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Five Years, Five Beers

October 24, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Today, in all its falling leafy glory, marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. It’s hard to believe that 1825 days have waxed and waned since I first plugged “Literature and Libation” into WordPress, thinking I was very clever for such thematically appropriate alliteration.

Nostalgia is equal parts funny and sad. I remember my first stabs at beer writing; terrible reviews of Bud Light Platinum and Newcastle Founders Ale written mainly at the urging of my sister. I’m not sure if she actually believed in my ability or just wanted something to break the boredom of her workday, but I have to indirectly thank her for setting me down this wet and wild hopped road.

My timing in starting the blog coincided (perhaps serendipitously) with a change in my life, a time when I started to realize I was no longer that “college kid,” that my view and opinions were changing, moving, realigning with my more adult understanding of the world. It also just so happened to line up – like the planets slipping silently into perfect linear arrangement – with the period I started drinking better beer.

I’ve tried many, many beers in these five years; probably more than I had in the five previous to these, combined. At the behest of my friendly neighborhood brewing wizards this blog forced me out of the quiet simplicity of my Shire, taking me on adventures I’d never expected, showing me a world full of hoppy wonder and malty marvel. But in all those beers I sampled and sipped, I always returned to a some staples, stalwarts, those faithful, consistent few. These beers are more than my comfort falls backs, more than the fermented pajamas I slip into after a long and arduous day, they were my training wheels, my guides, my glass-clad sherpas up the mountains of good beer.

So on this anniversary, I salute them. And their brewers. And all the staff that helped bring them to me, and me to this world I love so much.

1. Dogfish Head 60 Minutes IPA

First came Sam’s flagship, the first “craft” beer I can remember my parents ever having in stock. My first reactions to IPA flirted dangerously close to “bitter beer face” but as my taste buds shed their nascent skin, I grew to appreciate how much was going on in a bottle of 60, and how easily accessible (if a tad pricey) such a different beer had become. I always come back to 60 minute as a reference point, some grounding, a reminder of where my taste for hops came form, and where beer was five, six, or seven years ago. When I first started this blog, I had no idea why it was even called 60 minute, assuming it was named such because it would take someone an hour just to finish one bottle.

2. Flying Dog Doggie Style (now Pale Ale)

A part of my beer-drinking self always latched itself to no-frills pale ales, either out of irrational loyalty to what my father taught me to love, or out of safety, comfort, the beauty of repeatable simplicity. Whatever fueled it, it manifested in Flying Dogs award winning pale; there’s nothing particularly wild about it, but there it is, balanced, refreshing, happy to be the middle child between weird exotic yeasts and tired pale lagers. From this safe base of pale malt I felt confident to branch out into pretty much any style: I always had a big soft pint of pale to fall back into if things got a little too freaky and yeasty.

3. Heavy Seas Loose Cannon

The pirate in me gives me orders, his drunken swaggering the impetus for a lot of my rambling of the same. It’s no surprise I took to Heavy Seas; they’re local, they’re good, they’re unabashedly pirate themed. While I enjoy quite a few of their beers, Loose Cannon sidled up to me early, mug of grog in hand, sly whispers of, “you like 60 minute? Well you’ll love me.”

And I did. And do. And probably always will. It’s my quintessential Maryland beer, and that’s saying a lot (sorry Natty Boh).

4. Sam Adams Boston Lager

A cliche? Perhaps. A mistake? Never. All recent commercials aside, Sam Adams Boston Lager is a pretty fantastic gateway beer. It has everything you could want without being offensive about it. There’s also something to respect about the market positioning Sam Adams set the rest of the industry up for, and sometimes I buy their beer simply out of beer guy respect. Are there better options? Sometimes. But you’ll almost never have a friend turn down a Boston Lager, even if their normal drinking typically falls much much further in BMC territory.

5. Yuengling Lager

I just can’t quit the old girl from Pottsville. I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried. In my early years of being a mindless craft crusaders, I swore off “junk” beer like Yuengling, feigning some kind of pretentious elitism that somehow, despite everything Yuengling had done for me, made me better than the beer. Well I’m not. I’m not better than any beer. The pedigree behind even the lowest rated and much maligned beers still outweighs mine a thousand fold. I’m especially not better than the good ole girl from Pottsville.

So to celebrate my perfuntory triumph of managing not to burn out too badly or quit in a huff of public, Twitter glory, I’m not going to reach into the back of the fridge for some rare beer. I’m not going to chuck harpoons looking for whales. I’m definitely not going to forget where I came from, how I got here, and which beers were integral to keeping me on track.

Here’s to the standbys, the go-tos, to old friends. But more importantly, here’s to all you readers and all your support. If I had the time and money to buy you all a beer, I most certainly would.

Here’s to beer. Here’s to writing. Here’s to five more years.

Beer Review: Flying Dog Dead Rise Old Bay Summer Ale

May 21, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Wooden mallets strike claws, sending fissures through crabby chitin, exposing the sweet, seasoned flesh beneath. Soft hands meet sharp shells, poking, probing, splitting, snapping; a modest labor for a morsel of meat. Twelve spices form a homogeneous cocktail with light lager and briny boil, resulting in a liquid unique to the summers of the Chesapeake watershed. The crustacean covered newspapers lining the tables tell a new story now, a story that to the outsider sounds like barbaric ritual, but to the native sounds like hallowed tradition.

Despite my international birth, I’m a Marylander. All of my education – from Jones Lane to Johns Hopkins – unfolded in the Old Line state, and I’ve called the marshy lands north of the Potomac home for nearly 25 years. There are those in other parts of the country who don’t understand Maryland’s insistence on maintaining a unique identity; those who find such cultural fervor from a small state cute, or quaint, or some combination there of. But the people of Ocean City, Baltimore, Annapolis, and Salisbury don’t just mindlessly crab and boil or Raven and Oriole, they hold high their state standard, proud that 9th smallest state boasts one of the biggest personalities.

A veteran of the picking art shows a tourist where and how to lift the plate to get at the blue gold in the body, like the master teaching the neophyte who reached the peak all the simple secrets of life. A little girl takes her time, building a mini-mountain of crab to eat all at once, while her older brother yanks white chunks out of cartilage lined crevices with the only tool he needs: his teeth. Corn on the cob sits cooked but idle, waiting for the pile of dusted red delight to give up the spotlight.

Maryland suffers from poorly built sandwich syndrome; its thin landmass pressed between the top bun of Pittsburgh, Gettysburg, Lancaster, and Philadelphia, and the bottom bun of DC, Shenandoah, Richmond, and Norfolk. New York City is only a 4 hour drive from our naval-steeped capital, and a brief jaunt south would have you in North Carolina before the sun fully lowered itself into a western bed. There’s a lot of artisanal bread for Maryland’s meat to contend with, and it knows it needs to taste damn good to get any attention when someone takes a bite of the East Coast.

The notes that haunt the humid air are distant but familiar – bluegrass, country, possibly Jimmy Buffet. The giant stock pot – already full of potatoes and garlic and onions – sits on open flame, slowly rising to boil as a bushel awaits fate. On the shore, seagulls have taken note of the feast, and caw their dinner bells to nearby friends, hoping to snag some scraps after the lungs, mustard, and empty shells have been tossed. As the sun begins to set, the hiss of bottle cap sighs fade into the backdrop of ten thousand cicadas.

You might expect a beer brewed with Maryland’s favorite crab seasoning to be nothing more than a well-marketed gimmick. But Flying Dog, after moving to Frederick after a few years in Denver, is one of the oldest functional breweries in the state. Like Heavy Seas and their nautical flair, Flying Dog understands what it means to be in this state, but also what it means to live in Maryland. What it means to wear purple during football season. What it’s like to contend with a parade of transient traffic as I-95 shuttles people to states external. What it’s like to pay a tax on rain.

Deposits of seasoning get stuck under your fingernails. Little cuts from shards and spikes sting when hands meet soap. The entire process means a lot of work and a lot of clean up, but the rewards, tangible and tantalizing, make the effort seem minor. Those who partake in the rituals of the bay go to bed satisfied, dreaming of food and friends and family and future.

The beer isn’t perfect; the smell hits you like a fishy breeze off of a populated wharf, and the Old Bay spikes a flag into your tongue, marking its savory territory despite the summer ale’s crisp attempt to quickly wash it down. But Maryland isn’t perfect either. It’s a hodgepodge of DC politicians and career fisherman, a swampy land swarmed with mosquitoes and mariners. Its weather can be extreme and unpredictable and relatively slow speed limits lead to some of the worst traffic in the country. But it’s a state that knows who it is, where it stands, and what it likes, by virtue of geographic necessity.

Flying dog tried to brew and bottle Maryland itself. Did it work? That ship’s still at sea. Either way, it’s a flattering homage, and I’m willing to bet a lot of Old Bay junkies just found the perfect partner for a summer romance.

“Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That’s the way the mind of man operates.” – H. L. Mencken

The Six-Pack Project: Maryland

June 26, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Maryland. The seventh state. That tommy gun shaped piece of land stuck between Virginia and Pennsylvania and Delaware. The state that gives the Chesapeake Bay a big, perpetual hug. The land of a million blue crabs and powdery mountains of Old Bay. Neither North nor South. Rural, urban, disturbingly suburban. My home.

Bryan over at This Is Why I’m Drunk tasked me with creating a collection of Maryland beer to be part of his Six-Pack Project. Most who intimately know Maryland summers think of Corona for their crab or Natty Boh for their, um, masochistic self-loathing rituals, but I have taken it upon myself to show you, visitors of our City by the Ocean, lore-seekers to our myriad Civil War ruins, what beer you should drink when you’re adventuring around the Old Line State.

I also had to beer-spar with Doug at Baltimore Bistros and Beer, in a Maryland, no-holds-barred, beer choosing free-for-all. I’m pretty sure he won, but I did OK. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand sports, especially not football. Check out his post for a full(er) description of the Fantasy-Beer draft process.

The other bloggers (who you should definitely go check out, because they are awesome) in this round are:

Lacey @ Once Upon a Stein – New York
Tom @ Queen City Drinks – Ohio
Douglas @ Baltimore Bistros and Beer – Maryland
Grant @ Hop Brained – Illinois
Tom and Carla @ Hoperatives – Kentucky
Max @ The Beginners Brew – California

1. Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber – Frederick, MD

Do you like Yeungling? Do you wish it was something more? Something bold and flavorful and confident in its grain bill? Have no fear, Flying Dog Brewing of Frederick, Maryland has you covered. Old Scratch Amber is everything Yuengs is – amber, light, easy to drink – while also being so many things it’s not – deliciously malty, slightly citrusy in its hoppage, mellow with no sour aftertaste.

Old Scratch isn’t going to send your socks flying from your feet with its taste or hops, but at 5.5% ABV, this is a smooth, refreshing lager, that you should definitely have around for those wild, humid Eastern Shore nights. It’s a perfect BBQ or lounge-on-your-neighbor’s-porch-on-a-perfect-summer-evening beer.

This amber has packed all its crap into boxes and moved full time into my fridge. You can find it pretty much anywhere in MD that carries Flying Dog. Definitely a go-to beer for me. Shit, I’m drinking one while I type this!

2. DuClaw Bare Ass Blonde – Bel Air, MD

No list of Maryland beer would be worth anything without a DuClaw bubbler gracing its bulleted numbers. DuClaw, of Bel Air, just northeast of Baltimore, has a pretty impressive line up that includes some pretty unorthodox beers. A spiced Belgian. A toffee nut brown. The infamous Peanut Butter porter. And then there is this little gem, hiding behind a cheeky name and an understated appearance.

Duclaw is not shy with the malt. Bare Ass blonde is bare in color only; it carries an incredibly decadent malt flavor that comes through in the nose and taste of the beer. Seriously, so grainy. It’s like walking, mouth open, through a field of barley during harvest as a thresher hacks it all up.

This pale blonde ale is like Old Scratch in that it won’t come at you with any aggressive hopping; its Fuggle and Goldings are barely there. But it’s amazingly refreshing for a beer that rocks so much cereal flavor, making it a great beach brew. At 5% ABV you can drink a few and not be worried about being caught with your pants down.

3. Evolution #3 IPA – Salisbury, MD

I went to Salisbury University for my undergrad (SU English majors, holla!), but graduated well before Evolution set up shop a few miles from campus. It’s probably a good thing. A craft brewery basically in my back yard would not have been good for my GPA.

Would have been great for my IPA, though. I first bought Lot #3 on a whim; the green label caught my eye and I like things that are green. Imagine my surprise when I was hit with rapturous wafts of Columbus, Centenial, Cascade, Chinook, Amarillo that are so well balanced in the heart of this golden IPA.

This brew is so well done, I’m loathe to describe it, as I’m worried I won’t do it justice. The smell is one that will haunt you in the best way, like the perfume of your date hanging in the air long after she’s gone home. The luxurious head sticks around even after a calm pour, adding a smooth, opulent texture that I can only compare to a freshly buttered croissant. In Paris. While sitting across from a very attractive French person. Who is saying very sexy sounding things you don’t understand.

It’s very good and you should drink it.

4. Heavy Seas Small Craft Warning Uber Pils – Baltimore, MD

Everyone – aside from those punk-ass ninjas – loves pirates. Everyone. They’re jolly and rambunctious and constantly living life to the fullest, even if it means they getting shot by a cannon or eaten by a massive, ornery octopus.

It’s appropriate that Heavy Seas (brewed by Clipper City brewing) is from Baltimore, a city sunken in nautical lore. All of their beers are a play off some sort of pirate theme (like Peg Leg Imperial Stout and Loose Cannon IPA), playful cartoon label art included.

But pirates take their booze seriously. It wards off scurvy and instills confidence where perhaps discretion is a better idea. They go all out. Small Craft Uber Pils is the embodiment of that cannon-balls to the wall mentality. Unlike its pale-golden Czech and German brethren, all content with sort of tasting the same except for a few minor tweaks, Small Craft unfurls its flavors like three sheets in the wind of a coming hurricane. It’s bold and hoppy, but appropriate for the style, reminding me a lot of Victory Prima Pils and Sam Adams Noble pils, just decidedly more…piratical.

Remember, it’s not the size of the pilser in in the glass, it’s the motion of the flavor ocean.

5. Pub Dog Hoppy Dog Ale – Columbia, MD

There is some magical voodoo surrounding pizza and beer. When the spell of salt hits the potion of pale ale, fireballs fly across the room at random and things turn into frogs. That’s science. You can’t argue against science.

Pub Dog is part brewery, part pizzeria. As a result, we can agree that these people know a lot about human psychology, and are fully invested in the business of making people happy. They not only brew and serve their own beer (with plenty of options, to boot!) but they bake and serve hot cheese on top of tomato sauce on top of bread, with additional toppings available as requested. Brilliancy.

Hoppy dog, is as it says, hoppy. It’s bitter and angry about life, vexed that at times it has to be a mere sidekick to a pizza-pie. Don’t be mean to the Hoppy Dog though, he just wants to be a happy dog. He is aggressively full of hop flavor, appropriate for those with heads built and aimed towards enjoying hops. This beer can be hard to find outside of the Federal Hill and Columbia brew pubs, but do you really need another excuse to eat a good pizza and drink good beer?

6. Baying Hound Lord Wimsey Mild Ale – Rockville, MD

I had to include a rookie Maryland brewery. These guys seem to get a bad rap on BeerAdvocate and Ratebeer, but I have yet to be turned off by one of their beers. Sure, they’re not perfect when compared to some of the masters out there, but they are doing some interesting stuff (like not force carbonating and bottle conditioning), are brewing out of Rockville (a place in dire need of a brewery), and have only been brewing since 2010. We all have to start somewhere, right?

I first had Wimsey Mild Ale at an event for the Potomac Riverkeeper, and was pleased at the complexity of the flavors for a pretty standard pale ale. It’s named after the adorable brewery mascot, Wimsey the Bloodhound, who was named after the detective in Dorothy L. Sayer’s mystery lit. I’m a sucker for some anachronistic literature-to-beer allusions.

It tastes like your best friend’s really good homebrew. You know he’s getting good, and you always want to try what he’s brewing next. It’s a caramel colored ale, a little rough round the edges, but strong and exploding with flavor. Despite four types of hops (Nugget, Columbus, Willamette, and Cascade) it’s not too in your face with the alpha acid, and worth a try, if you find yourself stranded and needing refreshment in Montgomery County.

Does a Beer by any Other Name Smell as Hoppy?

June 12, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

My mother (who is the single greatest host in the history of humanity) always makes sure her house is stocked with the proper foodstuffs to meet the dietary restrictions of any incoming guests. Cognizant of my strictly Beeratarian diet, she often asks me what to buy so that her fridge is full of the proper bottles to sustain me over a long weekend.

While she encourages my hobbies, she is not a craft beer person. I’m pretty sure her favorite beer is Woodbridge Chardonnay.

Our latest beer-buying phone call went like this (read my mom’s lines with a northern British accent):

Mom: “OK, I’m at the beer store.”
Oliver: “OK.”
Mom: “What do you want? They have so many.”
Oliver: “Something new. What looks good?”
Mom: “Hmmm, here’s one with a Union Jack. Eye, pea, aye. Want that one?”
Oliver: “Is it Yards? That one is good, but I’ve had it.”
Mom: “Yea! Yards! OK. How about…Raging Bitch? ::laughs:: Belgian?”
Oliver: “Yep, Flying Dog, that’s good, but I’ve had it. What else?”
Mom: “Hmmm…Pearl…Pearl Necklace? Oh my. ::laughs:: Oysters? Ew.”
Oliver: ::laughs:: “Yep, had that one too.”
Mom: “You’ve had all of them. OK, what about this one. Arrogant Bastard?”

She turns to apologize to someone in the store, which I hear through the phone, slightly muffled: “Oh no, sorry. I’m telling my son about the different beers.”

Mom: “It says oak. Oaked. Is that good?”
Oliver: “Yea, that means they age it in wood.”
Mom: “Wood? Like from trees? Ugh. So you want that one? The Arrogant Bastards? Not the Raging Bitches or the Pearl Necklaces?”
Oliver: “Yea, the Arrogant Bastard, thanks!”
Mom: “Fits you well.”

That my mom was basically NSFW and a verbal menace to nearby children while listing off beer names made me wonder how and why we name beers the way we do.

Some names are clearly the result of marketing so ham-fisted that it would be illegal in a Kosher butcher (I’m looking at you, Bud Light Lime Straw-Ber-Rita). Others are clever plays on larger themes that span an entire brewery’s line-up, like the Flying Dog brews (posthumously approved by Hunter S. Thompson): In-Heat, Doggie Style, and Horn-Dog.

Some (a lot) are deliciously bad puns using the word “hop”, others a brewery specific piece of history. Some are overstated to the point of punching you in the face with descriptors, others barely catching a wandering drunken eye with their simplicity. Many don’t have anything to do with beer at all. Most don’t reflect the quality of the beer trapped behind a thin layer of glass and even thinner piece of paper.

So, beyond introducing taster to tastee and putting on display style and flavor, what purpose does a name serve? Is it just a way for a brewery to identify themselves as a company? To pop, with alarm and surprise, into the eyes of a potential drinker like a mean-drunk jack-in-the-box who really enjoys scaring people because he got beat up a lot as a kid?

Or is it something more? Is it a cultural IV tapped into the vein of society, pumping in charm and whimsy and wit where such things have clearly become deficient? Are breweries, with nothing but an enthusiastic marketing team and a label printer, reviving the drollery of Shakespeare and Donne that used to roll so delightfully from ours tongues?

Recent legal spats over logos and branding suggest, at least to me, that there is some serious pride attached to a brewery’s image; some deep, emotional connection of man to beer that is woven into artistic and omnastic design. I think it sinks deeper into craft beer culture than a widget into a can of Boddingtons. Without a name, the beer has no identity. Without an identity, the beer has no soul.

If you woke up tomorrow, head brewmaster of a national craft beer company, what would you name your beer? Would it be something eye-ball-burning or embarrassing to say out loud, or would it be something simple and timeless, like an homage to the Olympian gods? Would you aim to entertain, or offend, or extoll?

Because really, what’s in a name? That which we call a beer by any other name would taste as great.

So oaked, you can taste the wood grain (in a good way).

Review: Flying Dog Lucky SOB Irish Red

March 15, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

When he had finally mustered enough courage, he looked up.

He stood in front of the ruin and took a moment to remember it. The dirty, butt-stained sidewalk that had hosted dozens of drunk denizens who smoked their cigarettes in the Boston air, the flower boxes that had sheltered and nurtured his mother’s favorite purple butterworts, the green and red sign that had proudly cast the name “Flaherty’s” over the tiny side street now burnt and crumbling and black, everything ruined by smoke and flame and the power of unattended random chance.

If he hadn’t been late that morning, if he hadn’t been so slow to rise with head fogged by one too many late night whiskeys, if he hadn’t needed drink after drink to quiet his guilty conscience, if he wasn’t a coward and an idler, James thought, maybe, just then maybe when the over due bills in piles in the unkempt backroom caught those fledgling flames from that gas oven that should have long been replaced, he might have stopped it; not had to watch his father’s dream, an Irish life reborn and infused with American pride, billow and ascend, smoke colored black by all that carbon and shame.

The claims adjuster was late. James kicked at some fallen wood near the door, careful not to venture too far inside the building, worried that it was still in the middle of its death throes, still capable of collapsing a little bit more at any minute. The morning air gusted, picked up the scent of charred memories, kegs and coat racks and day-old beer. Inside the doorway he could feel the warmth still radiating off of the remains of the tall tables and long bar, all the stored energy seeping out of the wood like it was bleeding.

James lost focus at the sound of car clumsily hopping up the curb while trying to park. A young, fat man, maybe 29, 30, struggled to lift himself out of the driver’s seat. His pants were an inch or two too short, his tie was a hideous spotted yellow, and his receding hair line was barely visible in the stubble of his closely trimmed blonde hair. James could smell his Old Spice, old school, from 50 yards away. “James? James Flaggerty?”

“Flair-tee.” The mispronunciation of his name, his father’s name, at this moment, in this place, felt like a poorly timed punch to the gut.

“Oh, sorry.” The adjuster pulled out some papers, shuffled them trying to find a specific line on a legal-sized form, then looked up. “Oh man. You’re lucky this fire didn’t jump to these neighboring buildings. That would have been an insurance nightmare.”

James kicked another beam of wood, uncovering a half-burned coaster. A tiny shamrock, the only Irish cliche next to Guinness that his father perpetuated, was still clearly green and alive on the bottom corner of the cardboard.

“Heh. Lucky.”

It felt wrong to sit in another bar, drink, even kind of enjoy himself. But the whiskey burned nice and the ice melted slow, and the homemade Irish red ale was just as his father would have liked it: overly malty, crisp, sneaking hints of Irish moss that lingered on his tongue. It was from his father he learned to drink, so it was to his father he drank the next one.

And the next one.

James didn’t stumble home, his careening so practiced that it was almost just one long graceful fall from bar stool to pillow. The whiskey normally stifled his dreams, but tonight they flared and seared, father and fire and failure all whirling together in an inferno of nightmarish scenes. He woke up, head pounding, throat dry, vomit lurching in his stomach, to remember that both his father and the bar were, in the waking tangible sunlight of reality, gone.

He looked at the clock: 10:49. His phone buzzed. For a moment, he thought about letting his head slam back down onto the pillow. The number was familiar, but not one that he’d stored in his phone. He waited for the third buzz, sighed, and answered.

“Mr. Flaggerty?”

The already horrible headache intensified. “Flair-tee. What can I do for you?”

The claims adjuster sounded even more nasal over the phone. “I just got the report from the fire marshal. I’ve got the final coverage numbers, but the inspection found something I think you should see.”

The pub looked less dejected now that the fire had completely gone out of her, the shiny black of the beams reflected the midday sun almost defiantly. Most of the debris had been cleared from the entrance and the street. She looked scarred and damaged but respectful.

“Mr. Flag…Flaherty. Thanks for showing up so last minute. Most of the worst of the mess has been cleaned up, so if you’ll just step inside for a moment, I’ll show you what I was referencing earlier.” The claims adjuster did his best to gracefully move through the rubble, trying to avoid getting his ill fitting khakis stained by any soot, leading James near the back of the pub where they’d taken keg and food deliveries. They passed the slumping, massive piece of oak that had been the bar; two tarnished tap stems, standing proud, the only things that seemed relatively undamaged by the fire.

Near a large hole in the floor was a walrus of a man, a man whose stature and uniform said authority but whose huge white mustache and kind eyes said grandpa. He looked at James then back down at the hole. “Did you know this room was here?”

Confused, only remembering the back of the bar as a place of refuge from the commotion of the patrons and the trajectory of drunkenly tossed darts, James didn’t know what this man was talking about. He inched closer, pushing past the combined girth of both inspectors, trying to look down between the broken floor boards. A few boxes, an old filing cabinet, nothing really shocking, except for the fact that this pub, a place he’d literally and figuratively grown up in, been reared and scolded and taught to drink, had a hidden secret.

“I’m going to try and climb down there.” The fire marshal huffed and recommended otherwise. Ignoring the man, who probably wouldn’t have even fit down the hole had he wanted to explore it, James threw his legs over the edge and slowly lowered himself into the room below.

The room was small, but not tiny, stinking of mildew and oldness, the kind of place you’d expect a pub manager to turn into an office if a pub even needs something as official and business-like as an office. James used his cell phone as an impromptu flash light, shining it over the boxes – no crates – that we stacked neatly along one back wall. Clear glass necks poked out the top in rows of 6, columns of 4, case after case of the stuff, hundreds of bottles of whiskey left sleeping for decades.

He grabbed a bottle and brushed away the dust and blackness. Eyes wide, he read the years on the bottles: 70, 73, 85 years old, some even more ancient. All intact. Perfect, pristine. An army of golden soldiers in glass armor.

James moved to the filing cabinet. Years of rust and dust had seized the runners, but with a little force and a lot of curiosity, he forced the middle drawer open. He thumbed through the yellowing paper, tilting the phone to get a better look at the faded writing on each page. The first folder housed records, names and bills and income for years well before James was alive. The second folder was empty, short of an old, wooden handled bottle opener. The third, packed nearly to the point of bursting, fell from his hands as he lifted it from the cabinet and spilled all over the floor.

At the sound of this, the fire marshal called to him, shining his flashlight down to see if James was OK. This beam of light caught the papers on the floor just long enough for James to read the titles: Flaherty’s Oatmeal Stout, Flaherty’s Pale Ale, Flaherty’s Irish Red Ale. Next to each recipe was a hand drawn little green shamrock, perfect mimicry of the one his father had so insistently included on anything associated with the bar.

The claims adjuster’s head appeared, upside down, from the hole above. “Are you OK? Looks pretty messy down here. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”

James smiled. “Yea. Lucky.”

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
― Cormac McCarthy

Review: Flying Dog In Heat Wheat

May 21, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

In a triumphant display of “I can’t do basic math”, I miscounted how many beers were in the samplers I recently bought.

Flying Dog had the awesome audacity to include six (6!) beers in its summer sampler. I’m so used to four times three in a sampler, the original five I had counted had thrown me off as it wasn’t a factor of twelve. Somehow, in my math-daze, I missed the sixth beer entirely.

Numbers, to me, are like people who don’t read. We’ll never be on the same page.

The mystical eleventh beer of this review series is Flying Dog In Heat Wheat. It’s a traditional Hefeweizen (pronounced heff-a-vite-zin, which literally means yeast [hefe] wheat [weizen]) and it doesn’t stray far from the tried-and-true. The “hefe” prefix is attached to a normal “weizen” to suggest it has been bottle conditioned, and may contain sediment.

Drinking sediment is not recommended. Especially when the barley in the recipe has been replaced with wheat. To say you’d be gassy would be a gross understatement.

It shares a lot of the characteristics of other production Hefeweizens. Namely: cloudy yellow color, abundant, pure white head, yeasty smell, and clear, nearly offensive wheat flavor. It has taken a while for my palette to adjust to wheat as opposed to barley, but every once in a while, I like the change.

The addition of wheat and the German strains of yeast pull out all sorts of flavors that are often buried beneath the weight of barley. The hops tend to be less bitter when coupled with wheat, and the sharpness of the carbonation is more biting on your tongue. You get fruity notes (sometimes even banana, if you squint, turn your head, and drink the beer out of a shoe) and other less obvious flavors that are nowhere to be found in lagers or ales.

In Heat Wheat is a tad spicy, like someone added cinnamon to the batch just before bottling. I always try to drink my Hefeweizen (of any brand) from a smaller glass, as it helps to avoid any sediment in the bottle, and the smaller amounts of beer at a time help you appreciate the flavors a lot more. It’s also fun to pretend you’re a giant who drinks little puny human beers from tiny little human pint glasses.

Or that might just be me.

This marks the 11th review out of 10 reviews. By my math (which clearly should not be trusted), that’s 110%.

Achievement Unlocked: Overachiever.

8 out of 10.

I can’t recommend spending time around animals in heat. It’s equal parts frightening and awkward.

Review: Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber Lager

May 14, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

Old Scratch lives in your refrigerator.

His body is part tiny dog, part flea, part amber colored lager, all unfiltered childhood nightmare fuel.

His grotesque form creeps out of darkness, only visible when the door is closed and the light goes out.

He crawls and stalks and eyes your food, watching, waiting, for his chance to feed.

He is the curdler of milk. He is the molder of bread. He is the rotter of eggs.

His gaze is fixed on all that is good. His is the life of spoiling and defiling. When you want a sandwich, pray Old Scratch has not been at home.

He was not always bad. At one point he was of the purist malts and yeast. He was crisp and friendly and loyal to his masters. But he had a scratch he could not itch. The flea in him bit and dug and infested his soul.

Soon the itch took over. The good in him was replaced by a desire to scratch. Scratch and scratch and scratch and scratch. Soon he was no longer good. All he could think of was the itch.

The warmth in his life disappeared. He retreated from all he knew. No longer did he ride the neighborhood animals, no longer did he find joy the warm fur of dogs and raccoon and lazy house cats.

He found his way to your fridge. The cold of the icebox matched the cold of his soul. As his skin numbed, the itch faded, but never disappeared.

He takes his pain out on your food.

If you want to keep your food safe, keep this tasty amber ale in a fridge with nothing else. Or leave him out to warm up.

Maybe he’ll be a little nicer. Maybe he’ll get worse. The only thing to be sure of with Old Scratch is that he has an itch, one that can’t be scratched.

8 out of 10.

Amber + Lager = Amblager – or – Lamber!

Next up: Sam Adams East-West Kolsch!

Review: Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale

May 4, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I’ve played a lot of soccer in my twenty-six years. I’ve run countless miles across green fields, rattled hundreds of goal posts, accumulated untold numbers of yellow cards, and kicked an astronomical number of balls. I have no idea how many goals I’ve scored, how many pairs of cleats I’ve worn until the stitching decayed to nothing, or how many miles my parents drove to deliver me to soccerplexes all across the country.

I got to thinking; how many other statistics have flown by me unnoticed, unrecorded? How many words have I read in my life? How many pennies have I accidentally thrown away? How many times have I said the word “repugnant?” How many people have I made laugh? How many people have I made cry?

More importantly, how many ounces of beer have I consumed!?

When I find a genie in a bottle, one of my wishes will be to have the ability to instantly, accurately recall any statistic from my life. It’d be my first, and probably only wish. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and short of the psychological impact of learning exactly how many horrible things you’ve done in your life and how many other lives you’ve inadvertently destroyed, there are no downsides!

You could finally find out how many miles you’ve traveled and by what mode of transport. How many socks were actually eaten by the drier and not just lost due to your lack of organization. How few times breaking up with that crazy girl was a bad idea. How many times you just barely avoided death in college.

The possibilities are endless. It’s perpetual entertainment. Just think of the graphs and flow charts you could make with this information at your disposal. You’d be a veritable one-man research team!

I’m sure, after a dozen years or so, I would have dried-up all of the generic statistical wells, and be well into asking for numbers on extremely abstract or oddly specific things. How many times did I miss seeing a horse in the wild because I was too busy looking at a mountain? How many times did my car keys strike my belt buckle from the ages for seventeen to thirty-one? Rounded to the nearest tenth, how many milliliters of hand sanitizer has my body absorbed through my hands and how many brains cells has that killed?

How many used car ties would the amount of Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale I’ve consumed fill? Why is Tire Bite so light at tasty? Why does it refresh like a lager, but send my taste buds soaring like ale? Why would you ever bite a tire?

Wait, those last few aren’t statistical questions.

How many brewmasters does it take to make Flying Dog so good at what they do? How many other beers exist that are this good? How many beers are there that I don’t like? How many people are as crazy as me?

9 out of 10.

How many photos have I taken in my life? How many of them are any good?

Next up: Sam Adams Summer Ale!

Review: Flying Dog Road Dog Porter

May 2, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

Can someone do me a favor and check the thermostat in Hell? I’m thinking you’ll find it a few degrees colder down there.

Oliver Gray likes a porter? Really likes a porter?

Yes, he does. It could be the lightness of the flavors in a beer so dark. It could be the subtle hopping backed by the well balanced malts. It could be the kickass Hunter S. Thompson quote on the bottle. It could just be that Flying Dog knows what the hell they’re doing when they make a porter.

Whatever it is, I’m glad they’re doing it.

My experience with porters has been mixed and confusing. Given its English purebreeding and full-bodied flavor, an outsider might see this beer style as an ideal Oliverbräu. But for some reason, I’ve always been put off by malt heavy beers. Their flavors are often too heavy (or too sweet), reminding me more of a liquefied marble rye than a beer.

I’ve tried many a porter in an attempt to find something I enjoy. Commercial to small batch microbrew; I never seem to find anything that wets my proverbial whistle like well done pale ales. I’ve flirted with stouts (a variation of a porter, for your edumackayshun), even dated one for a while. I even once tried Port in an attempt to salvage the romance, until I realized that it was something entirely different.

I never found common ground with porter. We fought too much and danced too little. I had to end the relationship.

It’s not you, porter, it’s me.

Then along comes Road Dog Porter, wearing tight-fitting label art and swearing like a sailor. She poured into the glass black, sassy, smooth. Her hair was white with a hint of brown, like she’d been playing in the mud. Her kiss was sweet and silky, wet and complicated. It reminded me of a thunderstorm in a big city.

She’s not the kind of beer I’d normally go for, but there was something dangerous in those bubbles, and that danger left me paralyzed. I could tell she didn’t care about me but it didn’t matter, it was a wild ride from bottle to glass to stomach; a ride I won’t soon forget.

As Hunter S. Thompson says, “Good people drink good beer.”

Are you a good person? Then drink this beer.

9 out of 10.

Good beer, no shit? Great beer, no shit!

Next up: Sam Adams Noble Pils!

Review: Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA

April 30, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

The Merchant of Venice Beach

Players:
Oliver – The reasonable guy
Snake – The party guy

Act 1:
Scene: It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m trying to get some chores done, when Snake Dog IPA comes strolling in, looking to party.

“Hey Snake, I can’t hang out right now.”

“Awww come on man! Just a few games of ‘pong, maybe shotgun a few brewskis?”

::Snake pantomimes throwing an invisible ping pong ball at some invisible cups. He flips his wrist at the end to suggest he “swished”::

“No, really, I can’t. I’ve got a lot that needs to get done today.”

“Man, you are harshing my buzz. You never wanna party anymore, you’ve changed man. You’ve changed.

“Don’t give me that Snake, I’m older now, I have responsibilities. I can’t just party all day like you.”

“Ouch dude, ouch. You know I’ve been taking bar tending classes part time. And my dad totally told me I could intern at his pastry factory.”

“That’s great Snake. I can hang out later, just not right now.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m out-y 5000.”

::Snake proceeds to open and take a drink of himself before staggering off stage::

Act 2:
Scene: At an indefinite point later that night, after Oliver has finished most of his chores. Snake, drunk by now, knocks boisterously on Oliver’s front door.

“Duuuuude, you gotta meet these chicks man. These chicks are so hot.”

“Snake, that’s a broom and a mop.”

“You’re just jellyyyyyy.”

::Snake blows a kiss to the mop::

“I see you’ve been drinking yourself again. You need to get your life together. At 7.1% ABV, you’re going to drink your life, and yourself, away.”

“I’m sorry maaan, I just can’t face being an adult. The transition from no responsibility to total responsibility was weeeeaak. I expect my life to be different…y’know?”

“That’s life, Snake. Responsibility can be fun. You can learn to enjoy things differently. You learn to sip instead of chug. Appreciate the good flavors over the alcohol content. There is freedom and pride in being independent. Now come inside before you get arrested for public intoxication.”

::Snake begins to cry and comes inside. He promptly passes out on the couch, cuddling the mop and broom::

Act 3:
Scene: Snake wakes up on Oliver’s couch, hungover, inexplicably holding some cleaning supplies.

“How you feeling this morning?”

“How did I get here?”

“You came over last night, remember? You drank a lot of yourself, you were less than half full when you got here.”

“Oh man. Did I score?”

“Not unless you count sweeping my kitchen as scoring.”

“I gotta stop this shit.”

“Yes. Yes you do.”

9 out of 10.

This snake's got bite.

Next up: Sam Adams Belgian Session Ale!