A Year of New England Weather...

as told by Facebook. Where possible, I tried to write with the lack of intelligence present in 80% of Facebook posts, so that's why there are so many typos.

January 3rd - Once Christmas is over, winter is kind of stupid...

January 8th - Snow!!!!1!!! :) <3

January 27th - Soooooooo siiick of snow!! :(

February 2nd - Fuck you groundhog I dont want 6 more weeks of winter!!!!!!

March 5th - Almost spring!!!!

March 21st - OMG SPRING IS HERE!!! Time to dress like a skank!! (The second sentence is only for females, and is implied but not usually written)

March 30th - If this is suposed to be spring, how come its still only 40 degrees out?!?

April 6th - Snow? Seriously? God damit!!

April 20th - Soooooooo siiiiiick of rainnnnn!!

May 15th - Can't wait for summahhhhh!!

May 28th - More rain?? How can it rain this much?

June 12th - Hooray! Summer!!

June 21st - Woohoo! First day of summer!! (This one is doubly dumb since most people have already claimed it to be summer AND then post about the actual first day of summer. People suck.)

June 25th - I love summer!!

June 26th until August 31st - Alternate between complaining about the heat and complaining when it's raining.

September 1st - Bye bye summer... :(

October 12th - Wow, this is way too [pick hot or cold] for October!!

November 5th - Not looking forward to the cold weather...

December 1st - Christmas! Snow! Hooray winter!!

December 18th - First snowfall!! I <3 snow!!!!!!!!!

December 27th - I hate the cold!! :( Is it almost spring yet?

And that about does it. I should make up a checklist and see how close my randomly made up dates are to when I find something similar to this on my News Feed. That might be a fun game for like... 15 minutes or so.

-Jon

The Beer-hemoth VIII - Day 2

In case you were not aware of it, drinking in the sun is dangerous without the proper precautions. Kathryn might have taken things a bit too far with the SPF 70, but I guess I can't complain since I didn't get burned at all. We all drank plenty of water as well. And even with all that, we still ended up crashing in the hotel room after the session ended until we dragged ourselves out to dinner. I guess I'm getting old.

On the first day, we tried to focus on the tents from #11-#21, so tents 1 through 10 were on the docket for Day 2. Let's get drinking.

I kicked off the second session with the Edward Pale Ale from Hill Farmstead Brewery. This was a great smelling beer with a nice hoppy aroma and a good flavor. It also had a nice finish with a little bit of sweetness in there. It was a good was to start off the day.

Up next was Alchemist's Rapture. which was an IPA. It had a very intense flavor, but it was still good. I think this would be a sipping beer so as not to overwhelm the tastebuds.

Sticking with my hoppy pursuits, I grabbed the IPA from 7 Barrels Pub and Brewery. This beer wasn't as hoppy as it should have been, and was actually a little sweet, making it seem more like a pale ale than an IPA. It was super smooth, however, and tasted like it would be a good pair with a meal.

I finally mixed things up by getting a Lincoln Lager (hee hee, nice name!) from Bobcat. I didn't check, but I'm assuming no actual bobcats were injured during the brewing of this beer. This was a good beer, but it was kind of boring. Moving on...

Continuing my habit of selecting beers based on their names, I tried the Rauch Session beer from Trapp Lagers. Since it was a session beer, the ABV was probably low, but so was the beer flavor. This "beer" actually tasted more like a soda. I could see myself drinking one again if it was in a mixpack.

Since I had enjoyed it last year, I went with Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter for my next beer. It was a very dark beer, but it wasn't as roasted as I thought I remembered it being. Maybe I just got a bad one, or maybe I wasn't remembering it accurately. Or maybe a brewfest in 80+ degree weather just isn't the right place for a porter. I'll have to try it for a third time under more favorable porter circumstances.

Wolaver's was right next to OC (as you'd probably expect considering their relationship), so I snagged their Oatmeal Stout while I was in the tent. At first this beer was super bitter, but it had all the roasted flavors I was expecting from the Stovepipe Porter. Given a few minutes to mellow out, the bitterness fades away and this beer turns quite delicious.

Harpoon was offering one of their 100 Barrel Series beers, so I made Rich and Dan's Rye IPA my next choice. It has a great IPA aroma, but I think it needs a little bit more malt to balance out the sort of intense bitterness.

At this point, it was time to cleanse the palette, so I went to an old favorite, Long Trail Blackbeary Wheat. There's not a whole lot to say here that hasn't already been said, which means I won't say anything more.

I continued my being nostalgic with a Lost Sailor from BBC. That would be Berkshire Brewing Company, not one of the many other BBCs. This was a good beer that I'm very comfortable with, so I enjoyed it.

I then got a little wacky and got the Strato from Benelux, which I think is a Canadian brewery. This was deemed a "west coast style stout," but I just found it weird. It was only a little bitter, but there was something odd about it. I ended up having to let the grass have it because I didn't drink it in time before the heat ruined it completely.

I finished my afternoon with the Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale from Stone. I never give Stone enough credit, and that's because the first beer I had from them was the Oaked Arrogant Bastard, which I didn't really like. I could go off on a wild tangent here about my feelings on barrel-aging beer, but this isn't really the venue. The short version is that Stone makes delicious beer, and this ale was no exception. I think it may be a black IPA, because it was dark and hoppy and very enjoyable. There was one weird flavor note I couldn't quite pick out, but it didn't ruin anything. Definitely worth the extra ticket (its ABV was over 8.1%, so it was 2 tickets).

Somewhere I lost a ticket, and I gave my last one away, so that concluded the day's beers. Kate and I decided that of the 3 sessions, Friday night is the best, followed by Saturday afternoon with Saturday evening picking up the rear. I hope we are able to do it all again next year!

-Jon

The Beer-hemoth VIII - Day 1

Yeah, so this thing was getting absurdly long when I was writing it, so it needed to be split up into 2 posts. That's becoming a thing here. Sort of like Slick not posting. Zing! I haven't really posted much either, but that's an issue that will be taken care of in the near future. Seriously. I'm already writing more posts in my brain.

Ok, let's get focused. On beer!

The Vermont Brewers Festival is pretty crazy, as I detailed last year. This year we decided to attend the first and second sessions (Friday night and Saturday afternoon). I liked both of these better than the Saturday night session, especially since neither were threatened by thunderstorms. Instead of going to the third session, we went out to dinner at an awesome restaurant and ate 15,000 calories of food. It was a very healthy weekend overall.

And now for the Friday night beers.

You probably don't remember (unless you just reread The Beer-hemoth 3), but last year I really wanted to try the Espresso Amber Ale from Peak Organic, but I missed out because the session got shut down early. I took no chances this year, and kicked things off with one. It has a good coffee flavor, but the aroma seems a little artificial, which is weird considering that Peak is a fully organic brewer. The coffee flavor in an ale is a nice change from coffee stouts. It was a little bit sweet, so I don't think I could drink too many in one day.

I moved on to Allagash from there and tried their Black, which was a Belgian-style stout. This beer smelled very sweet and not like the standard stouts. While I wasn't a huge fan of the flavor, it was very light and easy drinking. It would be a good cookout beer I think.

Next up was Defiant's Medusa IPA. This was an odd beer that didn't smell or taste very hoppy. It actually had a kind of weird flavor and a very heavy feeling aftertaste. I was not really feeling it.

After having three different styles of beers, I decided to keep mixing things up and went with a traditional stout, the Oatmeal Stout from Trout River. This was a dark brown beer instead of being black, and it's flavor also wasn't quite as stout as I was expecting. After every sip, I kept thinking "I gotta have more stout! Or more cowbell! But preferably stout." It was a very smooth beer, and it mellowed out nicely, becoming quite good at the end of the glass.

The fifth beer of the day was another IPA, the Ginga' Ninja from Portsmouth. I am not 100% on this, but I believe the Ginga' part of the name is pronounced like "ginger" but in Boston, making the name rhyme. This was a nice looking IPA with a good hoppiness and flavor. The ginger was a nice complement here, adding to the flavor without being annoying.

Since the ginger worked well in the beer, I thought I'd give the Black Pepper Porter a try. This beer was from Vermont Brewing Company, and it was a weird one. I couldn't pick out any pepper in the aroma or in the flavor, but the beer just tasted odd. But not bad. I think that if it was included in a mix-pack, you wouldn't mind it.

After trying some IPAs and some black pepper, the next logical step was a black IPA. I went with Dark Day from Wormtown, which was hands down the worst named brewery there. Fortunately, they had a delicious beer. Great hop aroma, good hop flavor and malty balance, and a good bitter IPA finish. My only issue with it was that the aftertaste hangs out a little too long, feeling sort of sticky.

I should really take the opportunity at these things to try new styles of beer, but I guess I know what I like, and what I like is stouts and IPAs, so that's what I gravitate toward. For example, the Shed Stout, which wasn't very stoutlike at first, but turned out nicely after I allowed it to warm up a bit.

From stout to IPA, I tried the Flying Goose Strong Ale, which was fantastic. If this had been a dog show instead of a brewfest, this beer would win Best in Show. It had a perfect combination of citrusy hops and sweet maltiness. I need to find some of these to keep in the fridge. I hope I can get them in Keene, since Flying Goose is a NH brewery.

I supposed I could mix a pale ale in there as well, so I opted for the Pale Ale from Tullycross. I think it had a special name, but I forgot to mark it down and I didn't feel like going back. All I wrote down for this beer was that it was super smooth, so I guess it wasn't especially memorable. I went back for another Strong Ale from Flying Goose after this one because it was just that good.

Based strictly on its name, I tried the Ubu Ale from Lake Placid next. This was just not my kind of beer, so let's move on.

At this point, it was 8:47 pm and Melissa saw a pregnant woman drinking beer, making her the winner of the "Find An Irresponsible Parent" game and earning her the respect and admiration of her peers. Then we all mocked that woman's (lack of) parenting skills.

After all that mocking, it was time for another beer. I chose Jasper Murdock's 90 Schilling Pale Ale, which ended up being a mistake. This beer had too much sweetness and not enough hops for my palette, and had the unfortunate result of "accidentally" getting spilled.

To cleanse the sweetness off my poor tongue, I tried Zero Gravity's Anniversary Ale. This beer was a little hoppy and a lot bitter, and had a nice flavor for its low ABV.

Down to my last ticket, I decided to cap the evening with a guaranteed winner, so it was back to Peak Organic for another Espresso Amber. Alas, much like a year ago, it was not to be as they had run out. I went with their IPA instead. I didn't pay too much attention to it because I was so sad about the beer I wanted being gone. It was an ok beer, but probably not the greatest way to end the night.

Stay tuned for Day 2, which in theory will be posted tomorrow.

-Jon