Dirty bar rag

Since we kicked off the blog almost 2 months ago, we've genuinely enjoyed all the beers we've tested and photographed.  Until tonight.

Baby is asleep and it's 7:30, adult beer time. YAY.  So husband heads to the fridge and selects a beer.  He selects the Admiral Hops - Single Hop Series (7% ABV) from the Hermitage Brewing Company in San Jose, California.  He gets the camera, the frosty glasses and then opens the beer.  It immediately foams everywhere. And continues to foam.  And foam some more.  He sets it down to photograph and the empty bottle is STILL foaming.

 
I suddenly smell dirty bar rag.  I worry that maybe my kitchen washcloth should have been washed a day ago.

After pouring, we both comment almost simultaneously that the head of the beer looks like brains.

We cheers and then try to drink it...unsuccessfully.  We each try again.  Yuck.  The beer smells like a dirty bar rag and looks like 4 day old murky iced tea.  Husband looks up beer on beeradvocate.com --- a B-?   Are you serious???  No way. 

Conclusion: terrible.  Will not be able (or attempting) to finish this. There must be something wrong with this bottle. Now I need to go wash my hands to try to get this dirty bar rag smell off...

Happy Turkey Day

Thanksgiving for us this year involved: a full day of driving from here to there and there to here, breakfast casserole, monkey bread, Bloody Mary's, turkey, stuffing, all the traditional fixins and 19 types of dessert.  Oh yeah, and a baby who was happy in the morning but cranky in the late afternoon.

After finally arriving home and getting cranky baby to sleep in her bed, we thought we would like to enjoy the Smashed Pumpkin Ale (9% ABV) from Shipyard Brewing Company in Portland, Maine.

Turns out maybe we had too much fun and too much pie because we both nearly fell asleep on the couch before finishing our taste. Before falling asleep, we both remarked that the pumpkin taste was not very obvious but maybe we both just had too much pumpkin pie to notice.

All in all, it was ok.  Nothing remarkable.

Why men shouldn't grocery shop

So it's the night before Thanksgiving and after we met a good friend for a drink, I come home and start to make pies (on the menu are pumpkin, apple and banana creme).  I begin with the pumpkin pie because they are easiest and take the longest in the oven.  As I start in on the crust, I realize my ingredients are not going to cut it.  So I realize we need to hit the grocery store.  Scott volunteers to go - despite there being an Arizona basketball game on tv - so I give him a very short list and whisk the baby off to Bathville.

Just before we arrive in Bathville, the phone rings.  It is husband.  This is what I hear: "What did you say you needed?"  "The pie crust is where?"  "Near the cream cheese??"  "Oh ok, I see it.  See you soon."  "Love you."

We proceed into Bathville and splash the night away.  After bath, the baby is jammied up and ready for her liquid dinner.  I heat the water to heat the bottle and we sit down on the couch to read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  As we are reading, husband comes home with grocery bag and case of beer.

This was not on the list.

While reading the rest of Brown Bear I hear him say "...but it was on sale for mega cheap."

I make my way into the kitchen and discover that it is a New Belgium Folly Pack ... AND .... it has a new beer in it!?!?  Sweet. And the beer has a disco ball on it???  How many did you get?

I ask husband why he only got one Folly Pack if they were on such a "mega sale."  Husband begins to chuckle and look slightly guilty.  He says he saw them in the cooler and picked up the second to last pack and began walking up to register with the other items I asked for (pie crusts, celery and cinnamon) in his hands.  As he is walking, apparently he is calculating just how good a "mega sale" it is on the beer.  Just about the time he decides to get another Folly Pack and turns back for the beer cooler, the box breaks.  DOH.  Stockboy is walking by simultaneously.  He says no big deal as the bottles crash and my husband is picking up glass off the floor.  Now there is only one left in the store, so he goes back and gets that one.  This is why he only got one and why there are only 3 Belgo's in our house.

According to New Belgium's website, Ameri-Belgo and IPA both being styles, the branding begged for New Belgium whimsy to liven things up. Hmmm Belgo sounds like a Belgian disco. Hops like to party. Next thing you know, we bust out a disco-ball and brewers started groovin. Hops started hoppin. Add in an authentic Trappist yeast strain and the place brewed into a frenzy of citrus hoppy folly.

Tricerahops fire extinguisher

I finally decided to make dinner.  WOAH.  I was planning to cook some shrimp with lime and some spice.  Meanwhile I planned to re-use some jalapeno and corn salsa from a previous dish.  Top it all off with a monterrey jack dilla and this is my kind of cooking.  I realize most people may not consider this fancy, but most nights we just eat cereal or yogurt...so this is cooking in our house.

Anyway, I paired our spicy seafood dinner with the Ticerahops Double IPA (8.8% ABV) from Ninkasi Brewing Company in Eugene, Oregon.  I'm not a fan of IPAs, but this was quite delicious and effectively put out the flames in my mouth from the jalapeno slaw.

The maple kind...

Yes, complete with Canadian maple leaf in the bottle art work...  Arguably this Pepto colored bottle from Rogue contains some unique brew that should certainly be explored but perhaps not repeated. Smokier than porkier, the bacon side of this beer seems to have escaped the butcher's knife. Maybe Babe's grease caused a grill flare up no one noticed and he suffered the same fate as our bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers. That's right, we paired pork poppers with these pigged pints of potion and they were left unattended and became mostly ruined, but I digress... Definitely a novelty and I think it was done as well as one could do. If you have the chance try one just to say you did.

Oceans of beer my friend...

 At $2.99 a bomber I suppose you could fill a bucket at least.  New World Wheat Beer (4.7% ABV) from Tied House out of San Jose, California. A decent wheat with a lot of esters and cloves. A little more bold than anticipated but otherwise mostly unremarkable.