AaronS

isn't real restaurant the term of art?

that restaurant is in the four season's on the edge of dc's nicest neighborhood. and they mention that.

industrial arts brewing wrench hazy india pale lush & zesty - 7.1% abv. this is another what I think will be the best thing in the bodega post. I've followed the guy behind industrial arts for a long time and liked the majority of the stuff I've had from him, but it's been a while since I've liked one of the one off hoppy beers as much as this and I was happy to find reasonably fresh cans of this on my way home. this is yet another ne ipa hopped with citra and mosaic, but these cans are a little more bitter than most hazy ipas and there's a nice mixture of grapefruit and the usual tropical stuff, and there's some melon and under ripe fruit in the finish. this isn't that detailed, but it's very pleasant and it's been a long time since I've had one of their one off that was anywhere near as good as this.

the woman who served me that told me I probably couldn’t eat it and was polite about it when I bought a second plate of food.

jester king nani ?! japanese-style rice lager - 4.8% abv. this one was made with jasmine rice and sorachi ace hops, which is surprising to me because it tastes nothing like brooklyn brewery’s distinctive saison made with the same hops. this is terrific though, there’s some very light grain notes followed by green tea and mint. that’s stolen from the commercial description, but it’s dead on and better than whatever I would come up with. this really has a lot if flavor for a lager, is completely unique in my experience, and tastes really good. recommended.

lawson's finest sip of sunshine india pale ale - brewed at two roads in connecticut, 8% abv. I'm always embarrassed by how excited about this I was at some point, but it's pretty good sometimes and it was by far the freshest thing in the bodega tonight. there's a nice write up on the lawson's website that I won't bother regurgitating, we all know this is a version of their original citra focused dipa made to be contract brewed, and so on. these cans are almost exactly two weeks old, which is often the sweet spot for "juicy" beer, and there is actually a decent version of the usual citra mango flavors, which are followed by a little bit of pine. this is pretty sweet though, and there's some unpleasant malt stuff in the background that you usually only get in much older beer.

schilling konstantin austrian-style märzen - 5% abv. apparently austrian-style means the kind of amber lager that a lot of german brewers make for the us market, which I should know because I’m pretty sure I’ve had this before. going to schilling’s website tells me this was double decoction mashed and nothing else, but this does have really spectacular malt notes and not much else. this tastes more or less the same as the ayinger beer above it - there’s a nice mixture of caramel and bread with a little bit of herbal hops in the back ground - and while this is a little bit sweeter and the ayinger beer tasted a little more like hops everything about this tastes better and has more depth. I don’t like schilling’s pale lagers as much as the suarez or OEC ones but this is about as good as it gets. strongly recommended and so on.

ayinger privatbraueri oktober fest-märzen authentic bavarian festival lager - 5.8% abv. this is a nice, simple lager. it’s copper colored and some pleasant, straight forward malt notes followed by a little bit of herbal bitterness.

augustiner-bräu münchen maximator starkbier - 7.5% abv. this was one of the first dopplebocke that I had way back when, and I’m sure this beer goes back many hundreds of years. I haven’t seen this in a while, and picked it up without knowing that it’s a seasonal made for lent. this kind of beer should age pretty well (I’ve had really old schbeiderwiesse ones that were sublime) and I’d be surprised if it was brewed for this year’s lent. there’s a some bready caramel at first, followed by a little molasses and some pear. this is far from skunked but there is a little bit of acrid stuff in the finish.

I attended dessert fest this weekend, which was the first festival I’ve been to since the third lolapalooza. they had two stages going on friday, so you only had to choose who you were seeing for the few minutes that the stages overlapped, but there on saturday there were two smaller stages going while the bigger bands you were there to see set up and you had to choose who to watch. I guess most people know how festivals work… the definite highlight was seeing godflesh, which was the first time I’d seen a justin broaderick band in the almost thirty years that I’ve listened to his music. (I know I missed godflesh in high school, but I don’t remember having an opportunity to see jesu even though they were one of my favorite bands for a few years.) they had an immense guitar and bass sound, and the older, lower tempo material they played towards the end of their set was terrific. large parts of the boris set were really enjoyable, but parts of it were really boring, which is typical of boris over the last fifteen years even if they only played material from twenty years ago. conan was really good, the melvins are always good, heavy temple is good, colour haze was terrific (and closer to prog than metal), seeing mondo generator play a kyuss song was terrific even if the rest of their set was boring despite a terrific drum performance, and seeing djunah, whose singer sounds a lot like pj harvey playing harsher music, was a welcome respite from watching hairy dudes play guitar solos. tldr? godflesh rules

alesmith speedway stout imperial stout with cofee - 12% abv. alesmith’s huge versions of european beer styles have been around for as long as I’ve been into beer, and while I’d rather find the barley wine or scotch ale they used to make at key foods I’m glad this is still around. it’s easy to see why, this has adjuncts and is about a third of the price per ounce it used to be. it’s also really good, there are huge chocolate malt notes and a ton of bitterness. it doesn’t taste like good coffee the way a lot of newer beers do, but the big roasted notes are really nice and there’s even some grassy hops in the background. this is pretty well put together, there’s some sweetness that tastes more like coffee, everything is pretty simple but there’s enough detail that every sip is interesting. I like this a lot more than the last couple variants that I’ve had, although there is some apparent alcohol in the finish, but it adds a little bit of anise and doesn’t ruin things for me. strongly recommended to people who want to drink beer from the early aughts.

sierra nevada foam pilsner - crowler, 5.6% abv. this is a draft only release that was I guess was originally made for a phish festival a while back. I haven’t had that many lagers from them, and it’s been a while since they had a year round pilsner in their lineup, but this is more or less what I was hoping it would be. this is bigger than most pilsners but is pretty well put together. there’s a fair amount of noble hop spice here, but it’s a lot maltier than tipopils or luppolo. it’s also a lot better than the way I remember nooner. very mildly recommended.

I have it too. seems much milder this time around, I hope you also have a mild form.

bad brains >> living colour if you ask me. (ignoring the obvious issue)

which supermarket? I haven’t seen them down here.

link doesn’t work

there’s a short thing about the hole on vimeo that has some really surreal footage of urban cowboys riding around the hole. I can’t get my friends to go see it either.

lawson’s finest liquids big hazy ipa hazy dips with oranges - brewed in waitsfield, vt, 9.2% abv. one of the pitfalls of my unceasing nostalgia is sometimes the beers taste like the old beers in the wrong way. lawson’s, as we all know, is one of the progenitors of the vermont ipa, but as I was slow to learn they didn’t really make hazy beer until relatively recently.I really liked the last fruited dipa they sent down here, double sunshine with grapefruit, but what I liked about that is that it was a nice example of an older style double ipa. this is a not so great example of a newish dipa, there’s a lot of bitterness, not that much detail, and it’s pretty hot. there’s no shortage of local breweries that can do this better and so on and on and also on.

see below…

didn't see the dolphins yesterday but the 49ers looked a lot better than the eagles, cowboys, chiefs, lions....

three floyds munsterfest oktoberfest style lager - 6.2% abv. this is a the kind of old school beer that you’d expect three floyds to knock out of the park. this is towards the darker end of the oktoberfest spectrum and tastes every bit as malty as it looks. there’s a terrific mixture of caramel and good dark bread, which are followed by a decent amount of grassy noble hops and a little bit of sweetness. this is a lot hoppier than most festbiers, but it’s balanced and very quaffable. recommended.

I think it’s unquestioned that there’s better options in the freeze dried fruit market, and that they’ll need to lower prices to be competitive.

no offense but being happy with a $34 burger and fries is crazy to me.

glad you’re ok.