Spending Valentine's day with something I love... beer.

Proudly displayed as "new beer" at Gordon's today. I indulged in this 9$ single bottle of Dogfishhead's World Wide Stout. Stout indeed. It's initial taste reminds me of the Palo Santo beer that I just recently tried at our last brew session. After that it's a roller coaster of complexity. This beer has a lot of different flavors and is as much of a nasal experience as it is oral. It hits your tongue and sends a tingle to your sinus in the way sniffing or sipping a fine scotch would. On top of the impressive flavor and smoothness is it's impressive color... or should I say color density. Below you'll see a photo of the beer being back lit, and not letting any light through. A ridiculous amount of barley huh? I'm a believer.

Anyone get the plate number of that beer?!?

Friday night my out-of-town drummer and his wife stayed over so we could hit the studio hard in the morning. They rolled in at 1am, and I offered the road weary travelers some home brew.

We started with the Blonde. It's surprisingly full, round, and sweet for being so light in color, and really shocking considering how thin it tasted before bottling. Something pretty amazing happened in the bottle. It's lightly carbonated, smooth, and has a nice blend of fruty and light malty flavors. Complex, and highly drinkable. (BTW, would we use "drinkability" to describe good beer if it weren't for cheesy ads for cheap, mass-produced American beers smacking our brains around every 7 minutes?)

Next we cracked a round of Jamb-Ale-Aya. This is a shocking beer, and we knew it before we started drinking. The first things you smell are a delicious floral zing, and alcohol. Tell me we recorded initial gravity on this thing, because it HAS to be off the chart. The flavor, in addition to carrying through the floral note, has a solid malty base, maybe the strongest malt flavor of anything we've made.

About halfway through the Jamb-Ale-Aya, it occurred to me that my head was no longer firmly connected to my feet. I was already pounded, but I soldiered on. My drummer's wife was too tired for her second beer and went to bed, so my drummer took care of 90% of her glass. That's two beers for me, three for Drummer Boy. By morning, I had more than a little twinge in my head until I fought back with the strongest coffee I've had in months, and my drummer overslept, and admitted he had seen better days. Think about that. He's a DRUMMER. If Jamb-Ale-Aya is even a pinch below 12% ABV, I'd better consider hanging up my drinking shoes. Can we get a number on this? I have to know what humbled me.

Some Beers

I've fallen behind a bit here, and some of this reviewage is from memory...

Superbowl Sunday I had one of our homebrew blondes and one of the jamb-ale-ayas.

The Blonde

Even last week it was heady enough to be enjoyable. It was light, crisp, and refreshing. I could easily see going through them by the dozen.

The Jamb-Ale-Aya

Was still a bit flat as of last week. I was away this weekend and so I did not get to try them again. I shall do so tonight.

Geary's London Porter

I had a Geary's Porter this weekend in Maine. It was smoky, dark, and immensely satisfying. It was really all you can hope for in a porter. I snapped a photo of it on my cell phone and will try to remember to upload it later.

Dr. Hyde's Angry Ale

This is a custom brew made by Geary Brewing for the Jameson Tavern in Freeport, Maine. Sam ordered it and I sampled from hers. A slightly sweet pale ale, nothing spectacular, but I wouldn't object to drinking it again.

Giving In To Peer Pressure

After hearing from grynch on Friday that he was antsy to open one soon, and that EF already had, I just opened a bottle of the blonde we bottled last week. It had carbonated enough to have a small head, similar to that you'd see on any domestic bottle you just poured. It's got this extremely delicious and unique sweet and sour flavor which I attribute mostly to the honey we added. I think this would make a great summer beer, but I'm more than happy to drink it the middle of winter!