Throwback Brewery Campfire Smoked Porter 6.4% ABV

This is the graphic that Throwback uses to brand Campfire Porter.  Personally, I don't understand this imagery.  It looks like a sate bear dancing in the waft of burning excrement, or possibly its leg is satisfyingly on fire.  We can't see the other leg so there is speculation abound.

Wanton for White Birch, our beer/food serving person at Firefly  asserted "distribution problems" and this left me on the doorstep of a classic near-terminal spiral of second choice beer indecision.  Andy stepped in before it could even start and prompted this suggestion, and it was stellar.

It tastes weird, but like medicine that actually doesn't taste gross and makes you want to eat more medicine, it's a very pleasant weird.  I haven't drank with any regularity for the better part of this year now, so my ability to describe beer is severely impaired by the fact that I now have the tolerance of a Utah middle schooler.  But this beer must be acquired if you are local to southern New Hampshirechusetts.  Locally sourced ingredients and made by CHICKS.  This one wins big.  Dark, rife with peculiar, interesting flavor, and in no way overwhelming to palate or a gut full of beef stroganoff, I implore you to try it.

Red Hook ESB

 ESB stands for Extra Special Bitter.  There's nothing extra special about Red Hook's ESB.   Red Hook brewery is the overly opinionated hot chick who is 1/8th as smart as she thinks she is.  You really want to like her, but she keeps saying embarassingly stupid shit and you're tired of defending her to your friends.  In defiance of your biological imperative, you decide it isn't worth it and move on.

In the 12 years that I've been legally drinking Red Hook's offerings, they have had about four amazing beers that enjoyed critical success and were subsequently torpedoed by the powers that be.  This is like the aforementioned hot chick shaving her head for reasons that elude sense and rational thought. The end result is disappointment, a broken heart and a bitter taste in the mouth, not entirely unlike my experience with Red Hook ESB tonight.

In the glass, ESB looks and smells fantastic.  In the mouth,  coppery and bitter.  I don't know what the hop bill is, but the flavor hops are right on while they went way over the top with bittering. The style known as "bitter" is really a bit of a misnomer and I'm not exactly sure how it came about. Bitters, according to style, tend more toward the sweet side than the bitter.  This beer has everything it needs to be enjoyable, Red Hook just needs to back off on the hops.

Blue Moon Winter Abbey Ale 5.6% ABV

My first sip of Coors Winter; my immediate impression is that this is not the worst beer in the world.  The expected sweetness not overwhelming, I let it sit and tended to my Shake 'N Bake and assorted reheats.

A casual second sip some number of minutes later, and the finish was of particular note.  This finishes like a cheap beer, I thought to myself.  A peculiar, but familiar taste of alcohol.  The monks of the Rockies must have been a little impatient cooking this one up.  But who wouldn't in similar frustratingly pious circumstance.  Pious being complimentary of course;  props of some sort must be due the chaste.  It's only right.

Third encounter and beyond, and as expected, the uncivilized finish has disappeared and things are mellowing out considerably as I almost certainly have consumed this too fast.  I consider this mission accomplished, not so much in the 2003 on an aircraft carrier sense, but in the not overthinking a beer sense.  It is precisely a winter ale, sharing the common characteristics, not that it's particularly my favorite species of beer but it delivers on it's name in a manner of economy that can be universally appreciated.

Hmm.  That finish really comes and goes.  It's there, or it isn't.  Very strange.  Anyway, I'm hungry.  And some indiscernible fraction in the bag.

Cape Ann Brewing Company Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout 7.0% ABV

Discovered on offer at the Great Brewers Grand Prix of Gloucester, the annual North Shore cyclocross tradition, Cape Ann's foray into autumn medicine is a delight.  Subtly flavored, peculiarly headless, and lacking the punch and sweetness its ABV may insinuate, pumpkin stout has a place in the fridge from hereon in.  Find it wherever beer is sold in Massachusetts, before they tax it into oblivion to subsidize some highway project gone awry.

Bells Two Hearted Ale

What's not to like about a beer with a trout on the label?

Continuing my tour of Northern Michigan beers, I bought Bell's Two Hearted Ale. This is a fairly rich, IPA style ale. A nice floral hoppy aroma without being a hop bomb which is so common in IPA's lately. I really liked this as a result. i am all for full hop flavor, but am not a fan of feeling like I have just eaten some shrubbery. Two Hearted Ale is really well balanced and crisp which made it go down quite easily on a hot evening.

So so far, Bell's brewery is two for two.