I used to love life.
For a time, I hated life. I became cynical, dwelling only on what was wrong. Reveling in negativity. Perpetuating my own bleak outlook and poor attitude.
Then I came the closest I’ve ever come again to dying.
I now love life again. Perhaps more than I ever had previously. Today is Friday – as such, I’m going to celebrate my brief time on the ride with a beer.
Please join me.
I like going on a limb. I don’t do it often enough, but I really enjoy those moments when I dive in headfirst, not really thinking about what I’m about to get into. Sometimes, this goes terribly wrong and I fall on my face. But other times, it’s simply magic.
Tonight, it’s pure magic.
When I went to the beer store, I was instantly attracted to a certain naughty four-pack. He gave me a cat call and I couldn’t resist. Bourbon County seemed too good to be true — a commemorative stout aged in bourbon barrels. Oh, and not for nothing, but it’s produced by Goose Island, a brewery that has its shit together. Seriously.
I brought the four beers up to the counter. Handed them to the friendly booze dealer. And he, in turn, told me that I would be paying $21.37 for the small collection. Over twenty dollars for four beers?! Where the fuck are we, back in the USSR?!?! I muttered under my breath. This is an astronomical sum of money to pay for less than fifty ounces of beverage. But I wasn’t going to back down. Call it a sixth sense or just plain stupidity, but the newly revealed expense was appealing in a way. As though the maxim you get what you pay for might be true.
Returning to the Krueger Cave, I decided to give the beers a cursory investigation. As per usual, I rocked the brewery website to figure out what I was getting myself into. Bourbon County is described in the following terms;
Brewed in honor of the 1000th batch at our original Clybourn brewpub. A liquid as dark and dense as a black hole with thick foam the color of a bourbon barrel. The nose is an intense mix of charred oak, chocolate, vanilla, caramel and smoke. One sip has more flavor than your average case of beer. A great cigar beer.
I don’t smoke cigars. But I like the idea of smoking cigars. Yeah, I’m a pussy. But don’t blame me, it’s my parents that decided that I had to grow up in the suburbs. Sorry.
Anyways, the aforementioned description is pretty much everything I could hope for in a beer — complex, dense, and touting an open indictment of the fact that most beer tastes like a soggy piece of white bread. This all made the price tag seem slightly less preposterous. Preposterous, yes, but less preposterous. There’s an adverb, damn it! Doesn’t anyone love the language anymore? Am I screaming at a field of corpses, a barren wasteland of linguistic numbskulls?! What the fuck is happening?!
*Ahem*
I popped open a bottle of Bourbon County and tossed that sonofabitch into a beer-drankin’ glass. The first two impressions that I got were that the liquid is blacker than William Hand’s soul and it has a nice fizziness to it. In my admittedly amateur experience, stouts don’t usually carry too much carbonation, so it’s nice to have a little bit of the `ole running against the grain.
Smelling the mouth of my glass, I almost fell on my keister! This shit smells strong! And this makes sense, especially when one considers the fact that Bourbon County has a more-than-potent 13% ABV. Yeah, this isn’t your granny’s lager!
Ok, the real test was at hand. I took a sip held it in my mouth for a few seconds, swished it around and then swallowed. The alcohol coated the inside of my face-hole, offering a warmth on every inch of flesh that it came into contact with. If you’re a regular, run-of-the-mill beer drinker, this shit isn’t for you. If you try to swig it like a Bud Light, you will spontaneously combust. Guaranteed.
As far as the actual flavor, there is a lot going on with a single swig of Bourbon County. There is a smokiness punching its way to the forefront, but it can’t quite shake the tinge of saltiness off its hind legs. Maybe I’m buying too much into the product’s self description, but I swear that a distinct wood note appears, a sensation on the tongue that reminds the drinker that the potable was once stored in a barrel. A fucking barrel!
But seriously, the interplay of a roasted quality with a mild sweetness can’t be understated. I can’t pound Bourbon County, but every small sip is a real reward for my taste buds. This is a beverage to savor. This is a beverage savior.
I cannot express how satisfied I am with the experience this stout is providing. I’ve got my window open, the cool breeze is hitting my inebriated face, and I’m jamming out to Through the Never. I’m halfway finished with the second bottle and I’m feeling good. If only every evening were like this!
I live in Boston, so I’m partial to Sam Adams. But I have to admit, Goose Island has never let me down. In fact, their Bourbon County is remarkably comparable to Sam Adams Utopias. If anything, it has the edge because it’s more drinkable and less expensive.
Bourbon County is the real damn deal.
The grade: A
Today is the last day of February vacation. I know, I know — I shouldn’t complain, seeing as most jobs don’t include an occasional week-long break. Hell, these days, people are willing to take all sorts of jobs without benefits. With that being said, I’ve certainly enjoyed the time off and have wanted to make the most of these final vacation hours.
So what have I done to maximize my Friday-no-work time? Well, a major portion of this afternoon has been spent watching Raging Bull on YouTube and drinking beer.
But before we get to the beer, I feel the need to interject a bit of movie-rambling. After all, I’ve got a buzz on and OL is my zone to do so. To anyone out there that thinks The Departed is an amazing movie — you’re wrong. It’s pretty good. For a remake. But it’s not that spectacular. Yeah, I know, the use of the Boston accent is just wonderful (oh wait, no it isn’t…it’s fucking infuriating). But the bottom line is that it’s nothing more than a solid flick.
Okay, here come the arguments about how all the great awards it swept up signify its excellence. Let’s just be honest for a second; the only reason it got so many damn Academy Awards is because (historically) Scorsese got fucked over so many times. Let’s take a peak at an abridged list of Marty’s movies that won neither Best Picture nor Best Director:
Taxi Driver
Raging Bull
The Color of Money
Goodfellas
Casino
Gangs of New York
Watching Raging Bull today, I just couldn’t help but think of how overrated The Departed is. Maybe it’s because I live just outside of Boston, but I saw a lot of people lose their minds over that fucking movie. Which is unfortunate, because Scorsese is better than that. Much better
Anyways, this is the Friday Brew Review, so let’s get to the beer!
A few weeks back, I sampled a beverage by the peeps at Goose Island and was blown away. So when I spied Goose Island’s Sofie at the liquor store today, I had no qualms about purchasing a bottle. I didn’t need to read a description or ask a clerk’s opinion — my previous experience with the brewery was sufficient.
Pouring Sofie into a standard glass, I took a moment to admire its color. This beer is a light, almost pale shade of orange that is cloudier than clear. If I were an interior decorator, I’d probably use this color as for a damn sun room (do people have those anymore?). But from its appearance, Sofie seems like a drink worth tossing back in the hopes of being refreshed.
Before sipping on this bubbly destroyer of inhibitions, I checked out the Goose Island website. This is what they had to say about Sofie:
Fermented with wild yeasts and aged in wine barrels with orange peel, Sofie is a tart, dry, sparkling ale. A subtle, spicy white pepper note, a hint of citrus from the orange peel and a creamy vanilla finish make Sofie an intriguing choice for Champagne drinkers and beer drinkers who are fond of Belgian Saisons.
As I consumed Sofie, I found the citrus notes to be both overwhelming and wonderful. Drinking it in, I found myself thinking of the beer as a sort of sweet, sparkling grapefruit juice. Wait — isn’t grapefruit juice healthy? Yeah, I think it is. So if Sofie is a sort of grapefruit juice that can get you drunk…well, that’s all the better.
What I didn’t taste were any of the spicy or pepper-based flavors described above. In fact, to me Sofie is the exact opposite – a very mild and palatable beer. In my experience, this brew goes down the hatch with a smoothness that borders on downright creamy.
However, this is a creaminess that isn’t heavy or taxing. Instead, it’s a perfect texture, a liquid weighted in such a way as to be worthwhile even before factoring in flavor. When I close my eyes, I can imagine myself drinking Sofie in the warm sunshine of a Memorial Day barbeque. God damn do I hate winter.
Sofie is tart and fragrant, light and flavorful, filling and refreshing.
For its efforts: A-
And now, the trailer for Raging Bull:
Tonight, despite my blood oath, I went back to Beacon Hill Wine & Gourmet to pick up my weekly syrup. No, not sizzurp! You know, beer! The sweet ambrosia with which the gods wined socialized and made merry! The GOOD STUFF!!!
Anyways, I hung my head and marched into the very store that I had sworn off a mere two months ago. I wasn’t happy about this decision, but I was in a time crunch and thus forfeited my foolish pride. Which, quite frankly, was really hard for me. Some days, foolish pride is the only ace I have up my sleeve.
To my delight, this second trip to Beacon Hill Wine & Gourmet was actually enjoyable. Whereas the cashier during the first excursion was a pretentious dongle hell bent on insulting me and then taking my cash, this second adventure saw a helpful young lady rocking the register. Truthfully, she talked and smiled as though she had been pounding Jolt Cola all damn day. But maybe that made her all the more eager to help me. I don’t know. All I do know is that thanks to a caffeine-riddled bloodstream of one female clerk, Beacon Hill Wine & Gourmet have officially been taken off of my shit list. Kudos.
With the assistance of the aforementioned caffeine-junkie, I snagged a bottle of Pere Jacques 2009. I was first drawn to this ale by its understated and classy looking label. Living in an era in which the docile masses clamor for cold-activated labels, I was drawn to the simplicity of Pere Jacques. Other than the name, year, and brief description of the product, all that adorned the heavy-paper label was the brewery’s official seal. Yes, I could tell right away that Goose Island had sold me on one of their brews.
Having never even heard of the brewery, I hit up the Goose Island website. Their story, from what I can tell, isn’t dissimilar to that of Sam Adams — at some point in the 1980’s, Chicago-based beer-lover John Hall decided that he was fed up with the (lack of) choices available to the American public. He embarked upon a craft-beer journey; with rapid expansion in the 1990’s, the Goose Island crew became a well-established enterprise.
Ok, ok, great — so it’s beer made by people that like beer. That’s encouraging, but I still had no clue what the fuck a Pere Jacques was. Honestly, it sounds like a French explorer, a sexual maneuver only possible on honeymoons, or some combination of the two. Remembering that I had bought the bottle simply because of it’s fancy visage, I checked its side and found the following;
Abbey Ale inspired by visits to Belgium. 8% alcohol by volume, 650mL — 1 Pint 6 FL OZ. Develops in the bottle for up to five years. Contains live yeast. A sediment may form.
I poured the stuff into a wine glass. I’m not sure if that’s the proper technique (in fact, I’m fairly certain that it isn’t), but it just felt right. Again, not to harp on this thought, but the beer just exuded a classy aura and I wanted to do right by it. In the glass, Pere Jacques 2009 glimmered all sorts of wonderful caramel hues. Yes, the liquid was as appealing as its container. Knowing that it looked good, I wanted to know if it actually tasted good.
Sniffing at the mouth of the ill-fitting glass, I detected up a distinct fruitiness. I still can’t decide whether what my nose detected was more apple or pear, but it was definitely something had to be picked from a tree. Even with all the sweetness, a wonder-scent of alcohol still made its way through — not as pungent as hard liquor, but just enough to remind the drinker that this was not a beverage to shrug off.
Ok, so let’s get to the taste (Thank the Maker!) — Pere Jacques 2009 is fucking awesome. That fruity aroma is definitely present in the flavor, helping to push this ale into some distinctly tart territories. With that being said, there is also a strong undercurrent of sweetness, an almost caramel theme during the drinking process (wow, what a pretentious description). Honestly, this beer is astoundingly well-rounded. The slightly elevated alcohol content zings my mouth, and Pere Jacques reminds me that a beer can make one feel more alive.
Goddamn, this ale is just out of this world. I don’t do this often, but I mean it…
Pere Jacques 2009 – A
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