There’s always another horizon…

I’m 56 years old and as my dear wife is fond of saying about herself, I’m of a certain age…

Today, I’m of a certain age at which I contemplate horizons. Oh, not what you think (though that “certain age” does lend itself to such ruminations)… we all have many horizons that we may or may not chase, and that we may not or may want to cross.

A return to beer?

Misleading title…I’ve only stopped posting about beer here since I created my beer page (with the curious, started as a joke but I’ll stick with it name We Like Beers) almost four years ago. I still like beer. Okay…I have an ADD affectation for it – “Oooh! Another one!”

I had a Dogfish Head Pennsylvania Tuxedo Pale Ale today. It is brewed with Pennsylvania spruce tips, measures 8.5% and is pretty good. I’m not much of a DFH fan, but now and then they surprise me. This one is a pretty orange amber color, good lacing, nice malts, and a sneaky ABV. The spruce comes in at the aftertaste and is quite welcome.

I also had a Tröegs Independent Brewing JavaHead Stout today. It’s a milk stout brewed with coffee and unlike a lot of other coffee infused beers, and unlike a lot of milk stouts, it works. Milk stouts tend to be pretty thin as a rule, but this one isn’t as thin as others. And coffee in beer is a miss or hit…usually the former…and yet, again, it works in this one.

Finally… for this post, anyway…Community Beer, Co. in Dallas makes a Legion Russian Imperial Stout that is pretty good on its own. They’ve aged a series in different barrels for the past few years which makes it even better (sort of). The first four were in highly unimaginative (and thoroughly wasteful of potentially good beer) bourbon barrels – hence the “sort of”. I unintentionally discovered that last year’s batch was aged in The Macallan barrels and went on a SAR mission to find some, coming away with two four packs, savoring one and spreading the love with the other. So…I watched for the details this year and they indulged in some sanity and aged the Legion in Jamaican Rum barrels, releasing it on October 29th (2017). I don’t have favorites, rather favored beers and this has become one of mine. I picked up a four pack for me and a four pack for my two oldest sons and their better partners. (Then I nabbed another four…while thinking I need to lay up a few more!) The beer is smooth and the rum is an excellent complement.

Favored.

We’ll see if I can add to this blog more beer in the future.

Prost! (The German word…not Romanian {wink})

Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love by Simran Sethi – review

Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love by Simran Sethi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What’s not to like? Wine, Chocolate, Coffee, Beer, and Bread? (Plus one more that I’ll get to…)

Sethi breaks each examination into three parts…a mix of her personal history with the food and historical history (wasn’t sure how else to put that); looks at sourcing and the impacts of high yield hybrids and strains on the higher quality beans, grains, yeasts, grapes, etc. – loss of diversity; and a short section on how the experts suggest enjoying each. She does a good job telling the story of the small farmers, vintners, chocolatiers “operating on the slimmest og magins”, trying to make a living.

I liked most of what Sethi wrote, highlighting a few quote-worthy segments…

Beer and Coffee Snobbery

A synonym for “snob” is “highbrow”, which in turn has some synonyms which I’ll shamelessly admit I’ve been called, and some certainly not: cerebral, scholarly, wise, bookish, brainy, cultivated, cultured (haven’t been mistaken for that), erudite, intelligent, intellective (I like that one!), learned, studious.

All those sound better than “snob”, but snob I am when it comes to coffee and beer.