Category ArchiveEverywhere Once |

Show Me the Marshmallow

by Shannon on July 15, 2013 in Food & Drink, Oregon, Travel, United States

“The S’more Stout is an absolute all-star: Aromas of chocolate, coffee, fig, and smoke invite you in to a gigantic maltiness that is distinct in its smooth and refined character, with flavors of chocolate and hints of smoke mingling with rich caramel, fruit, and warming alcohol. Top with a roasted marshmallow and you have the ultimate S’more experience!”

Who could resist that decadent description? Of all the options in craft beer mecca Portland, Base Camp Brewing won us over with those two sentences. Mostly, we wanted the roasted marshmallow – not to mention a beer that could handle one.

You’re Not Worthy

by Brian on March 8, 2013 in California, Food & Drink, Travel, United States

It takes a stone arrogant bastard of a brewery to, just 15 months after tapping its first keg, release a new beer and brand it Arrogant Bastard Ale. Even more so to market it with copy like this:

This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. . . If you don’t like it, keep it to yourself – we don’t want to hear from any sniveling yellow-swill-drinking wimps ‘cause Arrogant Bastard wasn’t made for you.”

Slightly over a decade later, those arrogant bastards of Stone Brewing were named “All-time Top Brewery on Planet Earth” by Beer Advocate Magazine. Shortly thereafter founder Greg Koch received knighthood from the Belgian Brewers Federation. Arrogance, for sure, but apparently also with the sack (or should we now say squirely sword) to back it up.

Meet Meat

by Brian on October 29, 2012 in Food & Drink

One thing I never noticed about cows is how absolutely adorable they are. And thinking that, I couldn’t help thinking about something else. About how arbitrarily we categorize things. And also about the consequences of those categorizations. Dogs are pets, for example, while cows are food.

Those differences are cultural, of course, which is just another way of saying that they’re what our parents and neighbors believed. And they believed what they did for no other reason than their parents and neighbors before them believed those same things. If we had been born in India, where cows are often revered, we’d see things entirely differently.

If that is true then it is also true that our strongly held feelings regarding meat (among other things) are really based on nothing more than random chance. There is no law of nature dictating that we react with horror at the thought of eating Fido but be completely indifferent to the sight of Bessie on our plate. It’s simply what we’re used to. A more rational approach to our foods would have us either recoiling at eating all dead animals or at none of them.

Hop-a-Palooza

by Brian on October 10, 2012 in Food & Drink

Crafty brew-crafters long ago discovered that increasing a beer’s alcohol and hop content also considerably increased its shelf life. A useful discovery for Imperial Brits trying to concoct a brew stout enough to survive the long journey from England, around the Horn of Africa, to its subjects in India – all without the aid of refrigeration. More recently, Americans have discovered a seemingly insatiable taste for this highly hopped style now commonly referred to as India Pale Ale.

My first introduction to the beautifully bitter American IPAs came in the early 1990s via California brewer Sierra Nevada. For years their Pale Ale was not only my beer of choice but was also the only IPA I could find on east coast shelves – and then only in specialty shops and bars.

Soon, though, Sierra was everywhere and so too were IPA drinkers. About a decade after my Sierra conversion I got a taste of what was to come when I discovered Dogfish Head’s hoppier, and more expensive, 60 Minute IPA (first brewed in 2003). Shortly thereafter, all hops broke loose.

Drink Utah

by Brian on September 21, 2012 in Food & Drink, Travel, United States, Utah

Wasatch Brewery, Park City, Utah

It’s hard not to be a little disappointed. From all we had heard about Utah’s liquor laws we thought going there would be like visiting some bizarre alternate universe where drinks could be served but not seen. So great was the hype about Utah’s toughest in the nation alcohol restrictions that we contemplated smuggling our own stash over the border like modern day Al Capones.

But our laziness bested our ambition, and we failed to stock our cupboards before arriving. At least, we figured, we’d accumulate stories about harried adventures navigating Prohibition-style liquor laws. What we found instead was all too ordinary, if only because most of the rest of the country is no less bonkers when it comes to booze.