Guinness

Authors Note: This post was written on January 13th. The date has been adjusted so that the post content aligns with the date the beer was actually consumed.

With one hour until I was due to join the audience at the Conan O’Brien show, I sat down at an Irish pub in NYC with old friends and couldn’t resist ordering a Guinness.

Sure, I had planned to search out some beers that are unique to New York. But what could be more unique to the moment than having a Guinness in an Irish pub before going to see the most famous Irish American, as Conan has put it, “since Shaquille O’Neal”?

Guinness is a great beer, with far fewer calories than common wisdom suggests. It has a rich, creamy mouth feel and a surprisingly light taste for such a dark beer. These aspects mean that Guinness can easily be abused. In fact, I practiced Guinness chugging in college to ensure I was a ringer for Irish Car Bomb speed competitions, but I’ve seen the error of my ways. I stopped chugging Guinness after a wizened bartender reminded me, gruffly, that it should take longer to pour a Guinness than to drink it.

I’ve been taking time to enjoy Guinness ever since, and January 8th was no exception. I nursed that glass of beer so long I set a new record — a Guinness record, so to speak.

(C’mon, you knew that pun had to be coming.)

And if you saw the January 8th episode of Conan O’Brien (with guest Howie Mandel), you might have caught a few blurry shots of me, my wife, and my friends.

Old Man Winter Ale

Winter really gets me heated up.

I just spent an hour slipping and chipping ice from my front walk and driveway; after four snow storms over the past few weeks, I couldn’t be more exercised about hating winter in New England.

Your Author, Thoroughly Hating Winter

I live north of Boston, close to the New Hampshire border — and up here, winter doesn’t pull any punches.

After a storm, you can usually find me shoveling my car out of some impossible snowbank, pausing only to curse and shake my fist at the sky.

Railing at the winter weather, calling it names and threatening to cut off its snowballs — that’s one way to stay warm. Another way to combat the elements is with a good winter ale.

Winter ales are usually high in alcohol content and generally pair well with buttery and savory foods — I suspect many families survive holiday meals solely because of winter ale.

But many winter ales, to put it charitably, are an acquired taste — brewers often throw in liberal amounts of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, etc.

Southern Tier Brewing Company‘s Old Man Winter Ale is the best winter ale I’ve had all season. The beer pours a rich, dark copper. And it smells great — no spice to turn your nose. The beer pours into your mouth and slides around, puddling around your taste buds. On the front, you taste the malt as a toasted sweetness, but then the bitter hops cut in before the caramel taste fully settles.

I had initially grabbed Old Man thinking I would drink it on or near my birthday — since I’m turning 30 this weekend, drinking an Old Man just seemed appropriate. But Southern Tier’s brew turned out to be a great pick. And to bring it full circle — when I looked up their website, I discovered this beer and I were born just a few hours away from each other in New York.

Maybe I’ll give winter another chance?

At the very least, you can give Southern Tier and Old Man Winter Ale a chance — they have an impressive distribution list.

Bottle Aged

This weekend marks my 30th birthday, and fortunately I’ve been too busy planning this website to bemoan the loss of my 20′s.

I’ll be spending a few days in New York City. I might not be able to post every day, but I’ll still be drinking one unique beer each day — no more, and no less.

Hopefully I’ll have Internet access and I’ll write a post about each beer as soon as I can.

What should I drink on my birthday? I stashed a bottle of beer away called “Old Man Winter”, but I’m thinking that “Old Curmudgeon” might be more appropriate. Or should I just find a unique beer someplace in New York?

Let me know what you think — plus, I’ll have 4 days in New York, so if anyone has a New York pub or brew I should keep my eye out for…

Wolaver’s Wit Bier

Organic beer? I thought all beer was organic, at least until robots take over and demand the synthetic stuff.

But apparently we’re talking organic as in “no pesticides”; which is okay, because once they come, no pesticide is going to get rid of the robots, anyway.

Wolaver’s is one of the “nation’s original certified organic breweries“. According to the label, Wolaver’s beers “contain no preservatives, are not pasteurized and, like all fresh foods, will change over time”; and it warns this beer is “naturally cloudy due to a high percentage of raw local wheat”.

I’m intrigued, but starting to get a little concerned; I’ve had blind dates that came with fewer disclaimers.

Wolaver’s Wit Bier is a Belgian-style white. It poured yellow and a bit cloudy, without the strong aroma I was expecting — the label said the Wit Bier would taste of orange peel and coriander, so I was expecting it to smell like a Blue Moon. The first sip was surprisingly bitter — I guess I had expected it to taste like a Blue Moon, too.

The first half of the beer actually tasted like a pale ale with just a hint of citrus, and the coriander began to pop through as I continued to drink. It was interesting — but not well balanced.

I found a fair amount of sediment at the bottom of the bottle, so halfway through my brew I up-ended the bottle, tapped and rolled it side to side, and coaxed the yeast into the glass. I swirled it around a bit and the result was transformative — the beer became extremely cloudy, but sweeter. And the sweetness held the rest of the flavors together.

I’d like to see the robots figure out THAT trick.

Not a bad beer, but not great either. This is probably a beer I’d enjoy more if it were on tap, instead of sitting in a bottle since April of last year. Organic beer is surely better fresh. And that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, if it keeps the robots away.

Coors Light

My, how times have changed.

I used to drink Coors Light at a friend’s house while eating pizza and playing PlayStation in college.

Tonight, I drank Coors Light at home while eating rigatoni pasta with steak and portabella mushrooms. And I would break out the Wii, but I can’t stay up late because I have work in the morning.

The Silver Bullet hasn’t changed, though. I know you don’t want to hear about how there’s almost no foam on the pour from the can, or how the sickly pale yellow of the beer looked less like actual beer and more like the third cup from an over-used tea bag.

You don’t care, and you shouldn’t care.

This beer is an old stand-by. When you’ve spent the day clearing brush from the yard, chopping wood for the fireplace, or driving your four ton 4×4 through the Rocky Mountains to fix some problem up on “the Rig” (or whatever they do in those commercials) — then if you’re like me, the last thing you want to do is to spend time appreciating your beer.

Sometimes I just want to drink my beer, not buy it flowers or invite it upstairs for heavy petting.

Coors hasn’t messed around with the formula for Rocky Mountain Refreshment, but they’ve sure been a leader in package innovation. Converting the beer case into a travel cooler is pretty nifty in my book. And I don’t know if the “vented” wide mouth can with its Frost Brew^® Liner and temperature indicator really make the beer taste any different, but those features sure give Coors something to advertise.

If you don’t believe me, just try building an ad campaign around Nana’s used Lipton bag.

Last Consumed:

My wife and I usually select a Christmas Tree during the weekend after Thanksgiving, and we were thrilled to discover the farm down the road from us is selling trees this year. She and I stopped by the farm while walking our Boston Terrier, Caesar, who helped us sniff out a good one. After my wife and I dithered over the best tree for several minutes, Caesar weighed in with his selection by lifting his leg on a plump Fraser Fir.

I hope that means he liked it.

The tree went up on my shoulder, I carried it home (drawing chuckles from several people driving by), and our Christmas season officially began. We’ve been listening to Christmas music, drinking hot chocolate, and generally sickening all humbugs spying through our windows.

So it should come as no surprise that I’ve selected the “Hoppy Christmas Ale” from Belgium’s Brewery De Ranke. The beer — Père Noël (imported by Shelton Brothers) — intimates the reason for Father Christmas’ jolly cheeks and rosy nose; the label depicts Santa embracing the frothy, 7% ABV Strong Pale Ale.

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