Sunday, July 11, 2010

Beer for the apocalypse [Beth, the dramatic one]

Let's pretend your city flooded, you were driving around in it, finally found a safe place to stash your car, carried your groceries across a few blocks through 2 feet of water, and then you/your spouse got into a car accident an hour later. What would you drink?

If you were Ben, you'd go to work and your wife wouldn't let you drive your car to work because a few of your lights were out and your bumper was living on a prayer.

If you were me, you'd have a good college friend and her girlfriend over and have some beers.

Earlier this week we had a small party for Ben's friends in honor of his new job in beer! That's right, he quit Starbucks and is now an assistant manager at the kickass fair-priced, super-cool-but-not-full-of-themselves beer bar, Cambridge Common. I'm always worried we won't have enough to drink, so now we have an entire beer shelf with about 36+ beers on it leftover. Oops!

My choices to forget worrying about Ben:

Ipswich IPA: fruity, grapefruity and piney, not-too-heavy, lovely for a hot day. B+
Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale: I think this is my new favorite beer. Makes great brats, too. A Hoppy bite, but drinkable--even if the ABV's in my 6-7.5% ABV "trouble zone" (it doesn't TASTE as alcoholic as a higher ABV beer, but it's definitely more powerful than anything under 6%. I'm mostly likely to overindulge at beers in this range).
Smuttynose Star Island Single: Not my favorite Smuttynose beer, but still enjoyable. B/B+ A bit astringent--I prefer it with the right food.

I tried a sip of Wachusett Ryde, which I just wasn't in the mood for and I drain-poured. A friend brought a six pack and left five. I'll try again with food and re-examine. I wanted something lighter. It's still too hot in Boston.

And yes, I totally prefer beer with food. Dale's Pale is great with or without, though. Perhaps I need lists of beers I like by themselves. Smuttynose Brown Dog? Great on its own. I turned a few people onto that at our BBQ. And Southampton makes some great drinkin' beers. Yes, we got a lot of variety 12 packs!

What about you? What do you like to drink when you fear the four horsemen may be knocking in your neighborhood?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"What do you like to drink when you fear the four horsemen may be knocking in your neighborhood?"

Whatever's in the fridge...obviously, I need to be more prepared.

Lauren and Matt said...

A homebrew. Duh.

Kidding! Kind of.

Matt and I had a Dale's Pale Ale and a Star Island Single (respectively) the other day at the Dogwood. Funny coincidence I wanted to share.