Mared-ce la vie...

there will come a time (probably in the next few hours) when our beloved and perhaps overly delicious Maredsous 8 run will end. i've ordered the flowers and the deli-tray so we can all gather around the tap handle and weep quietly.

but while we mourn the loss of that magical, dry belgian dubbel that graced those perfect flute-shaped glasses, someone will be downstairs tapping a new beer. we don't expect you to welcome it at first. we're not buying you a new dog after telling you that the old dog is living on a farm now. no, we're buying you a HORSE!

and that horse of a beer is Avery Maharajah Double IPA. yes, that's right. the very same beer that got me in trouble when i described it as having a certain "pet odor". the very beer that i NOW know hints at a perfectly-balanced Cascade backbone in it's uric-acid aroma. a beer that stands up, shouts from the orange amber hues of it's soul that it will remind you of pine forests and butter-scotch or it will drain itself into your mouth trying.

and you owe it to your new pet to take a ride. that's right...ride that pony. yeah, i said it.

Beerfest, Beerfest, Beerfest!!!

It's that time of year again. The All About Beer Magazine "World Beer Festival". This years line-up looks pretty solid http://www.allaboutbeer.com/wbfraleigh/beer_lineup.html. Lets just hope they all show! There are a few glaring absences though, one of my favorite breweries Founders will not be represented. We will definitely be out there hocking pickles so come by and say "Hello!" Or stop by between sessions for a cold one!

Music for Drinking Beer (pt. 1)

oh rainy days. waking up without responsibility or requirement; just the gentle insistent tapping of perfectly-spaced raindrops on the bedside window. my curtains give the light a green ocean-foam mist and after stocking the fridge with my nights "events", i pulled my chair luxuriously in front of the iTunes machine.

Fleet Foxes. all the best harmony and qualities of a latter-day Big Star production. buzzing guitar strings, tambourine buried so deep in the mix it almost sounds like the rain buzzing. the voice of a touched angel, azraelic in its ability to raise itself from a stroking syllable into an insistent and begrudginly-holy wail. it grabs the instrumentation by the 6th-notes and pulls it up a half-stride behind and then both spiral like spring samaras back to earth on a puff of breeze. there is, indeed, a wind that none can feel; driving the calculations, emotions and wayward glances of the world. this may just be it.

and right now, i'm having a nice glass of Kasteel Donker. it is the base of Kasteel Brune and right now, it is pulling me up and up, at a relaxing tack, into the beauty of the rest of the evening.

whoa.