Snuphy
Shared on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 10:48
My Bro-in-law visited over the weekend. He brought me a belated birthday gift: beer. It’s an India Pale Ale from a small brewery in southeastern Delaware. When I first saw my 24 new friends in the fridge, I worried about my beer palate. Since I’ve been abusing it with Natty Lt the last bunch of months, I wondered if it was still capable of identifying a decent beer. Happily, it can.
I’m not sure I’d have discovered this beer on my own. I shy away from IPA’s as I find many to have an excessively bitter bite. This one does not, probably due to the subtle sweetness provided by the “ridiculous” amount of barley. But it’s not too sweet, either, which is also a turn off for me. It is delicious.
I have to admit I don’t understand the finer meaning of “60 minute hop addition” or “ridiculous amount of English two-row barley” or “dry-hop” or “why aren’t you wearing pants”. I assume that’s all just beer geek for “yummy”. What I do understand is that little print in the lower right hand corner: “9% Alc. By Vol”.
I drank a couple on an empty stomach while cooking supper Sunday evening. That made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I had another with chicken fajitas. I felt even better, and warmer, and fuzzier. The one after dinner made me giddy. It was then my wife began to laugh at me, and accused me of four beer intoxication. It was wonderful.
I switched to the cheap, lightly flavored, lightly alcoholic wussy crap for the rest of Sunday night. Not because I was scared, but because at that stage, I had stopped savoring the good stuff. Since then, I’ve been trying to stretch out the life expectancy of my friends, imbibing only one or two at a sitting.
And probably more importantly, it was nice to have my brother-in-law around for the weekend. We only see him once a year at a family gathering. Focus at said gathering is mostly on management of children and grandparents, so there really isn’t much opportunity to get to talk to him one on one. Since he was flying solo at my place, there was ample time to get caught up. That was pretty cool.
The box of fine beverages he brought me was just a bonus.
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Comments
Submitted by Claude505 on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 11:10
Submitted by MikeTheKnife on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 11:16
Submitted by JPNor on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 11:17
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 01:11
Submitted by Snuphy on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 19:02