A Beer Review of My Own

I may look like a Johnny-Come-Lately on this one, but I swear to you I have intended on doing this blog since I drank this beer (last night.)

Then Cyclonic has to come along and steal my thunder.

Truly, it makes me happy as it proves great minds think alike.... But I digress. Today I'm going to steal a lot of text from the Stone Brewing Company's website. When I do so, you will know because it will be in red text. I'm sure they won't mind as I am giving them free advertising to what I really think is a great idea.

I only patronize two establishments of adult beverages on a regular basis. One of those is Callaghans in Greensburgh, PA. Callaghans is like the neighborhood bar where everyone knows your name. It doesn't have a great selection of beers, but us regulars love it.

The second is Dawg's. Dawg's is a bottle shop that has around 480 different types of beers to purchase singly in bottles (or a mixer six pack!) The staff is knowledgable and friendly, and you could go broke on twenty-dollar bottles of beer. I tend to only have one or two when I go, sticking right around the 5-10 dollar area.

Last night was no exception. I started out with La Fin du Monde by Unibroue, one of my favorite blondes. Then I wanted to try something new. So as I was walking along the display coolers, my eye caught the Stone Brewery rack. I've long enjoyed Ruination, so I figured I'd like to try something else by this wonderful company. This is how I happened upon Stone Vertical Epic 07.07.07...

As with any good epic, herein lies the promise of larger-than-life experiences, heroics and twists & turns as the adventure unfolds. These bottle-conditioned ales are specifically designed to be aged until sometime after December 12th, 2012. Provided you can wait that long. At that time, enjoy them in a "vertical" tasting. Each one unique to it's year of release. Each with its own "twist & turn" in the plotline. Each one released one year, one month and one day from the previous year's edition.

So here's the deal. Stone decided to release ELEVEN different beers, each bearing the Stone Vertical Epic name. The brews released so far are:

Stone Vertical Epic 02.02.02
Stone Vertical Epic 03.03.03
Stone Vertical Epic 04.04.04
Stone Vertical Epic 05.05.05
Stone Vertical Epic 06.06.06
Stone Vertical Epic 07.07.07

These will continue to be released up until 12.12.12 at which point, you are supposed to have a vertical tasting, first to last! That's right, these beers are conditioned to continue to age in the bottle until after the last edition. The flavor will keep changing and the flavors will blend and mellow until being perfect AFTER 12.12.12.

Of course, the one I tried last night was the newest, 07.07.07. Here is it's description:

In this year's edition we took our inspiration from two Belgian styles: Saisons and Golden triples. As such, the Stone 07.07.07 Vertical Epic has a deep, deep golden hue and the flavor is spicy, fruity, complex and refreshing. We used four different malts, and a subtle, yet distinct, blend of Glacier and Crystal hops to get just the right balance. Then, for complexity, we added in some exotic spices --- including ginger, cardamom, grapefruit peel, lemon peel, and orange peel (the latter three acknowledging our Souther California home) --- and a special Belgian yeast strain. All in all this is yet another case of us drawing from classic Belgian influences and cavalierly making it our own...San Diego style!

Deep, Deep Golden is right. It's a pleasure to look at. There it was, sitting in a Delirium Tremens glass, just being stunning. It is a very complex beer. Citrusy at a start, then dryer and more spicy, and finally mellowing to an exotic light hoppiness. The flavor seemed to change distinctly with each passing second.

I bought another 07.07.07 to save, now I just gotta get a bottle of all the other ones to stick in my basement and wait till I turn 35.

So, you're from Pittsburgh, ey?

As some of you know, I have recenly taken a trip to Canada. Canada, in case you have never been there, is America's hat. It is roughly the size of Jupiter, but has the population of Ballsac, Iowa. (That is not a real town at all. (I think.(Though it should be.))) Canadians as a whole are very friendly. This is excluding the ones that speak only French. I don't know if they are friendly or not, as I cannot understand them. This, however, did not stop them from talking to me. I had many conversations in one sided French, and though I picked up the word "crepe" many times, I had the feeling they were swearing at me, as French consists of roughly 82% cuss words. *

I guess Canada is a pretty interesting place, if you can make it out from under the trees. I , however, did not. My hotel was actually a tree fort, and I was repeatedly whacked in the shins by some kid name Mortimer while trying to sleep. Apparently he beleived I was a pirate, come to take over his castle. **

I had the following conversation approximately 3 thousand times during my 3 day stay in Canada. (Apparently they like hockey, who knew?):

Random Canadian (RC): "So, where ya from?"
Mr. Yuk (MY): "Pittsburgh"
RC: "Oh, Pennsylvania, ey?"
MY: "Yup."
RC: "So, you know Sidney Crosby then?"
MY: "Not personally, but I am aware he plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins."
RC: "Oh Yeah, You know he grew up about 4 hours from here."
MY: "I was unaware."
RC: "Oh Yeah, he used to come on down here to Bathurst Rink and we'd all go watch him play, He's amazing..."

Eventually this conversation became this:

RC: "So where ya from?"
MY: "Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins where Sidney Crosby, who grew up 4 hours from here, and used to play at Bathurst Rink, now plays hockey."
RC: "Ah, Um, OK nice meetin ya."

Bathurst really is a nice place, with nice beaches, lots of unspoiled nature and amazing seafood.

While in the hotel, I was watching TV, and managed to catch one of those advertisements for 1-900 adult sex lines. They were all in French which provided me with endless mirth. However, here is a difference from US sex advertisements. In Canada, between the segments for the 900 numbers, it cuts to a bunch of young, hip adults sitting in a circle on love-seats. On closer inspection, these adults are holding, uh, toys. And I'm not talking about the batman/barbie variety. They then proceed to speak about these products in French, and then flash a number and price on the screen where you can order said product for, uh, personal use. The best thing about this is that some words apparently don't translate very well. Their diatribe on whatever they were talking about came out sounding like this:

"Mon singe aime prendre son cockring et sauter autour de la maison tout en criant au dessus de ses poumons."***

While I as there, I managed to plant a box.

My travel time (one way) from Pittsburgh to Bathurst was about 11 hours. Only about 4 and a half of it was flying. For the rest I was stuck in layovers, due largely to the overtaxed Bathurst Airport (Make sure you read the writing.):
Oh, and there's lots of maple syrup.

-Sticky Yuk

* - 90% Fact Free **-100% Fact Free ***-100% Factual

Gathers, Boxers, and Beers, OH MY!

This weekend we were able to attend Stampin' and Campin. What a great experience. Throughout the entire brou-ha-ha I forgot to take any pictures at all until the ride home. Real smart.

Some of the highlights:

1. If you ever get a chance to attend a gather thrown by the Mid-Atlantic crowd, I HIGHLY suggest you do so. Hikers and Hounds managed every detail, down to bringing food, arranging for campsite, and some gather-only boxes. She really deserves credit for all she put into this, we had a GREAT time.
2. A large contigent of dogs filled the campsites, all of them boxers as well. Dude the Wonder Dog, Otto, and Luna all had inky doggy-paws. There was also a large black lab who was patrolling the grounds late at night. I failed to catch his name by that point, however, as I was having trouble being coherent. Which leads me to....
3. Booze! Maryland is kind enough to let you do whatever the hell you want in their woods, as long as you do not have more than two cars per campsite. This is the one thing they will strictly enforce, asking you to kindly move your moonshine distillery so the third car in the site next to you can go to the overflow parking lot. We had lots of beer and one illustrious set of boxers were kind enough to bring Johnny Walker. (not the person)
4. We got the oppotunity to box with a team that has been around since the beginning of boxing in the US. I won't reveal who they are as they choose to fly under the radar, but it was really quite the learning experience getting regaled with stories about the origination of cooties, long time boxers, and happenings before we wandered into this wonderful hobby.
5. The STAMPS! Starry Starry Night by MizSarlet is a masterpiece (quite literally) and the homages, personal travelers, and other assorted stamps were a pleasure to ink up.
6. Cyclonic was kind enough to set up a night boxing course. The trail was tricky at night, but we had a wonderful time stumbling around the woods that we hardly nnoticed.
7. Sunday we went boxing again, and found another set of one of my favorite series. At one of the boxes, there was a family literally SITTING on the log it was hidden in, and we simply had to wait for about 10 minutes before they decided to move on.

I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot, but thank you to everyone who made this experience memorable. Longstockings and I felt truly welcome and had a great time.

On the way home, our car started behaving funny, so we pulled over into Frederick airport, thinking if we couldn't fix the problem we could rent a car. To make a long story short, we fixed the problem quickly and decided to get some dinner at the little restaurant in the airport. When we got into the restaurant and looked out the window, here is what we saw:

That's right, the Goodyear f'n blimp was docked at this teensy little airport for the night. How cool is that? There are actually three of them, One based each in Florida, California, and Ohio. It was neat seeing this thing up close.

After eating we were attracted to a micro-box along the Appalacian Trail:

This box is located about 100 yds away from this sign at the FIRST Washington Monument. The thing in the photos below was built in the 1820's by the residents of Boonesboro, MD to honor our First President.

The Pirate and I in the doorway:

The steps up to the top:

What a view!:

All in all, a great weekend with great people. Thank you all for the history, good times and camaraderie.