Tag Archives: Beer

Happy New Year!

Helen and I spent a qui­et evening in our neigh­bor­hood. We ate a deli­cious din­ner at Mem­phis Tap­room — short ribs on a seafood grits bed — and I had a flight of Gift of the Magi, Port San­ta’s Lit­tle Helper, and Nøgne Ø‘s God Jul. The beer was amaz­ing as well. Our sec­ond New Year’s Eve din­ner was just as great as our first.

We can’t say enough how much we love that place and the peo­ple who work there. It’s like an exten­sion of our liv­ing room and kitchen. It’s our Cheers. We get great ser­vice, great food, and great beer. It’s hard to believe it’s been open less than two years. It feels like it’s been there forever.

We spent the rest of the evening at home, watch­ing movies, drink­ing beer, wait­ing for Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest to count down to the New Year. It’s a minor mir­a­cle that Helen and I were able to stay awake to see the ball drop. Char­lie’s usu­al­ly wak­ing us by 4:30 in the morning!

The start of 2010 was much more com­fort­able than where we found our­selves on Y2K. As Helen and I sat on the couch, watch­ing tele­vi­sion, I could­n’t help but think how lost we were last year after we board­ed the R5 in the wrong direc­tion, jumped off at Wayne Junc­tion, and found our­selves strand­ed there until Helen’s aunt and uncle picked us up. We did­n’t even have cell­phones back then!

To add insult to injury, we end­ed up there after going to see G. Love at the Elec­tric Fac­to­ry. No fur­ther com­ment necessary.

As we start 2010, we’re thank­ful for our friends and fam­i­ly who’ve been there for us all along. We feel very lucky in these try­ing times. Here’s to a great 2010 and the decade ahead!

Merry Christmas!

Delir­i­um Noël, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ram­say.

I drank my way to the per­fect Christ­mas. No, I did­n’t drink myself into a stu­por, only to spend the hol­i­day in a soporif­ic haze. I think I actu­al­ly drank the per­fect amount of beer to enjoy myself and still be help­ful with Charlie.

I shared a bomber of Delir­i­um Noel Christ­mas night, but the real sur­prise was a six­er of Lagu­ni­tas Brown Shug­ga I picked up at Weg­man’s. Deli­cious! If you see any at your local dis­trib­u­tor, be sure to pick it up. It’s a per­fect beer for the hol­i­days, and it’s decep­tive­ly easy drink­ing, even at 9.8% ABV. Watch out!

I found myself just a tad dis­ap­point­ed in Bel­l’s Win­ter White Ale. I am all for a lighter beer around the hol­i­days, but this felt more like a sum­mer beer with a new label slapped on the bot­tle. I think it was a mis­take on my part to expect a del­i­cate win­ter warmer at 5.0% ABV.

If there’s one res­o­lu­tion I man­aged to keep this year, it was my effort to broad­en my palate when it comes to craft beer. I think the days of me hoist­ing IPA after IPA are behind me. I’m try­ing sub­tler fla­vors (and low­er ABVs.) I’d like to take a class next year to fig­ure out the fin­er points of beer, rather than just pre­tend I know how to iden­ti­fy any­thing that isn’t a mas­sive hops fla­vor. Can any­one rec­om­mend a good one in the Philly area?

Last, but not least, I’d like to thank the great Philly beer writ­ers for intro­duc­ing me to new and dif­fer­ent brews through­out 2009. I don’t know where or what I’d be drink­ing were it not for Lew Bryson, Jack Curtin, Joe Six­pack, and Suzy Woods. Plen­ty of peo­ple say — right­ful­ly so — that Philly’s a great beer city. They’re right, but they’d be mis­tak­en if it weren’t made bet­ter by the peo­ple I’ve list­ed here.  If you live in Philly and like beer and you’re not read­ing their blogs, you’re prob­a­bly miss­ing out on some great stuff. They’re all invalu­able to the Philly beer scene. If you see them out, be sure to buy them a pint!

Bøgedal No. 146

Bøgedal 146, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ram­say.

My friend Tom­my told me that Bøgedal and Mikkeller were the two must-have Dan­ish beers. I man­aged to tuck a bot­tle of the for­mer into my lug­gage on the trip home and I can assure you that this dark Christ­mas beer did­n’t disappoint.

I need to find a way to get more of this stuff!

The Phillies: Beer and Baseball

The Phillies start their title defense as they play host tonight to the vis­it­ing Atlanta Braves in the sea­son open­er at Cit­i­zen’s Bank Park. Helen and I did­n’t get tick­ets to tonight’s game, so we decid­ed to catch the first of two On Deck pre­sea­son matchups against last year’s World Series run­ners-up, the Tam­pa Bay Rays.

It was an amaz­ing, if blus­tery, night. We sat under the over­hang in sec­tion 137 and watched Pat Bur­rell warm up on his old left field stomp­ing grounds. It was an emo­tion­al moment for Helen and me. We both felt that we real­ly got to “know” Pat in his last sea­son as a Phillie, and sup­port­ed him in our cus­tom­ary seats in sec­tion 143 with rau­cous cheers. We did the same for him last Fri­day, even though he now wears a Rays uniform.

The Phillies hon­ored Pat’s career with a pre-game mon­tage that start­ed when he signed with the team in 1998 right up until he spoke at last fal­l’s World Series cel­e­bra­tion. It was chock full of great mem­o­ries, both good and bad. Pat walked out of the dugout and doffed his cap at the Phillies faith­ful. Pat may not have the great­est rep­u­ta­tion, but on the field, he’s a true class act.

On a lighter note, I was able to enjoy one of three new addi­tions to the Cit­i­zen’s Bank Park beer selec­tion, pair­ing a Troegs Sun­shine Pils with one of Hat­field­’s finest processed meat prod­ucts. Deli­cious! I fig­ure if you’re either pay­ing near­ly dou­ble for Bud­weis­er swill, or you can get one of Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s finest craft brews for $6.75. I fig­ure it’s a great ratio­nale for choos­ing the good stuff when you’re out at the ballpark!

Dogfish Head Simul-cask @ Memphis Taproom

Last Thurs­day was a ban­ner night for this beer lover. I met my friend Adam and we strolled on over to Mem­phis Tap­room to enjoy a great Dog­fish Head stunt tap­ping for their 75 Minute IPA. We got there a lit­tle ear­ly think­ing we might have to twid­dle our thumbs for a minute before they tapped the cask, but no, we were just in time to knock down a few pints of this great IPA.The 75 Minute IPA blends their trade­mark 60 and 90 Minute IPAs, result­ing in a remark­ably smooth IPA that will still knock you flat if you’re not careful.

Adam and I end­ed up hav­ing a won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tion with my friend Der­rick, anoth­er Mem­phis Tap reg­u­lar and ama­teur beer afi­ciona­do like myself. We dis­cussed the mer­its of Dog­fish Head­’s approach to brew­ing and how great it is to be sand­wiched between so many great brew­eries, all of which are doing dif­fer­ent, dis­tinc­tive things. Dog­fish Head real­ly does a great job of brew­ing sig­na­ture IPAs, com­ple­ment­ed nice­ly by great sea­son­als. I think their spring and sum­mer beers, both of which fea­ture great fruit fla­vors, are among the most refresh­ing I drink, with­out being sick­en­ing­ly sweet.

As an aside, I want­ed to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to men­tion Jay Hin­man’s great beer blog, Hedo­nist Beer Jive. Some of you may rec­og­nize Jay from his leg­endary music blog, Agony Short­hand. Now, instead of debat­ing issues of race with Black to Comm, he’s telling you why he won’t pony up for expen­sive bombers of Russ­ian Riv­er Con­se­cra­tion (and I don’t blame him!) Jay’s always been a great read, and his beer writ­ing is just as fun and engag­ing as his music writ­ing ever was.