Cheers! What's in the glass tonight?

I've read nice things about GLB. I had a Stoney Creek Pale ale earlier tonight. Pretty tasty.

Best regards, Bill

Now, I'm having a battle of stouts. NC Old Rasputin vs Victory Storm King.

Best regards, Bill

Dunno what's in store this evening... Had a Maritime Pacific Jolly Roger last night with dinner, than Petrus Winter and Bear Creek Triple for dessert.

Not bad when it's 40 degrees out, either.

We're still holding at 7 degrees. I've had mugs of Victory Lager and HopDevil, and split a three year old New Glarus Belgian Red with my mom (it was her bottle, BTW: I got Deb and Dan Carey to sign it for her birthday when I visited the brewery. Mom loves the Belgian Red, and was pleasantly surprised to find how it had changed with aging. I was pleasantly surprised that she noticed the difference. That Mom, full of surprises!).

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 23:08:01 GMT, "David" secretly encoded this message:

It's a steamy 26 degrees here in the south, tonight. I've had a Redhook Porter, a Rogue Mocha Porter, and I'm finishing up the evening with a Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout.

Which, if you lived in South Carolina, would impress you terribly, because the distributer's strangle hold and the legislature's political expediency makes it impossible to get two of the three above mentioned beers.

Penelope

Well, I'm reading this after the fact........... you wouldn't BELIEVE what I went through last evening in a tasting with my beer-brewing chum...........

Started with a bottle of Petrus Xmas Beer from last year (6.5%)............

went to Sierra Nevada Celebration...............

My friend's Christmas beer--sort of a cross between SN Celebration and Anchor OSA...........

a bottle of my 2003 Xmas Ale, "A Dram for Johnny", dedicated to the late Scots fiddler Johnny Cunningham, who was as crazy as this beer was and died of a heart attack as it was being bottled.......... this beer started with the dregs from the above beer's mashing, then got a carboy of water from an overflowing hydrant, and included a six-year-old can of malt extract, two-year-old freezer-burnt hops, some old rock-hard dried malt extract, Korean candy sugar, a run through the spice rack, rosemary snipped from the garden seconds before it went into the boil.............

Then the last ounces of all four bottles above mixed together..................

and finally.................

a bottle of 1993 Wild Goose Snow Goose Ale, my last bottle of the original vintage---------- and it was heavenly, like a slightly weakened JW Lees Harvest or Thomas Hardy's!

And what can follow that but a bottle of 1995 Samichlaus...................

Good lord! Don't tell me aging made it drinkable!

--Jeff Frane

Well, yesterday it was the Two Brothers Bare Tree 2003 (used to be called a weiss wine IIRC, now a Weiss Beer Barley Wine) and a Fantome Ete (I think that was the spelling).

Today so far is a New Holland Dragon's Milk; right now I'm debating what's next -- either Nostradamus, or maybe a Sam Smith Winter Welcome, or possibly something like the Schell Snow Storm, or this year's World Wide Stout. Ah, decisions...

What a difference a few days makes. I was in Philly the weekend between Xmas and New Year's, and it was downright balmy. I was surprised but not displeased with the warm spell. I didn't put on my warmest clothing until I returned home!

Hop Wallop all gone? They ran out at the brewery the night we were there. I am *so* very glad I got to try it.

How had it changed? Lost of some of that edgy sweetness?

Started last evening with a Bell's Two-Hearted IPA, closed it out with a Dogfish Head 90 Minute. Hop heaven...

EFB