Saint Nickanuck of the Tundra

I happened across this brew the other night at Calvert, which had just been released by Stone as their current seasonal offering.

Vitals:

• Name: Old Guardian Barley Wine, 2008 Release
  

• Brewery: Stone Brewing Company

• Style: American Barleywine (Category 19C, BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines)

• Alcohol: 11.26%

• Serving: 22-ounce bottle, chilled, served in a freezer-stored “Playing for Keeps” pint glass

Scoring (in solidarity with Charlie the Beer Guy):

• Appearance: 6 - Pours a strong copper that is initially hazy, but gains clarity as it warms. Topped with a white effervescent head that slowly fades to a lacy sheet.

• Aroma: 5 - Predominantly malty, with a hint of fruit and spice. More subdued than expected.

• Taste: 7 - Strong malt flavor upfront, accompanied by fruity and spicy notes. Hop bitterness becomes more assertive in the center. Alcohol notable, but not overwhelming. Lingering bitterness and bready notes in the finish.

• Mouthfeel: 7 - Moderate but not quite full-bodied, with notable alcohol warmth. Slight dryness to the finish.

• Holistic: 7 - Tasty, but “less extreme” of a take on this style than I was expecting from Stone. The nose was slightly disappointing.

• Overall: 32 - A great offering. Beats many barleywines I’ve tried, but doesn’t unseat the Dogfish Head Olde School as my favorite of the style.

Through fortuitous circumstances, two cases arrived at Calvert (one of my three local Beer Meccas) the day before I stopped by. As I’ve been looking forward to this new release from Dogfish Head, as previously described, I walked away with a nice supply.

Vitals:

• Name: Santo Palo Marron (”Holy Tree Brown”)
• Brewery: Dogfish Head
• Style: Wood-Aged Beer (Category 22C, BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines) - aged in 10,000-gallon Paraguayan Palo Santo wood brewing vessels
  
• Alcohol: 12%
• Serving: 12-ounce bottle, chilled, served in freezer-stored “Celebrating 25 Years of Palladium Books” pint glass

Scoring (in solidarity with Charlie the Beer Guy):

• Appearance: 9 - Pours a completely opaque dark brown that is nearly black, and impenetrable to light. Topped with a thick, sudsy brown head that fades slowly to a thin lace. Looks beautiful!
• Aroma: 7 - Malty, with caramel notes, and a surprising lack of alcohol for its ABV. Tempting, but relatively mild.
• Taste: 8 - Sweet and malty, with predominant caramel and vanilla notes, with a slight hint of coffee. Notable but mild smokiness appears midway. No lingering aftertaste.
• Mouthfeel: 8 - Moderate to slightly heavy, but not cloying. Very smooth.
• Holistic: 8 - Tasty, very well-balanced, and more subtle than expected. If it’s possible for a brew of this strength to be smooth and balanced enough to be a session beer, then this is it.
• Overall: 40 - I am very impressed. Dogfish Head has pulled off subtle artistry where I was expecting something more pronounced, and in a beer style that’s not my first choice. I’ll definitely be seeking out the Palo Santo Marron when it’s available.

Dogfish Head has published its beer release schedule for the year. 2008 may now officially begin! (Well, I jest with that last bit. A little.)

I am an unabashed fan of Dogfish Head’s brews. While I am enthusiastic about seeking out and trying different beers from any (and all, eventually) microbreweries, DFH continues to maintain a particular hold on my refrigerator. Their variety of offerings is amazing in terms of style and flavor, and their degree of quality is consistantly excellent. I have honestly only ever been disappointed in two of their beers - the Chicory Stout and the Festina Peche - and in both case, because I found them to be merely “good.” A list of my preferred beverages would be solidly dominated by DFH selections, and topped with my all-time favorite, the ridiculously extreme 120 Minute IPA.

So, it is with great enthusiasm that I peruse the 2008 schedule. As usual, there is a core selection of Year-Round Beers, as well as Seasonal Releases. I am greatly pleased that the Midas Touch Golden Elixir (another personal favorite, and the beverage singlehandedly responsible for my last name being a vengeful cry in some circles: “Cmaaarrr!” - a story for another time) has been reinstated this year in a more year-round capacity.

Of greater note is the extensive list of Limited Releases, which are some the most creative, excellent, and downright bizarre brews in existence anywhere. These include the previously revered 120 Minute IPA, the awesome World Wide Stout, and the brilliant Burton Baton… the last of which I need to keep an eye out for next month, because it was quite teh skarce in 2007. That said, there are two all-new beverages on the list, and I am seriously excited.

The first of these is the Palo Santo Marron, or “Holy Tree Brown,” which is new to bottled distribution. It was previously available once before, at the end of 2006, on-tap only in their Rehoboth Beach brewpub location. This one sounds quite interesting - from the website:

An unfiltered, unfettered, unprecedented brown ale aged in handmade wooden brewing vessels. The caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this beer comes from the exotic Paraguayan Palo Santo wood from which these tanks were crafted. Palo Santo means “holy tree” and it’s wood has been used in South American wine-making communities.

This beer is a 12% abv, highly roasty, and malty brown ale aged on the Palo Santo wood.  It was a huge hit at our Rehoboth Beach brewpub when first released in November of 2006, so it’s coming back… into full production.

At 10,000 gallons each, these are the largest wooden brewing vessels built in America since before Prohibition. It’s all very exciting. We have wood. Now you do too.

That said, the one I’m incredibly stoked for is the Theobroma - “Food of the Gods.” Tee and I heard a vague bit about this a few weeks back at the Gaithersburg brewpub, and its great to have some more details. By way of background, DFH has a working relationship with the University of Pennsylvania archeology department. If drinking vessels are found at a dig site, they are subjected to molecular archaeological techniques to analyze the residue of the evaporated contents. If the findings seem to be of an unusual fermented beverage, then DFH has been able to get access to the deduced components of the drinks, and “resurrect” libations that may not have been brewed for thousands of years. Products thus far include the previously venerated Midas Touch (discovered in the tomb of a Phrygian ruler in ~700 B.C. who is believed to have inspired the tales of King Midas), the wonderful Chateau Jiahu (found in the 9,000 year-old Neolithic village of Jiahu in Hinan province, Northern China), and now… Theobroma. From the website:

This beer is based on chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras which revealed the earliest known alcoholic chocolate drink used by early civilizations to toast special occasions.  The discovery of this beverage pushed back the earliest use of cocoa for human consumption more than 500 years to 1200 BC.  As per the analysis, Dogfish Head’s Theobroma (food of the gods) is brewed with Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs, honey, chilies, and annatto (fragrant tree seeds).  Theobroma is 10% abv and will be available in Champagne bottles for an August 2008 release. Special kegs from our test batches may be available earlier in the year at Dogfish events around the country!

Yes, 2008 is shaping up to be an excellent year for libation enthusiasm!

Hmmm… I continue to be impressed with how quickly time’s been zipping by. Things are getting busier at work, in large part because I’ve started supervising a rotation in evidence-based medicine - I consider this, from a pure philosophy standpoint, to be the most important contribution I can make in my job, so I’m a bit preoccupied with hammering it out into a useful thing. The other piece of distraction has been getting things straightened out as much as possible before Laura returns to the area in a couple of weeks, and we depart for the glorious madhouse that is Dragon*Con.

The North Carolina trip was wonderful, as I’ll brief you on shortly. For now, let’s say that Trinoc*coN 8 was a bit lame, while the belatedly-dubbed Murcon 2 was not.

This past weekend, I had the good fortune of blowing off a bit of steam with a couple of tribemates. Friday evening, I visited Tee and family for a relaxing evening, highlights of which included recording some audio for a couple of podcast projects, and finally trying the Remarkable and Partakable (so the bottle says) Breckenridge Vanilla Porter. This I found to be a bit less of the former and a bit more of the latter, but an excellent brew overall. We also watched the pilot episode of the SciFi Channel’s re-imagining of Flash Gordon, which offended us so much that we recorded an impromptu special edition of the Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy about it. Be warned that the episode is, essentially, a long and geeky rant/conversation that is only tangentially related to writing, but it was quite fun to do.

Saturday evening was spent most excellently with the Command Lineage. We did a bit of gaming, and partook of a variety of tasty beverages, the highlight of which was Jim Van Verth’s homebrewed Belgian-style weiss beer (gifted to me the previous weekend). For reasons unclear, I was viewed for much of the evening by both collies and the feline as some grafted hybrid of Dr. Dolittle and St. Francis of Assisi, as every time I sat down I found several dozens of pounds of animal drooling contentedly in my lap.

I decided to try the full-color edition of Kill Doctor Lucky as the monkey-inclusive family game of the evening, which went over fairly well. Laura and I have played it several times, and it works well with a mid-sized group in a family setting - the theme is similar to Clue, only the goal is to actually commit the murder, not solve it. The younger monkey was a bit far out of the age range, and so got to “help Dr. Cmar play” (although he clearly thought the experience was totally airwolf anyway), while the elder monkey tried his own hand at the game. Due in large part to fatigue from a long day outside, the monkeys were having a hard time focusing, so we “allowed” Command Line to win so that they could get to bed.

We finished off the night with an excellent game I’d not played before - Sunken City. Although it has several different mechanics involved in-game, it is elegantly simple to play, with a reasonable amount of strategic depth, and ended up being very enjoyable. I definitely plan on seeking this one out in the future, especially as it (somewhat unusually for a Eurogame) supports two players, although I suspect that three (as we played it) or four gives a more interesting experience.

Overall, a great recharge to the batteries, although I must admit they’re already mostly drained again… feh! That said, all is truly well. Laura continues to be well-occupied and thriving in China. Next post, the weekend of two cons recap…

I’m leaving for Balticon today, with a plethora of gameage and libations in tow. Laura will be joining me this evening, upon return from her Colorado trip, and some degree of gibbering madness will ensue.

If you’re not going, be sure to peruse the website to check out some of what’s going on. Things I’m looking forward to? The biggest, for me at any rate, is going to be hanging out with people both podcastery and authory. Michael and Evo are special guests this year, and there’s a whole podcasting track lined up. Notable things include on-site recordings of Wingin’ It and Geek Fu Action Grip, among many others. I have the pleasure of contributing an “evil” voice to the Mr. Adventure episode being recorded there, as well!

Other notables include author guests of honor Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, as well as events surrounding our favorite sculpturist Lisa Snellings-Clark, and her PoppetPlanet project. The science track is pretty stacked as well, which is great to see.

It will also be great to see Ronnie and his wife Lora again, as they are coming out for the convention as part of a vacation trip. Hopefully we’ll get some of his local gaming friends to make the trip up as well. Not that there will be any massive time for gaming available, but one can always hope… I think we’ll try to get a group together to see the glorious mess that will be Pirates 3 on Monday evening, as well.

If you can make it out, do so! If not, we’ll be in touch on the other side…

For those whom it is appropriate, I hope your Mother’s Day has been excellent!

It seems that Laura and I were remiss as to blogging about what was going on over the past couple of days before they actually occurred, but such is the way of things. Today marks the end of Public Service Recognition Week, a component of which included exhibits on the national mall in downtown Washington, DC. NASA had a big presence there, and a big part of that involved the James Webb Space Telescope that Laura’s been working on lo’ these many years. Northrop Grumman brought out the full-scale model on Friday and Saturday, and Laura was one of the volunteers to enhance the model with her radiant beauty, as well as answer questions and educate an eager public about the project. In a brilliantly cool outreach idea, there were also Lego models of the JWST that people could come by and assemble with volunteers, which Laura had the pleasure of working with as well. I feel like they missed an opportunity by not having said Lego sets available for purchase on-site, although they did have flyers available with information on how to obtain them online. Many thanks to everyone who came out and stopped by, including Thomas of the Command Line Podcast, as well as author Rich White.

There were also numerous other NASA related exhibits, as well as those from other areas of public service. The various military branches had a large area of tents, vehicles and equipment on display. Aside from basking in the glorious exhibits of armored death-dealing machines, including the M1A2 Abrams tank and M109A6 Paladin mobile Howitzer, I also had the pleasure of talking with a representative of the Marine Corps Systems Command about current research into new components of front line first aid kits, specifically anticoagulant dressings for major traumatic wounds. Excellent stuff!
Smaller and lesser known public service agencies were represented as well. I was particularly enamored of the Mine Safety and Health Administration booth, which included an informational booklet on mine disasters of the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as several disturbingly illustrated flyers warning children not to explore abandoned mines, ride ATV’s into sand and gravel pits, or go swimming in abandoned quarries. Venomous snakes, steep drops, and submerged razor wire and circular saw blades abound!

Expect plenty of images related to the above to crop up on Laura’s and my Flickr accounts within the next few days.

Last night we spent some time at game night at the Family Game Store at Savage Mill in Savage, Maryland. We were introduced to two games we had not previously played, namely Citadels and Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, which we both enjoyed and look forward to playing again… in part, because Laura trounced me at both. Well, at least at Carcassonne… I also spent some time with at the nearby Ram’s Head Tavern, with some good company in the form of several former coworkers from Sinai, and some good drink in the form of Fordham’s Oyster Stout.

Finally, we saw Spiderman 3 today… I’m going to do a combo post with it and 300, but for now I’ll say that it was good, and a worthy successor to the previous two films.

Now, to sleep, and the FFF of another week!

Since I clearly have nothing better to do (read: I’ve devised yet another fantastic outlet of procrastination), and my Blogger account has been languishing for quite some time, I’ve established the Gustatory Libation Front!

While I can’t say that my prime motivator in life is food and drink, I do loves me the nourishment.  Following the supposition that if we need to eat and imbibe, we should do so with great health and robust enjoyment, I’ve set up the blog of the revolution to liberate my thoughts and opinings on the various foods, beverages, and related topics I come across.  Check it out, and enjoy the tastyness!

Let me be neither the first, nor the last, to wish you a most excellent Saint Patrick’s Day!

First and foremost, remember who the holiday is named for… and not to get our beloved patron saint of Irleand confused with Saint Patrick of Spain, Saint Patrick of France, Saint Patrick of Prusa, or Blessed Patrick Salmon of England.

That aside, celebrate well, and if you choose to do so with libations, do so safely and responsibly. This includes not drinking bland beer from the huge American macrobreweries (in general) that’s been dyed green (specifically)… that’s not Irish. It’s just wrong.

Instead, partake of something with a bit more flavor, a bit more character, and a lot more Irish: Murphy’s Irish Stout or Irish Red. Smithwick’s Irish Ale. Guinness Stout. Harp Irish Lager. Magners Original Irish Cider. Or for a distinctly American take on the Irish style, try Harpoon Brewery’s Hibernian Ale, or Rogue Ales’ Kells Irish Lager.

Oh, and go leave Ronnie more Comment Love, because that boy’s got some serious Irish pride. And while you’re at it, do the same for Laura - she’s got the red hair and all!