I hope Santa reads this

For years now, I've wanted a hot tub for outside.  Several times, I've looked, but never pulled the trigger.  I never pulled out my wallet because I always wanted a condo in Florida a little bit more than I wanted a hot tub.  I've got a new thing to add to my wish list that I think trumps both the condo and the hot tub.

Behold, the Holy Grail for beer geeks like me:

It holds 30 cases, 4 kegs, a tap and all accessories.  Judging by the picture, there's a lot of wasted space so I have a feeling I could stuff in more that 30 cases and 4 kegs.  I'm a bit concerned about how it's going to fit into the mancave, so it's very likely I'd have to do some remodeling and move the mancave to another room in the house.

It costs about as much as a hot tub and I think I'd use this more than a hot tub, though admittedly, going from this thing to the hot tub each night makes a lot of sense.

You're all invited over when I get it.

Peach Porch Lounger

Maybe 6 weeks ago, I was at the local Liquor Locker making a small beer run.  I came across a strange concoction from a brewer that I don't particularly care for, but I had to have it.  I've had beer with a variety of fruits before, but finding something with peach is fairly rare.  I can only think of one other instance where I've had a peach beer.

I bought it, it sat in my cellar for a month, and I finally put it in the fridge the other day.  Last night, after doing some online racing with my friends, I popped the top.  While it was sitting in my snifter, I started to read the label and was somewhat disappointed.  It was made with peach juice, not actual peaches.  Sometimes brewers add real fruit to the beer, sometimes they simply add fruit juice.  More times than not, when they add juice, it imparts an 'artificial' taste to it.

With this newfound information, I wasn't expecting good things from New Belgium Brewing's Peach Porch Lounger.

This beer is from their Lips of Faith series.  I'm not entirely sure what the series means, though I'm guessing it has something to do with a leap of faith in trusting that the brewer knows what they're doing because the beers in that series are all fairly 'unique' and by unique, I mean strange.

Upon further investigation of the label, I learned the beer was made with molasses, lemon peel and something else that escapes me as I type this, probably just the peach juice.  Nothing really jumped out at me.  I continued reading and discovered the beer was made with Brett yeast (the best kind ever) and once I went to BeerAdvocate.com, I learned that it's not classified as a fruit beer, but as a farmhouse ale or saison.  Saison is French for season, and the beers were typically brewed in the winter for consuming in the summer.  It started near the France-Belgium border and because back in the day (a bazillion years ago) cleanliness and contamination weren't in vogue, different kinds of fermentations took place during the brewing process and each farm (thus 'farmhouse ale') had a distinctly different taste.  These beers that took place near the France-Belgium border apparently had the most popular flavors and we're still drinking them today.

So, Peach Porch Lounger is a farmhouse ale with a yeast from the Wallonia section of Belgium, called Brettanomyces, or Brett for short.  It's the bomb.  In addition, the beer contains molasses, lemon peel and peach juice.  At this point, my disappointment is waning and it's getting my attention.

Side note:  You don't drink good beer at freezing cold temps and you damned sure don't use a frozen mug.  There are basically two kinds of beer--lagers, which are usually fermented at colder temperatures and ales, which are typically fermented at warmer temperatures.  When I say warm, I don't mean hot, I mean 45-55 degrees.  When something is really cold, its smells and tastes are somewhat muted due to the cold.  When something is warm, you can pick up subtle scents and flavors.  Bud Lite is a lager and tastes like shit, so it's ok to drink them freezing cold out of a frozen mug so you don't taste the shit you're putting into your body.  But ales are nectar of the gods, and you sip and savor them, enjoying every drop, so you keep them slightly warmer so you can smell and taste what the brewer has presented to you.

Ok, with my Peach Porch Lounger sitting in my snifter slightly warmed now, I took a big whiff.  Saisons with Brett yeast provide a funky, wild smell and flavor, almost tangy-like.  It's like the flavor profile of fruity yogurt.  I couldn't really detect which fruits were there, because with saisons it's like walking into the fruit section of the grocery, all the scents mixing together.  The molasses gave it a cinnamon-like smell.  So, a tangy, fruity, cinnamon smell.  I can work with that.

I took a sip.  Then another, and then another.  Cinnamon and alcohol dominated.  Peach never gives off a particularly aggressive smell or taste and in this case, the peach was very subtle.  After a few sips, the alcohol taste starts to wear off and the molasses starts to shine. 

With that crazy yeast, the funky taste and feel were there.  It was crisp from the peaches and lemon peel (both acids), it was spicy from the molasses, and it was tangy the whole way.  In the finish there was a bit of heat from the alcohol. 

It was full of strangeness, from the name to the ingredients, but it all worked.  It was very high in alcohol content and that helped as well.  It was good stuff and well worth whatever I paid for the bottle.

What I've been up to

From a few days before Christmas til a day or so after the new year, Hayden was off school.  Since I no longer have a real job, I loaded my Dropbox account with a handful of files I needed from the office and stayed home with the little boy.  With the exception of an hour or two a day while I was doing shit for work, I was on Christmas break.  I took two weeks off from going into the office, from running on the dreadmill, and from watching my girlish figure.

To say I ate and drank well would be an understatement.  For the most part, I kept my beer consumption to the evenings, but generally speaking, I was eating something most of the time I was awake.  Popcorn, crackers, chips, cakes, cookies, some sort of toffee stuff, Chex mix and pies made up a good portion of my diet and that's just the stuff off the top of my head that I remember.

I was down to 179 pounds before my reprieve and figured I'd see the 190s after.  I was ok with that.

While I emptied more bottles than I care to count, the following are the new beers I tried.

My first came in one of my favorite bottles.

Chatoe Rogue Pumpkin Patch Ale...Rogue is an Oregon brewery that controls almost every ingredient that goes into the beers.  From their own hop yards to their own pumpkin patch, they oversee it all.  It's really dark for a pumpkin beer and lacks much pumpkin flavor, focusing mostly on the pumpkin spices of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.  It's got a wicked good smell, but it's a bit spicy.  Maybe too much so.  I'd call the spices aggressive, but it was a good beer.

Next up was a Belgian Saison (a saison is a just a funky kind of beer, an acquired taste, but one I really like) called To Ol Snowball Saison Ale.  I have no idea what the 'To Ol' means because I don't speak Belgiumese, so you're on your own as to what the hell that means or stands for.

I was mostly disappointed in this, particularly for $14 a bottle.  Saisons usually have a funky (fucky is hard to define, but once you've smelled and tasted it, you'll agree it's funky), sweet-ish smell and taste, like a bunch of different kinds of fruit thrown into a bucket.  This one had some of the smell, but not the taste or feel.  It was very peppery and that overwhelmed everything else.  The only other feeling was bitter, not something I'm looking for in this kind of beer.

Then I tried a Samuel Smith (No, not Sam Adams) Organic Chocoate Stout.

I don't always care for English beers, but that's mostly because not everyone makes them like Sam Smith.  Just look at that glass, that's what a beer should look like.  Pitch black beer with an off brown head.  You could smell the chocolate from across the room and it tasted like a chocolate milk shake.  The alcohol content is only 5% so you can enjoy these all night long.  Good stuff.

My fourth new beer of the holiday was something I've been waiting to get my hands on for a long, long time.

Pliny The Elder (yes, the label sucks) from Russian River Brewing Co out in Santa Rosa, CA.  Their beers are somewhat mythical because their distribution sucks.  They tend to stay out on the left coast and the only place away from the ocean where you can get it is Philly.  So, you either travel to get it or you find a retailer who will ship it.  Or, you have your wife's new contact from out west send it to you.  Merry Christmas to me from my wife.

This beer is rated as one of the best in the world, though most haters don't like it because of Russian River's shitty decision not to expand their distributing.  While I was dying to try it, I was really hoping I'd hate it.  Loving a beer that you can't easily buy is a pain in the ass.  However, the second I popped the top, I knew it was trouble.

On my beer forum place (BeerAdvocate.com), I scored the look of the beer a 4.0 out of 5.0.  The color looks like it's supposed to for the style (an Imperial, or Double IPA [IPA is India Pale Ale]), nothing out of this world.  However, the rest of the scores were 5s.  It's stunning and for me to even write about it won't do it justice.  Haters gonna hate, but the beer is amazing.

As it turns out, my wife's contact actually orders the beer from one of the retailers who will ship and they ship Pliny The Elder with a second Russian River beer called Damnation.

I received two orders, so I got two bottles of Pliny and two bottles of Damnation.  A while back, my friend Boston who lives out in Washington just north of Portland (yes, that's how I explain my friend) sent me a box full of beers and included a Damnation, so I've had it before, but damn, it's good too...smells and tastes like honey, grass, pear, lemon and pepper.  It's high-ish in alcohol so a couple bottles is all you need.

Speaking of my friend Boston, my next two beers were my Christmas present from him this year.  First up was Oatis, from Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer, or Beer Bitch as I like to call her.

He was a bit concerned about sending this beer.  He knows I like weird shit in my beer, but he wasn't sure about oatmeal.  Little did he know oatmeal stouts are one of my favorites.  First off, just look at the sucker in the glass...it's hard to improve upon that.

Oatmeal gives the beer some body so it's a bit more filling and it gives it a creaminess which makes you just want to keep drinking it.  Most of the time oatmeal stouts are slightly sweeter than regular stouts, but this was the opposite, being slightly more bitter.  It kept my palate guessing the whole time.

My second bottle from my friend Boston was from the same Beer Bitch, Ninkasi Tricerahops.  Hops are used in beer as a preservative, for smell and for bitterness.  Hops come from various parts of the world.  The best German hops are known as Noble hops and usually impart a savory quality in beer, while hops from the Pacific Northwest where Boston lives, are now known as American hops and usually have a piney, citrus smell and flavor.  The smell and flavor of Tricerahops can best be described as a grapefruit and a Christmas tree stuffed into a glass of ale.  It was terribly yummy and had really high alcohol so I slept well that night.

Next in line was Sam Adams White Christmas.

To me, Sam Adams is the most over-rated brewer ever.  They are very popular here because most people go from drinking Bud Light to having one of Sam Adams' 200 different beers and thinking it's world class.  Not so much.

That said, this wasn't awful.  White Christmas is a take on a Belgian style that simply means white.  The picture here doesn't really show how milky white the beer is (it's cloudy more than anything, like Blue Moon, which is the same style).  The spices in this were really good, and like I said, the beer didn't suck.  It wasn't great, but it didn't suck.

From there, I tried a beer from one of my favorite brewers, Three Floyds, from up north in Munster, IN.

It's called Gorch Fock, named after an old German ship.  I'm not sure why the name, but the beer is a German style lager, which means it's average at best.  I don't usually care for German lagers.  There are a handful I like, but I generally don't care for them.  This was ok, probably a good beer for a warm day, as it provided a nice crisp finish.  Just not much more to say about it...not a bad beer, but not my style at all.

After the German beer, I went to an extreme and tried Dragon's Milk from New Holland Brewing.

This is as manly a beer as I've ever had.  I've had beers that had more alcohol or more hops or more whatever, but I obviously wasn't wearing my big boy pants for this.  It was black and chewy, just like I like my beer, but it was too extreme, almost hard to drink.  It tasted more like a liqueur.  I can still feel this in my mouth.

My next stop was for a wet-hopped beer.  I'll explain more about wet-hopping later.  This was from Sierra Nevada, another favorite of mine.  Estate Homegrown Wet Hop Ale, yes, it's a mouthful to say.

This beer rivals Pliny The Elder, only I can get it locally.  It looks amazing, it tastes amazing.  It's an India Pale Ale, which means it's more bitter than most beers, but I could still feel my tongue in the morning, as it had a smoothness not usually found in IPAs.  Can't wait to have another one of these.

The final beer of my holiday was Christmas Ale from Great Lakes.

Many people have raved about this beer and it's damned good.  The biggest problem I had (and it's more personal preference than anything) is that it had ginger.  I don't care for ginger in beer and it was fairly prevalent in the smell and taste.  The other things in the beer, honey (another thing I don't normally like in beer) and cinnamon, did a good job of helping mask the ginger taste, but I could still pick it up.  Regardless, it's a pretty good beer and I can see why people like it.

With my beercation coming to a close, I got on the scale yesterday morning.  I was at peace with seeing whatever number it showed, but was a bit shocked to see it top out at 185.  It's amazing to eat and drink like I did (and at all hours of the day and night) and only gain 6 pounds over two weeks.

Last night I was back to limited snacking and this morning I got back on the dreadmill for the first time since December 22 (I track every job I make).  It wasn't as much fun as I remembered, but I made it.  After a shower, I hopped on the scale and smiled when I saw 183 pounds.  I think weight is scared of me.

I blame my wife mostly.

There were a million times and places when she could have put her foot down and ended my new hobby.  She never did, so I hold her somewhat responsible for some of my beer issues.

When I was a kid, maybe a teenager, I went to EPCOT down in Orlando for the first time.  At the time, it was relatively new and little like it is today.  There was the Future World and the World Showcase, just like today, but things were so pedestrian back then. 

I never cared for the future world, but I was always amazed by the World Showcase.  Back in the day, there were something like 8 countries represented, and early on, the food at each place was not a big draw.

The second time I went I was in my 20s and had a different appreciation for things.  I still didn't care for the Future World, but I was really fascinated by the World Showcase.  But even then, the food was mostly secondary.  At this point, every country had a couple restaurants to eat at, but again, the food was more an afterthought.

My third trip took place when I was around 30 and I hit pay dirt on this trip.  The concept of food had exploded and it became my favorite place.  Disney is full of places and floors that you don't normally see and for my third trip, some of these mystery places were on display because there were so many food places they couldn't all fit on the regular EPCOT grounds.

By my late 30s, Jennifer and I planned a trip to EPCOT.  Unfortunately, food had taken a back seat again and while the trip was enjoyable, there was something missing from EPCOT.  For a couple years I fought to figure out what had happened to all the food.  For one reason or another, Jennifer planned another trip about 5 years later and I bought a book that helped plan a trip to Disney without kids.  While reading about the events for October, I found out what had happened.  On my third trip, I was there during October, which is when EPCOT hosts an International Food and Wine Expo.

I don't do wine, but I can put a hurtin' on food.  So, we planned a trip for October, sans child.  Magic took place that week, and I've had issues since.

For those that have been to EPCOT, you know how the World Showcase is set up.  Around a lagoon, a variety of countries have areas, and for 11 months out of the year, each country has 2-3 food places that showcase the local cuisine, typically served by people from that country.  However, during the International Food and Wine Expo, they have additional countries with booths set up in the walkways around the lagoon.

Jennifer eats as much as I do, so it wasn't hard to convince her that October was the time to go.  On our first day at EPCOT, we got the obligatory visit to Future World out of the way, then headed to the World Showcase to embarrass ourselves with the cuisine. 

However, for this particular year (I think it was 2005), each place had local beers in addition to food.  So from about noon on, I had a cup of beer in one hand and a plate of God only knows what in the other.  As evening fell and Gloria Gaynor blew the roof off with "I Will Survive" (for the Expo, they have live entertainment each night, and OMG did Gloria singing her song have the place rocking), I arrived at the America place.  The lady selling food overheard me talking to Jennifer about beer and said, "If you like beer, you should try the Cherry Wheat from the next booth over."

It should be noted that Sam Adams had an entire booth set up for just beer.  Also, in that booth, Sam Adams makes a brew for the International Food and Wine Expo that's different every year.  But, since the lady recommended Cherry Wheat, that's what I got.

It should also be noted that at the time, I drank Budweiser exclusively.  Only at this Food and Wine Expo did I start drinking other stuff and that was only because the Budweiser was only served at one place.

So, I ordered my $2 cup of Cherry Wheat and took a sip.  I looked at Jennifer and said, "This is the best beer I've ever had."

Two more things of note before I continue.  I clearly remember using a couple F-bombs in that previous comment to describe the goodness of what I'd just poured down my throat. Also, it was late at night, I'd been drinking fairly continually for a good 7 or 8 hours, and by then, I'd have probably rated the water from the lagoon as a 4 out of 5 on BeerAdvocate.com.

Later that night, after we'd gotten back to the hotel and I'd stopped slurring words, I told Jennifer that I wanted to go back to EPCOT the next day and try the Cherry Wheat while I was sober.  As I mentioned before, Jennifer could have replied with, "Piss off, I want to go to Animal Kingdom;" but instead said, "Whatever Honey." 

So, I blame my wife mostly.  Because that next day we went back.  We skipped Future World and walked directly around the lagoon to the Sam Adams stand and I gave the lady my room key to be charged $2 for my cup of Cherry Wheat.  I took a big whiff.  I took a swig and let it roll over and around my tongue.  I swallowed and then took another swig.  I paused for a few seconds, looked at Jennifer, probably with tears in my eyes and said, "This is still the best *!%^&$ beer I've ever had!!!"

And with that, I had discovered a new, ridiculously expensive hobby that takes center stage over any future trips we've ever made (any time we plan a trip to anywhere, a month or so before we arrive, I've already contacted a local beer place and placed an order or found out where our first stop is to be made).  And like I said, I blame my wife mostly, because she's had ample opportunity to put an end to it.