Instead, helped with a gift for Sharon's Christmas drawing: her father-in-law. A generally fun-loving guy who really enjoys trying new beers I've encountered, though he's rarely investigated the field himself. I'd long heard about this amazing liquor store in the unlikely suburb of Burnsville, in an equally unlikely strip mall. A place called the Blue Max. In an addition to selling a stunning and mouthwatering number of craft beers, they give you the opportunity to "pick a mix" your six pack from a seasonal array they continually update. You're paying extra (generally somewhere between $1.19 and $1.79 a bottle), but nowhere near what you'd pay to try these beers in a restaurant. If you could find them, that is.
Here's the selection I made for Sharon's dad. Not sure if you need anything else to make it a Happy Holiday Season.
Bittersweet, this was, however; as Sharon & I have been continuing to try and explore ways in which she can quit and stay home with Rose. Among the luxuries risking (and almost certainly eventually heading to) the chopping block is my newfound craft beer hobby. At least the frequency with which I imbibe. Things might slow to somewhere between one and two beers a week, and tap beer only in the event of a visit from an out-of-state friend.
Ironic, then, that I just recently hit my 50th review at BeerAdvocate.com. It was the Surly Furious, an IPA I enjoyed on a recent daddy-daughter outing to our neighborhood's Papa's Pizza. It was a fun and rollicking time, as most daddy-daughter events are, almost certainly made even more lively as a result of a 16-oz bottle of 6.00% abv beer consumed in about 10 minutes.
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18 comments:
Getting loaded with your young daughter. It's almost as if you wanted comments to your latest post.
With or because of? JUST KIDDING!!! For God's sake, just kidding.
Though the various rigors of parenthood (to which all parents who read this block can surely attest) indeed add to the enjoyment of a beer, when time for that enjoyment can finally be found.
Anyway, to clarify...
"Feeling it a bit" around family & loved ones: good good good.
"Getting loaded" around family and loved ones (other than the "I love you, man!" loved ones): bad bad bad.
Family services is monitoring your blog.
I just found a good beer store relatively close to home - www.andoverliquors.com. They have a mind boggling collection, and also I think do a pick-a-mix, though I opted for a couple of six packs.
Wolaver's Organic Pale Ale - something new.
Magic Hat - Circus Boy (the hefeweizen) which is a favorite.
My own parents never drank beer around me, so my frame of reference is skewed. My grandfather did like Budweiser from a can, and kept a stash in the fridge at all times. Odd, I can't imagine ever drinking beer from a can, personally. Any thoughts, Beer Guy?
I grew up with my dad being pretty much a Hamms & Pabst "Blue Ribbon" (talk about false advertising) guy. Per a well-trodden topic of discussion amongst this group, my dad was a member of that frugal set of what is now senior citizens, growing up in the WWII era. Two basic credos:
1. Better living through sciene.
2. Thrift is next to godliness. Cheap bad everything. To open the cupboards in my parents house is like looking down an aisle at Aldi's. This Christmas, I can expect the annual array of TasteeOs, wimpy white sandwich bread and 29 cent Zapatas burritos stocking the shelves & fridge.
So my whole experience of life was that of quantity and on-the-cheap over quality. It wasn't until I was near 30 or so that I became enamoured with the idea of fine beers. I barely knew such a thing existed, and beer was a long-time-in-coming acquired taste for me, so I was fearful of anything not the straw-yellow colour of Corona "Extra."
That was then, this is now.
Now I try not to drink anything out of a bottle OR can if possible, just because you can experience the beer a lot better if you're taking in the smell from a big, open glass of some sort. As for beer FROM a can-well, it usually denotes crappy beer. In Surly's case (Surly being a new, local, upstart brewery), cans are used because I don't think they have the financial resources to bottle as of yet. And I was pleased to find (at least with the Furious) that it didn't seem to negatively impact the taste. After it was poured into a glass, that is...
Mixdorf: a big Hefeweizen guy in general, or just with the M.H.?
I like Hefeweizen a fair amount. I really like the IDEA of Hefeweizen almost more than I like the beer itself. The idea that there's these little unfiltered yeastie beasties swimming around in the Hefeweizen, it just seems so robust.
And, of course, I really like typing "Hefeweizen."
Part of the cultural elitification of Dan, long detailed in this very blog.
Dan's got the beer bug stronger than I though I have long been a fan of 'good' beer. If you're no longer in college (and living on the cheap and drinking to get drunk) there's no good reason to drink anything advertised on TV other than Sam Adams.
Dan can probably expound much better than I but....
You've got several basic beer types:
Lagers - including Budweiser and just about every beer advertised in America - generally light and not very bitter
Ales - more malty, generally darker in color and denser than lagers. Sam Adams Boston Ale being the most common, but with a wide range within the category covering lots of different textures and flavors.
Pale Ales - lighter and hoppier (more bitter).
India Pale Ales - even more than above
Bitters - continuing up the hoppy and bitter scale (International Bitterness Unit is a real thing)
Porters - thick and malty, can be bitter
Hefeweizen - unfiltered beers, usually cloudy and somewhere between an ale and a pale ale
Weizen - white beer (literally translated) often served with fruit in Germany - also cloudy
Off the top of my head....
Start simple, beer exploration wise. Buy a six pack of something. Check beeradvocate for reviews.
My dad was a Budweiser guy, and I drank a fair amount of it as a child, since it was my job to fetch it from the fridge and open it, necessitating a tasting, often a large one.
This Magic Hat hefeweizen is particularly tasty, and I'm generally a fan of their beers, but I do like hefeweizens in general.
I think they satisfy my love of ales while providing some of the goodness of pale ales as I wrote above.
Magic Hat also has Jinx, which is tasty.
Mixdorf's not exactly spot-on with the definitions, but that's the general idea.
Actually, all beers fall into either Ale or Lager, which refers to whether the beer is top fermented (ale) or bottom fermented (lager). Ales are wider & more varied, and usually have a lot more complexity.
The main thing that makes crappy "macro" beers different from "craft beers" is that they use cheaper "ajunct" grains, such as corn & rice, rather than barley, wheat, or oats for the malt. They're waterier and worse.
India Pale Ales are actually darker than Pale Ales.
Of course there's numerous specialty styles Mixxy is leaving off here, but two big ones he neglected are:
- Bock: Generally dark, malty & thick, and smooth (not bitter, usually)
- Pilsener: Contrary to the claim during many NFL-football beer commercials, this is NOT the style of Bud or Miller (those are American Macro Lager). Real Pilseners-are golden, yes, but very bitter.
Many, many other styles to enjoy...not that I'll be enjoying all that many fine beers in the next year or year and a half...
I noticed some X-mas beers like Santa Butt and Naughty Elf, though for tonight I bought some Sam Adams Winter Brew.
Good beer is good, like good wine is good. I think more people need to be drinking.
Sam Adams Winter - spicy.
Gibb-let's be clear. Some people need to do more drinking. Others; well, they need to do an awful lot less drinking.
Sam Adams. Winter Lager? I tasted the spices, but overall wasn't a huge fan: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35/101/?ba=hylton44
Not a huge fan either.
And for what it's worth, I,m not drinking more than 2-3 beers a beek either.
Thanks for the primer, fellas. Honestly, I'm pretty random with beer, and forever a dilletante. Fajitas = Dos Equis. Sushi = Yebisu. Cheeseburger = whatever. In Japan, beer flowed heavily at the parties, and whatever it was, I drank a lot of it. So I haven't been to big on imbibing heavily since then. Iowa City does have a few upscale retailers (just a few, in a college town otherwise enraptured with retail brews that you have to wear boots downtown on evenings and weekends). My family has historically been alcohol prudes, so any education on higher-quality stuff will have to begin here.
Gibbs really needs to pick Mixdorf up some of this, which I saw when I was in Terre Haute.
Boy, blog about your newborn and you get three comments. You blog about beer and you get 15 and counting.
Your last post assured everyone your newborn is doing well. This post informs us you're getting bombed in front of your kids. This is an outpouring (ta-dump) of concern.
No better intervention than the one that proceeds to discuss the finer points of the vice.
More people need to be drinking more and they know who they are..
Winter Brew OK - like most Sam Adams-
could not detect the cinamon
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