my year end top tens for the rest of time.  Within a few hours I was fortunate enough to get to try batch 1 on tap, batch 1 canned, and an ever so slightly tweaked batch 2 on tap.  Now while batch 1 and the first canned version I tried were both magnificent, both A level beers, batch 2, the batch that I suppose will be the recipe from now til iniquity, blew my mind and is clearly one of the best IPAs I have ever had.

9.  Three Floyds Barrel Aged Pop Skull

The “normal” Pop Skull, a collaboration brew between Three Floyds and Dogfish Head, was a kinda lame brown ale, but the bourbon barrel-aging turned this ordinary beer into something extraordinary, the rich vanilla tastes of bourbon latching on beautifully to the brown ale base.  A huge surprise of 2010, proving that it’s not only imperial stouts that can benefit from bourbon barrel aging.

10.  Maine Beer Co. Zoe

I got a tip there was a nano-brewery in Portland, Maine cranking out some amazing shit and sure enough that was the case, as I stumbled upon one of my most memorable beers of the year.  Packaged in thin and sultry needle-nosed bottles I’d heretofore only seen Pliny the Elder employ, Zoe is a bitter explosion in the mouth, perfectly carbonated and tingly, tastes of tropical fruits yet still balanced perfectly with a strong malt backbone.  Simply put, it’s the best amber ale out there now, even better than the quintessential one Nugget Nectar.  If I lived in Maine, I’d be drinking Zoe weekly.  (Which actually might be harder to do than you think, even if you do live in Maine, considering a mere 144 bottles are produced weekly!)

Honorable mention:

COOP Territorial Reserve Oak-Aged Imperial Stout

I had the pleasure of getting a private tour of this two-year-old Oklahoma City brewery and I was quickly wowed by all their beers, but especially this beauty.  Aged on Bulleit bourbon barrels, this might seriously be the smoothest, most perfectly melded bourbon-barreled stout I’ve ever had.

Dogfish Head World Wide Stout via a Meyers rum-soaked cherries Randall

I’ve enjoyed numerous beers through Dogfish Head’s Randall before, but always IPAs, and always a hops-filled Randall.  This was my first non-IPA, non-hops Randall and MY GOD was it amazing.  It even made a somewhat lackluster “How to Fail” book signing event at P.O.P.E. in Philadelphia memorable.

Stone IPA Double Dry Hopped

Had this at the epic Stone Total Tap Tower Takeover event at Rattle ‘n’ Hum.  Like a liquidized sack of fresh weed.  Yum.  Maybe the dankiest beer I’ve ever quaffed.

Stone Vertical Epic 07.07.07 red wine barrel aged

Also had this at the epic Stone Total Tap Tower Takeover event at Rattle ‘n’ Hum.  I wouldn’t have thought that red wine barrel aging would bring a Belgian IPA to such greatness, but indeed it did.  One of those most unique beers I’ve ever had.

Wachusett Larry IPA

I’m sure I had a few better IPAs this year, but I couldn’t quite shake from my mind the first time I had this on tap, over the summer in Boston at the Publick House.  I’ve had it bottled a few times since and while it’s always good, it’s never quite been as great as that first fresh time I had it on tap.  A brilliant East Coast IPA.

Others (alphabetical):

Alpine Duet
Ballast Point Victory at Sea
Birrificio Le Baladin Xyauyu
Brewdog Sink the Bismarck!
Brewdog Tokyo*
The Brewer’s Art Cerebus Tripel
Brooklyn Detonation Ale
Cigar City Guava Grove Saison
Cigar City Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout - Laird’s Apple Brandy Barrel
COOP Red Zeppelin
De Dolle Stille Nacht (2004 vintage)
Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Vanilla Stout
Karl Strauss Big Barrel Double IPA
The Lost Abbey Isabelle Proximus
Nebraska Melange A Trois Reserve Series Aged in French Oak Chardonnay Barrels
Three Floyds Oak Aged Dark Lord Imperial Stout

Somewhat sadly, in a schadenfreude kinda way, I had such a great drinking year that I have nothing to submit for my always-amusing worst beers of the year list.  Bummer.  Hopefully next year.

Actually, hopefully not.  May we both continue our great beer drinking into 2011.

Happy New Year!

Back when I lived in Oklahoma, back in the 90s, there really wasn’t any decent craft beer.  (Of course, I was a teenager.)  I kinda felt like it would always be that way.  This is a state where you can’t buy cold beer over 3.2% anywhere.  Then, I started hearing some rumblings that a brewery called COOP AleWorks was really cranking out some legit shit.  So, when I made my triumphant return to town over the weekend for a “How to Fail” book tour signing, I knew I would have to seek it out.  On both Thursday night and Saturday, I met up with COOP partner/bon vivant J.D. Merryweather (above) for some serious tippling, pretty much drinking anything in the brewery he would let me.  I was like a kid in a candy shop.  Or, to be less trite, like a drunk in a brewery.  And, wow, was it all good.

Horny-Toad Cerveza

One of two canned COOP offerings (along with Native Amber; the rest are currently tap only), this 5.3% ABV American Blonde Ale would seem to be the “lamest” offering from COOP, the one meant to convert the Bud Light drinkers…and it is.  But that doesn’t mean it’s lame.  No sir, this is a 5.3% beer with some serious flavor.  The Noble hops, the malt body, the carbonation, made me think this was more along the lines of a pilsner, but whatever it is, it’s damn good.

A-/B+

Zeppelin German Wheat

Yeah, no craft beer drinker likes American wheat beers, right?  If more places were making great efforts like Zeppelin, that might not be the case.  5.6% and packed with tastes of wheat and rye with just a little hops coming through, this is a solid drinker, better than most on the market.

B+

Native Amber

Red ales are always a crap shoot for me as they are a delicate balance between hops and malt that if you fuck up, they are just gross.  But COOP nails this one.  Caramelly and biscuity with a nice hoppy finish, this is the beer Fat Tire wishes it could be.

A-

Gran-Sport Porter

Porters are another beer that breweries never seem to completely nail.  Often too bitter and acrid, COOP has made one of the best I’ve had recently.  Chocolately and nutty, this had such a smooth, fluffy finish I was certain it had to have been served on a nitro tap.  Nope.  I really enjoyed this one.

A-

F-5 IPA

I highly doubt there’s an IPA this good made within 500 miles of COOP.  The classic West Coast bitter grapefruit and pine IPA, a little hefty at 7%, this is the beer that will turn a ton of Oklahomans into hop heads.

A

DNR Belgian Style Golden Ale

What an insanely intriguing beer.  An over-the-top complex mix of Noble hops, European malts, and Belgian candi giving this tastes of vanilla, cinnamon, and dark fruits.  And, at 10% this is one of the most deceptively alcoholic beers I’ve ever had.  You’ll want to keep sucking them down.  But don’t.  Or do.  I don’t really care about your health.

A

Territorial Reserve Oak-Aged Imperial Stout

By now every brewery is trying bourbon-barreled stouts and they should excite me as much as another boxing movie being released.  But just like “The Fighter” stunned me and found new ways to tell the pugilist’s tale, COOP has made a real corker of a barrel-aged stout.  Aged on Bulleit bourbon barrels, this might seriously be the smoothest, most perfectly melded bourbon-barreled stout I’ve ever had.  It’s not lacking in boozy taste, no way, but it’s not something that brings you to your knees either.  Rich, chocolately, and a “mere” 9.0%, it’s quite dangerous when you’ve become friends with a guy with the ability to over-serve you this.  I probably had five full pints and never got sick of it.  Wow.

A+

Red Zeppelin

This final beer is one that isn’t even available yet, one whose recipe isn’t fully created yet, and one that I’m not even sure I’m allowed to publicly discuss (I’ll wait for a cease and desist from J.D.), but it was my favorite beer I had from COOP so I want to scream to the hills about it.  Red Zeppelin is Zeppelin German Wheat aged in barrels on wild bing cherries.  This is a recipe they’re still working on and, admittedly, by now the souring had given the beer a slightly vinegary nose which some more amateur beer drinkers found unappealing, but I fucking loved it.  Just the perfect tart, sour, yet still slightly fruity taste I love.  It actually reminded me of Cantillon Kriek if I can be so bold.  I will be.  I hope they release and bottle this one day–it’ll sweep the beer nation.

A+

COOP is only available in Oklahoma so for now you’ll have to hope your company sends you there for work if you want to get some (or maybe write a book and go on tour there???) and I’ll have to hope J.D. is kind enough to build a pipeline to my house so I can always have some around to enjoy.  COOP is gonna be a big player in the beer world soon.

Pick up a last minute copy of my book, HOW TO FAIL!!!

Hey Vice Blog fans, sorry I’ve been busy neglecting this blog, but I’m still on my “How to Fail” 30 Bars in 30 Days tour and, though I’m consuming vices on a daily basis, at the kinds of places we’ve been holding my events, the vices are of the lowbrow variety:  40s of Miller High Life, buckets of Keystone Light, cheap kegs of macro swill.  Nothing worth writing home, or to the blog about.

Having said that, with just twelve events to go, I’m finally going to start appearing at some really exciting craft beer joints, most notably:

Dec 4 - Churchkey - Washington, DC

Dec 5 - Rustico - Arlington, VA

Dec 6 - Brewer’s Art - Baltimore

Dec 7 - Feile - Manhattan (sponsored by Sixpoint Craft Ales)

Dec 8 - Track 84 - Providence

Dec 9 - Bukowski Tavern - Cambridge, MA

Dec 10 - Zeppelin Hall Biergarten - Jersey City (tour wrap up)

Now Churchkey might be the best beer bar in America, Rustico is its terrific little brother, I’ve never been to the Brewer’s Art brewpub and I’m exceedingly excited to go to this magnificent spot, Bukowski’s is a Boston standard, Track 84 a Providence one, and Feile and Zeppelin Hall should be some serious hometown bacchanalias.  Very stoked for all these events, and very excited to finally start tasting hops and yeasts and beautiful barleys after the last two weeks of sucking back cheap rice, corn, and piss water.

Hope you’ll join me at these events if you’re able, and please keep telling your pals about “How to Fail.”

Cheers.  You’ll be hearing from me again soon in these parts.

Follow my “How to Fail” tour blogging and drinking here.

Facebook “like” me here.

Buy my book here.

Here here!

HOW TO FAIL: THE SELF-HURT GUIDE, the world’s FIRST self-hurt guide, is HERE!

My first novel is now on shelves at finer bookstores, many less than fine bookstores, newsstands, airport shops amongst the Airborne, train stations next to the prophylactics, bus depots side-by-side issues of Big Booty, Jersey Turnpike rest stops, and pornography huts (soft-core only). And, if you’re not seeing it in those places, go up to the dork manning the cash register and demand it! Or, just be a normal person and buy the book online:

My book tour, 30 BARS in 30 DAYS begins Tuesday in Manhattan (Amity Hall, 80 W. 3rd Street) before cutting a swath through the upper northeast.

Please come out and encourage your friends and the losers you work with to do likewise.

But that’s not all…I’m pleased to also announce something that has never been done before, the simultaneous release of my short story collection THE CHEAT SHEET, stories about the sexes, sex, and sexiness in New York.

This book sells for $9.99 paperback and $6.99 on Kindle, Nook, and the Ibookstore, but NOW…

To the first 3000 people that buy HOW TO FAIL and e-mail me aaron@aarongoldfarb.com proof of purchase (a forwarded online receipt, a picture of the physical receipt, etc)…

I will send A FREE EBOOK OF THE CHEAT SHEET!

That’s…quickly doing the math in my head…$25 worth of books for a mere $15.

How can you beat that?!

PLEASE blog this, forward this message to any one in your contacts, amongst your FB friends, Twitter followers, or LinkedIn a-holes that might be interested.

Thanks,

Aaron

Hey friends, sorry I’ve been so busy lately with this book.  I’m still drinking beer and I’ll be back to writing about beer (and other sordid things) soon, especially now as I announce my book tour, “30 Bars in 30 Days”!

I’m very excited for the tour and I hope any one of you in the tour’s path will come out and say hi, buy a book or two, and let me scribble my name in it.  I’d love to have a drink with any of you!

Pass this on to your other beer-swilling friends, post on your FB walls and Twitter, put the info on your beer blogs, and, please, order a book if you haven’t yet.

See you soon!

RSVP for the events here.

Friends, family, drinkers, stalkers, people that accidentally discovered this due to some bad Googling…

I am pleased to announce the upcoming release of my first novel!

It’s coming out on November 9th, online and at many fine (and many not-so-fine) retailers.

How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide

Here’s the scoop:

How to Fail is the world’s FIRST Self-Hurt Guide, the polar opposite of a self-help guide. In How to Fail, follow the misadventures, misgivings, and massive mistakes of this satiric novel’s narrator, Stu Fish, as he tries to find success in 2010 New York. With hilarious chapters such as “How to Fail to Make Your Parents Proud of You,” “How to Fail to Do Something Productive All Day,” “How to Fail in Love,” and “How to Fail All the Way to Rock Bottom,” and even more ribald “footchapters” such as “How to Masturbate at Work,” “How to Develop an Addiction,” “How to Get Usurped by Your Girlfriend’s Ex,” and “How to Acquire the STD That’s Right for You,” there’s not an aspect of life that How to Fail doesn’t tackle and offer a terrific non-solution for.

If you like my writing here, you’ll like my book even more.  You can even read the whole first chapter on the newly launched aarongoldfarb.com!

Did you enjoy that?  Well then, I’d love if you’d help me out by preordering a copy right now (come on, do it–RIGHT NOW!), either on Amazon or aarongoldfarb.com:

How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide

If I get a good amount of preorders it will allow me to do quite a few fun things, most specifically book various events around the country (hopefully in YOUR hometown!).  As it is, I will be already hitting up the east coast in the first month after release, and will very soon announce those events on aarongoldfarb.com, my Twitter page, and my new Facebook page (which I’d love if you’d LIKE):

Thanks for indulging me, now let’s get back to discussing beer!

7.2% 500 mL bottled

I’ve been so busy with other projects I’ve had little time lately to review beer.  Which means, if and when I do write a review, one of two things has occurred:  I got free beer from a brewery and felt obligated to glowingly write about it in order to keep the gratis schwag flowing OR I just had my mind blown. In the case of Maine Beer Company’s Zoe, the latter is true, but perhaps my effusive praise will soon lead to the former being true as well!

I’m surely one of the best “forced” travelers around as there’s no location I’m fully upset to have to visit–all due to this pesky beer obsession.  So when I was “forced” to head up to the great city of Portland, Maine this weekend for a wedding, even though I wasn’t in much of a traveling mood during these dog days of summer, I was still buoyed by the chance that I might get to try some beers from the upstart nanobrewery newish to town.

My man Sam had tipped me off that the best beer bar in Portland is now Novare Res and he was so very right.  Accessed by a bit of an alley off a main Old Port street, the bar was a site to behold.  An enormous “Best of Portland” award-winning outdoor patio deck, but nuts to that as I like to drink in the cool dark and the inside of Novare has that in spades*.  A slightly below ground cellarish feel, warm and cozy with a large segmented two cornered bar buttressed by some classy brick columns.  Unfortunately, the mediocre to so-so Rogue Brewery (from nearby the “other” Portland) had monopolized all 25 taps for an event.  That was shockingly fine since Novare has a most prodigious list of bottles stocked in a cellar room just peekaboo visible behind the bar.  It was an amazing list full of semi-rarities like Cantillon Cuvee des Champions and Drie Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek but my goal was to drink local.  Unfortunately, Zoe didn’t appear anywhere on the reference book sized menu.  As I scanned it, slightly disappointed, looking for something else, I heard a woman whisper to the bartender, “Another Zoe,” as if divulging a secret password.

When the bartender returned to me I curiously inquired, “You got Zoe?”  Indeed they did have the sexy thing in the thin and sultry needle-nosed bottles I’d heretofore only seen Pliny the Elder employ.  The pour was darker than expected, more deep purple than amber but the smell was all fresh and bitter grapefruity hops.  The taste was even better.  A bitter explosion in the mouth, perfectly carbonated and tingly, tastes of tropical fruits yet still balanced perfectly with a strong malt backbone.  Simply put, it’s the best amber out there now, even better than the quintessential one Nugget Nectar.  If I lived in Maine, I’d be drinking Zoe weekly.  (Which actually might be harder to do than you think, even if you do live in Maine!)

A

Afterward, I was lucky enough to meet the progenitor of “Zoe” and the progenitors of Zoe–Maine Beer Company co-brewmaster David Kleban and his wife whose daughter the beer is named after–who coincidentally happened to be drinking at the bar.  While David’s wife cutely and ironically informed me that she typically imbibes “girlie” cocktail drinks, David told me that Portland gets a mere 144 bottles a week of Zoe–all he and his co-brewmaster brother Dan are able to make–and it goes fast.  Heckuva nice couple and helluva great beer.  I implore you to do whatever you can to find this stuff.

I also tried David’s Peeper Ale.  A no-frills quotidian pale ale that was nonetheless quite delicious.  Citrusy and yeasty, a perfectly delightful session beer.  Unfortunately, I drank it after Zoe which I was still drooling over.

B+

According to Beer Advocate, the Maine Beer boys have one other beer I’d sure kill to get my hands on, a draft only stout called Mean Old Time, which sounds like a perfect way to complete this exciting new brewery’s tasting trifecta.

*Novare Res instantly makes my top 10 beer bars (east coast) list and might be #1 overall in my ambience rankings.

The 1st Annual NCAA Tournament “Boxes of Beer” pool was a terrific contest and our World Cup BoB edition was an even more rousing success.  Now it’s time for our third installment and I expect this to be the biggest yet.

Here’s the deal if you missed out on the first two:

To enter into this suicide pool your “fee” is simply beer.  You just need to offer up a nice local beer from wherever you live.  Doesn’t have to be rare, doesn’t have to be expensive, doesn’t even have to be good (although, what kinda dickhead would offer up a shitty beer?)  You live in Wisconsin, offer up a bottle or two of New Glarus.  California, how about some AleSmith?  Kansas and a Boulevard Smokestack would be divine.

This year’s NCAA pool saw winners receive such beers as Surly Darkness, The Lost Abbey Angel’s Share Grand Cru, Bell’s Hopslam, and other swell local niceties from terrific brewers such as Captain Lawrence, Russian River, and others I’m surely forgetting.  The World Cup winner has already received boffo prizes from breweries such as Cigar City, Southampton, and Brooklyn.

Now I’m not saying you have to be as generous of course (though EVERYONE was quite generous for the previous two pools).  I don’t want this be a burden or expensive, and I’m sure most if not all previous entrants will agree that it isn’t.  A bottle or two of beer, plus shipping, will cost you max $10-15, around the same as any NCAA or other sports office pool.

If you don’t know how an NFL Suicide Pool works, here youse go:

• Each entrant chooses one NFL team each week.
• You may only pick a team ONCE per season.  Once you’ve used that team, you can never use them again.
• Picks are made “straight up”, not using a point spread system.
• You get two misses before you are eliminated from contention.
• The goal is to be the the last member standing at the end of the season.

If you’re entering this contest, please e-mail Mike to introduce yourself and say you want to be in the pool so he can start creating a spreadsheet.  No one’s forcing you to enter, so please, if you do enter, don’t be a jerk and not live up to your end of the bargain if and when you most likely lose.  I believe only one or two people didn’t pay up (yet) for the NCAA and World Cup pools.  I’ll be really pissed if that happens again.  (Goes without saying that you can’t enter this pool if you were one of the people that didn’t pay up for the other pools yet.)  And I’ll be insanely jealous at the thought of the winner receiving box after box after box of beers all throughout the end of winter and start of spring.

Cheers.

*Of course, you must be 21 or older.  My lawyers are making me say that.

**You also must have a US address to recieve your boxes should you win.  I’m not making any one ship internationally.