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Summer is over people.  We in Seattle got our first dose of cold, wet, and windy this week.  No more hot sunny days here.  Time to shelve the light refreshing drinks and stock up on the hearty stuff.

I have a few suggestions.  Let’s start with what you need when you wake up in the dark.  You need a hearty cup of coffee that grabs your attention and charges you up for the day ahead.  You need something as dark as the early morning sky and and as complex as the layer of compost you’ve spread over your dead vegetable garden.  You need a cup of Indonesian Gajah Aceh from the Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland, Oregon.

They describe the coffee as:

Laden with aromas of blackberry compote and tamarind, this cup has flavors of plum, blackberry, toffee and earth, finishing sweetly with buttery caramel.

And when you arrive home from work after your long, dark commute and find yourself craving a cold one, you won’t be wanting a summer ale or IPA, you are going to want something thick and toasty.  May I suggest the 2009 edition of Deschutes Jubelale? 

The world’s best brewery describes their beer as follows:

Jubelale.   Brewed with dark crystal malt creating a luscious holiday note with bountiful hops to excite your taste buds— it’s easy to see why Jubelale is the perfect complement to the season.

Get it while you can.

Not into beer?  How about a wine?  A really intense red wine?  The French do it best.  Go buy yourself some 2007 Domaine Des Hauts Chassis Crozes-Hermitage.

 K&L Wine Merchants says:

The 2007 Hauts Chassis is elegant and refined, with violet, mocha and nutmeg spice aromatics, followed by supple and bright notes of black cherry, blackberry and savory notes.  Enjoy now and over the next 10 years with braised meats or a selection of cheeses.

You can buy it at Pike and Western Wine Shop in the Pike Place Market.  (Don’t buy all of it, because I need some more.) 

Okay then there now… you’ve got your drinking orders, now go drink!

I tried unsuccessfully to make black-and-tans on St. Patrick’s Day.  When I poured my bottled Guinness over a spoon on to the Bass, it did not float on top, it just mixed right in with the Bass.  I found out it was because I was using the wrong kind of Guinness.  I tried it again the next day with Guinness draught in a bottle that contained a Guinness widget.  I poured it over the Bass Ale and it floated on the top just like it does in the video.

A former Dubliner who lives on my block told me that he would never drink a Black and Tan.  He’s informed me there’s no such drink in Ireland.  The concoction is an American invention.  Well that figures…

He chided me for even attempting it with widgetless Guiness. 

I read up the widget today, and you can too if you go here.

Basically the widget is a small “rocket shaped” plastic container  (originally the device was round) that absorbs a bit of the beer in the bottle or can after it is sealed, and then, when the container is opened, squirts it back out to create a “genuine” Guiness head on your beer.

No more Bass in the fridge, so I’ll be drinking my Guinness straight up like an Irishman tonight.

1. Buy yourself some cans of Guinness Draught.
2. Buy yourself some Bass Ale or Harp Lager.
3. Pull that big Imperial Pint Glass from your cupboard.
4. Fill the glass half full with Bass Ale or Harp Lager.
5. Hold a tablespoon upside down inside the glass with the tip touching the side keeping the spoon as level as possible.
6. Very gently pour the Guinness on top of the Bass Ale until the glass is full.
7. Drink!

For those of you who are already too drunk to read, here’s a video guide from Hop-Talk.com:

Of course you could visit your local Irish bar and ask the bartender to do this for you.

Drink another one and try and forget about the mess our country is in.

Cheers!

I just completed the 2008 Race to Robie Creek, the Northwest’s Toughest Half Marathon. My time was 02:03:32. Not bad, 613th out of 2,431 and 114th out of 230 in my age group. You can view my photos on MySpace in my Race to Robie Creek Album.

There are several things which make this race difficult. The course is a 13.1 mile half marathon which gains more than 2,000 feet in elevation to Aldape Summit in 8.4 miles. From there the course plummets more than 1,700 feet in the final 4.7 miles.

Mile 8 was perhaps the most brutal. An incredibly steep climb to the summit, punctuated by a rowdy group of fans/detractors offering, among other things, cupcakes, donuts, jell-o shots, beer, champagne, Crown Royal, and cigars. A sucker for temptation, I gave into the first 4, all without stopping. The donut was the hardest to get down, it dried up my mouth even more than it already was.

After 8.4 miles up, it is time to go down the backside… My fastest mile was the first down the backside, estimated at about 5 minutes, mostly because I could not slow down. Miles 11 – 13.1 were particularly brutal, mainly because they started to level out and my legs started screaming at me.

But by the time I made it to the finish, it was all worth while. A picnic area on Robie Creek filled with fellow runners, live music, beer, shepherd’s pie, baked potatoes, cookies, brownies, and more beer.

I am already planning on 2009. Next year I will be sub 2 hours!

Additional coverage over at the Idaho Statesman, including a Robie Creek photo gallery.

Seventy-five years ago today, the prohibition on beer ended. 

This is a photo of thirsty patrons lined up about ten deep at Berghoff’s Cafe in Chicago waiting to purchase their first frosty brews after over thirteen years of temperance.

Most people remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt for “The New Deal,” but he also campaigned with a promise to end prohibition. 

Beer was the first alcoholic beverage made legal again after he took office. All other alcoholic beverages were legal again in December of 1933 after the eighteenth amendment was repealed.

So raise a glass of beer today and toast President Roosevelt.

Cheers!

Small brewers of tasty craft beers are going through some hard times.  The cost of ingredients has gone way up so, in order to stay in business, they’ve been forced to raise prices. 

According this article in the Seattle Weekly, one of the factors contributing to the quadrupling of the price of hops is that farmers responded to the increased demand for corn used in ethanol by digging up their hop plants and planting corn.

Come on people!  Which would you really rather have?  Another biofuel product to dump in your car or a tasty handcrafted ale?

I thought so… So as they say at Boundary Bay Brewing Co. in Bellingham, Washington, Save the Ales! 

Stop by the store on the way home today and buy yourself a six-pack of your favorite local microbrew. 

If you are already home, walk (that’s right… walking lowers the demand for ethanol) to your nearest store and buy two six-packs.  You’ll need two to stay balanced.

In what appears to be the world’s worst case of Beer Goggles, a Serbian man at a beer festival over the weekend apparently thought he was about to get lucky with a couple of ladies. He stripped naked and climbed in to an enclosure thinking it was a “Beer Cage”. He was promptly eaten by bears.

From Reuters via CNN:

A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival.

The man was found naked, with his clothes lying intact inside the cage. Two adult bears, Masha and Misha, had dragged the body to their feeding corner and reacted angrily when keepers tried to recover it.

“There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,” zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.

Local media reported that police found several mobile phones inside the cage, as well as bricks, stones and beer cans.

It’s always a sad day for me when I drink my last

Didn’t see any in the grocery store today either…

I’ll have to endure the next nine months without my favorite beer.