What's the point in writing about the Stone Brewing Brewmaster's Dinner at California Cafe?

That's the question.   Why should I even bother writing about this?  I mean, Stone brews great beer, and the California Cafe in Palo Alto puts on great beer dinners featuring a California brewery about once a month.  Is there any point of even writing about it, other than to say, "Well, it was great"? 

Besides, I'm not a exactly a culinary expert such that I can really deconstruct the subtleties and nuances of the combined brewing vision of Stone's Greg Koch combined with California Cafe's Mark Pettyjohn's magic in the kitchen.   But I can sort of fake it.  And aren't blogs all about writing about stuff you have no business writing about for the sole purpose of looking more important than you really are?  So in this proud tradition, I will provide my take on the Stone Brewing Brewmaster's dinner in an attempt at entertainment, or your possible amusement at my expense. 

First Course
Food: Grilled Portobello Mushroom, chic pea fries, foie gras croutons, goat cheese
Beer: Arrogant Bastard

The first course was a significant food milestone for me since I've never had foie gras before starting off the beer dinner with this.  It's hard not be be curious about foie gras, as the food seems so highly polarizing.   On one side, you have those who claim eating it is the most heavenly orgasmic surreal experience in the world. On the other side, you have PETA-inspired backlash claiming it embodies everything wrong with civilization.  Having now tried it, I have to say I'm a little bewildered this fatty stuff with a light livery taste to it has generated so much commotion. 

I mean, it tasted all right, but if I had to face down a bunch of angry animal rights activists just to eat it again, I'd go for something else.  Sitting to my left for the evening was Peter Estaniel of BetterBeerBlog of fame, who really enjoyed his and he's a big foie gras fan, so Chef Pettyjohn must have executed it well. 

Peter also probably forgot more about beer and food pairing last week than I'll never know.  After the first course, I turned to him and said "You know, the Arrogant Bastard seemed to over powered the Grilled Mushroom a little," and he immediately responds with a complex explanation about the roasted malts and the hop varieties contrasting with the grilled mushroom and other elements on the plate.  I struggled to follow what he was saying.   I think he agreed with me.

My favorite thing about the first course was not the grilled mushroom or the foie gras croutons, but the well seasoned chick pea fries.  PETA 1 Foie Gras 0.

The Second Course in all its porkosity

Second Course
Food: House cured pork belly, crispy pancetta, smoked bacon butter
Beer: Ruination IPA

The smoked bacon butter and house cured pork belly melded together to form a bunch of creamy pork stuff, contrasting with the crispy pancetta, a bunch of crunchy pork stuff.  Ruination IPA, with plenty of strong pineapple and grapefruit hop flavors and no malt backbone to speak of, cut right through all that pork goodness. 

I turn to Peter again after the second course to pick his brain on the second course.  Instead of a detailed, insightful deconstruction of the interplay between the different pork elements and the hops, he simply says "Mmmmmmm, that was good."  I can work with that.

Surprise Course
Food:  Duck medallions with cherry compote on top
Beer:  Cherry Chocolate Stout

Surpise!  After the second course, they bring out the Stone Cherry Chocolate Stout, a limited release that is otherwise sold out and unavailable. It's got plenty of bitter chocolate flavors and cherry, think of a decadent liquid chocolate covered cherry.  And the duck medallions with the cherry compote basically echoed that, even though Chef Pettyjohn conceded they were under salted to my wife and I at the end of the dinner.  Chef, if you hadn't told us that, we wouldn't have noticed.

Third Course
Food: Braised beef short ribs, parsnip puree, crispy onion strings
Beer: Imperial Russian Stout, Vintage ’08

What to say here, once again, the food and beer basically echoed each other.  And once again, my favorite element on the plate was a lovely, creamy parsnip puree under the braised beef ribs, rather than the savory ribs themselves.  Strike another blow for PETA!

Fourth Course

It's a big party of all things carrot

Food: Carrot cake, tipsy raisins, carrot gel
Beer: Old Guardian barley wine, Vintage ’09

My favorite dish of the night.  Way too often, beer dinners end with a desert of Imperial Stout with something like a chocolate tort, or some other Stout and chocolate combination.  Sure, the combination works, often quite well, but it's an obvious pairing and not particularly imaginative to the point of becoming a cliche'.  Instead, for the desert course we get a whimsical plate of all things carrot with this odd, carrot egg roll that comes out of left field.  Some people, like me, loved it, others were a bit underwhelmed by it, but everyone was talking about it, and by that measure, it was a hit.  And the aged Old Guardian with its smooth, sweetness, and slight astringency jumped right into the big party.

There's a nasty rumor that this might be the last of the Brewmaster's Dinners for the year with the holidays fast approaching.  I sure hope that isn't true, as the best part of the series is a certain suspense in seeing what Chef Pettyjohn and the California Cafe crew do next.

Brewmaster's Dinner featuring Stone Brewing at California Cafe in Palo Alto

There's a great looking beer dinner featuring Stone Brewing coming up at the California Cafe in Palo Alto this Thursday.  They always put on a great dinner and usually the brewmaster is on hand to talk about end beer.  Seeing Greg Koch there may be a little too much to ask, but expect a knowledgeable rep from Stone Brewing being there.  I have my reservation and expect they'll fill up fast.  Hope to see you there.   (The details and menu below were shamelessly swiped from The BetterBeerBlog.)

Who: California Café in Palo Alto
What: Brewmaster’s Dinner featuring Stone Brewing Company
Where: California Café, 700 Welsh Road, Palo Alto, CA map
When: Thursday, October 27, 2011 @ 6pm – 9pm
Cost: $45 per person, exclusive of gratuity. Call 650-325-2233 , or email paloalto@californiacafe.com to make your reservations today!

Menu

First Course

Food: Grilled Portobello Mushroom, chic pea fries, foie gras croutons, goat cheese
Beer: Arrogant Bastard

Second Course

Food: House cured pork belly, crispy pancetta, smoked bacon butter
Beer: Ruination IPA

Third Course

Food: Braised beef short ribs, parsnip puree, crispy onion strings
Beer: Imperial Russian Stout, Vintage ’08

Fourth Course

Food: Carrot cake, tipsy raisins, carrot gel
Beer: Old Guardian barley wine, Vintage ’09

Beer of the Month: Stone Brewing's 15th Anniversary Black Imperial IPA

For the month of September, I bestow the title of Beer of the Month to Stone Brewing's Imperial Black IPA.  Perhaps I award them this month's title because I've found Stone's last couple anniversary ales to be pretty underwhelming.  They were full of strong aggressive flavors you expect from Stone, but instead of being bold and arresting, the resulting brew was harsh, over done, unbalanced, and just plain difficult to drink.

That's not the case for this years version.  There's plenty of big, bold flavors in there, but they somehow remain smooth and balanced.  The first thing that hits you when you open the bottle is the aroma of whole bunch of hops.  Lot's of piney, resiny hops.  The beer itself has plenty of rich, malty bitter chocolate flavors and that some how melds seemlessly with all those hops. It's just this big brew full of roasty malty hoppy flavors that somehow come together and create something unique.  Actually describing the flavor is a challenge and one of the signs of a great beer is that it has a uniqueness that cannot be simply summed up by ticking off flavor components or referencing other beers. So I'll just say that, rather tick off a flavor profile full of wild guesses.

Beware, as this warms up, the flavors start to get out of whack, the alcohol get more pronounced and the beer goes from sublime to barely drinkable in seconds flat.  When that happened, I just put it back in the freezer for a few minutes to bring the flavors to balance.

The Session #55: Telling Us What's Inside

For this month's Session Curtis Taylor of The HopHeadSaid asks us to write about our favorite beer labels.

The humble beer label must deliver so much. In a split second it has to win our attention from all the other labels fighting for it as our eyes quickly scan the shelf. Once the bottle is discarded, the best labels are easily remembered to do this job even more effectively the next time we glance in their direction. And while creating these impulses, the label must somehow visually convey the taste and feel of the beer in our throats.

I have zero artistic talent and know little about psychology, so don't have the foggiest notion of how this works.

But I'll take a stab at it. My favorite labels are not necessarily the most elegant, pleasing, or arresting artistic compositions, but those in their own unique unforgettable style leave me well prepared for what I'm about to drink. Don't ask me how these labels do it, they just do it. Look at two of my favorite recently released beer labels below. Which bottle do you think contains a celebration of bold aggressive flavors balanced on a razor's edge, and which holds a subtly complex combination of flavors mingling together from the farms of Sonoma County? It's obvious from the labels, right?

San Diego Truth in Advertising Part 1: Stone Brewing's Punishment

I spent last week in San Diego at a trade show that I’ve been going to for years so by now I pretty much have the whole week's drill down. Monday is set-up day, and I fly in and help get things set-up in our booth at the exhibit hall and then go back to my hotel. Apparently, the beer gods were smiling on me when I made me hotel reservation on Priceline since of all the places that could have accepted my bid, it was at the Comfort Inn in the Gaslamp District almost directly across the street from one of the best beer bars in America, The Neighborhood, a bar full of artsy, counter culture décor including its trademark portrait of dreamily reverent of Jesus Christ about to bite into a hamburger.

I make my way to the Neighborhood in the early evening and they just starting to pour a new release from Stone Brewing called Punishment. Punishment is made with Stone's Double Bastard, their Imperial version of Arrogant Bastard which they then age in Oak Barrels, and then finally add a bunch of different chili peppers straight from owner Greg Koch’s backyard garden to it. My first reaction upon hearing how it was made was to completely avoid it, but as I quietly sipped a sweet and malty Hair of the Dog Adam, a nagging curiosity overcame my better judgment and I ordered it next.

At first sip, the beer has a wonderfully heavy, luxurious, apricot fruitiness mellowed by the smooth oak and then POW! the chili peppers kick in and overwhelm everything before slowly dissipating as the beer slides down the throat so you can repeat the same experience for the next sip.

This is not a beer you can really enjoy with food, or drink to unwind, but seems brewed merely for brewing sake. It is not a beer to be enjoyed, but to experience Stone masterfully manipulating strong flavors to simply to tease and trick you.

The next night, curiosity gets the better of me again, and I have another Punishment just to reaffirm my thoughts on this whole brewing exercise. I don’t want to have this beer a third time.

The Session #50: The Multi-Billion Dollar Question

For this month's Session, Alan McLeod of A Good Beer Blog asks us to answer the seemingly simple question of How do they make me buy their beer?

I've been in sales for fifteen years, and believe it or not, have no idea how to answer this month's session question. Perhaps this is because I sell laser diagnostic equipment, which as you might expect, is a lot different than selling beer. This equipment is sold to businesses, governments, and universities, and the underlying concept of selling it is rather simple. These customers are mainly trying to build a laser, or something with a laser in it, and use this equipment to put together whatever they manufacture faster, better, or cheaper. To sell this type of equipment, you have to demonstrate, often with a customer trial, that the system will generate the results the customer is looking for. Often, there are other factors such as the accuracy of the results, how easy the equipment is to use, and of course, what it costs. The customer then decides whether or not the equipment is worth the investment. Of course, other vendors may be involved in the sale, so the decision can boil down to how well each different system does what the customer wants, and what each system costs to get that performance.

Despite what sounds like a straightforward technical evaluation, plenty of unpredictable emotion and other factors usually enter into the decision. The customer may want to the equipment to solve a quality issue he doesn't want anyone know about, or had a bad experience with a similar product she doesn't want to repeat, or was told to fix a problem by his boss and doesn't want to admit he has no idea what your product does or if it will actually solve the problem. Things like this are actually common and in most cases, the customer doesn't want to reveal too much, making it hard to get to the root cause of the buying decision. Which means the real buying decision is hard to figure out, or the decisive factor in making the sale is never understood, even by the customer. A good salesperson will cut through a lot of the vagueness, unpredictability, and elusiveness in the buying process, but in my opinion, there's plenty of uncertainty as to the ultimate buying factors in a technical sale.

And so with this experience of all the uncertainty surrounding dry, technical buying decisions, the retail buying experience of something like beer, which has a lot more personal experience and emotion attached to it, seems infinitely more complicated to describe. So I hope you'll understand that when Alan McLeod asks "How do they make me buy their beer?" my only response can be "Do you freakin' think I have a clue?" Now of course I know what I like and what I don't like, and could give a reasonable explanation why. But consider all the mental calculations going on in my brain as I stare at the beer aisle. There's prior experiences with beers I've had. There's artwork and logos on a bottle of something I've never heard of that suggests the beer inside is either artistic, whimsical, or traditional. There's the price: Too high or too low, and I'm less inclined to buy. There's breweries I know and like, and breweries I don't know but heard good things about. There are beers that bring back warm fuzzy drunken memories. There are beers that bring back bad, painful drunken memories. There are reviews from respected beer writers to consider. There's the suggestion from a friend who swears I should try Blue Moon. There's the style I'm in the mood for, the particular season of the year, special releases, past special releases that may have sat on the shelf too long, whether the beer is refrigerated or not, where the beers are placed on the shelf, what my wife or friends might want to have, among a zillion other things.

All this takes place in about five or ten seconds between before I grab something and put it in my shopping cart. In a bar or restaurant, there's more time and consideration involved, but it's still a pretty reflexive decision. Lots of smart, hard working retail sales and marketing experts work on this multi-billion dollar question, and while they have a lot of insights, they certainly screw up from time to time, and there's still plenty they don't know. But the proliferation of craft breweries provides a highly diverse real world laboratory to test out plenty of marketing ideas. And clearly craft breweries like Stone Brewing, Dogfish Head, and Boston Beer Company have shown considerable marketing savvy. Others have resorted to desperate attempts involving foul sounding beer packaged in dead squirrels. And then there's the unique, distinctive, and extremely curious marketing approach shown by the Palo Alto Brewing Company.

As much as I enjoy the porter style, I don't think I'll be ordering a Barely Legal Coconut Porter with my wife or young daughter. Most men trying to score on a date will recognize that ordering a Hoppy Ending Pale Ale with it's massage parlor artwork lacks the required sophsticated subtlety for the evening's desired conquest, and will likely result in an opposite outcome. It's a pretty safe bet few women will buy beer associating them with pornography and prostitution. Since women compose a large and growing number of beer drinkers, this is a problem in terms of naked capitalism, not political correctness. But perhaps this marketing approach resonates so strongly with beer drinkers having certain attitudes and issues with women that it overcomes these complications.

Maybe someday, I will figure out the vexing mystery of how to make people buy beer, and if that ever happens, feel free to ask me for the answer. I might even take your call while reclining on my yacht.

Beer of the Month: Highway 78 by Green Flash / Port Brewing / Stone Brewing

For this personally hectic month of March which, you may have noticed, led to this blog being a bit neglected, I anoint a collaboration brew between Green Flash, Port Brewing, and Stone Brewing called Highway 78 as Beer of the Month. For those of you who don't know your way around San Diego, Highway 78 runs nearby all three breweries. I discovered this Scotch Ale during my travels to Hollywood earlier this month, a trip that seems like last year.

I found it rather ironic that three breweries who have made most of their reputations shovelling lots of hops into their brew kettles have come together to make a really smooth Scotch Ale with no hop character to speak of. I found the rich, savory, umami flavors dominating with some sweet molasses and smokey undertones rounding it out. There's nothing arresting or hitting you over the head, just a lot of easy drinking flavorful malt goodness. Since brewery collaborations tend to produce rather extreme beers which at time have gone a bit over the top for my taste, I was surprised to find this such a smooth, easy sipping relaxing brew from a collaboration one would least likely expect.

It's been a crazy month for work and family matters. Thank goodness for beers like Highway 78 that provide a respite from the chaos.

Open It!: Celebrating a little more room in the fridge with Stone Brewing's Old Guardian

Mark Dredge of Pencil and Spoon has asked us to Open It! and just choose a bottle you’ve been saving for ages, open it and then tell others about it.

I have this small problem with stock piling lots of great beers to be saved for a special occasions. Special occasions happen a lot less often than I find great beers to celebrate it with. And with the finite amount of available space in my refrigerator dwindling down due to the ever increasing collection of beer, my wife Linda tends to remind me in her own special way that unless I want to pour spoiled milk on my breakfast cereal and eat lots of rotten fruits and vegetables, I better do something about reducing my beer collection. And since Linda appreciates good beer as much as I do, sharing a beer with her to celebrate this slight reduction in the beer inventory tends to go a long way in defusing this volatile situation.

And so for the inaugural Open It!, a celebration of drinking great beer for no other reason to enjoy it, we shared a bottle of Stone Brewing's 2010 vintage of their Old Guardian Barleywine. I found the 2009 version, opened shortly after it's release in January of that year, to have a lot of good flavors, but plenty of rough edges that left an unpleasant harshness. And so figured giving the 2010 version 10 months to soften up and mellow out would result in a much better drinking experience than the 2009 version. And yes, waiting those extra months did pay off.

Pouring the amber colored brew into our glasses created a medium-sized frothy foam, which dissipated in a couple minutes, suggesting a rather low malt content for the style. As you would expect from Stone, hops were in abundance both in the aroma and taste. As the initial pour suggested, there was very little caramel and toffee-like malt in this barleywine style to hold back all the piney and grapefruity hops. The 10-month aging worked to the advantage of this brew, as it had much smoother, almost ticklish feeling on the tongue instead of the mouth puckering astringency I recalled from last year's version. Also noticeable was a little alcohol heat. If the bottle didn't say "Barleywine" on it, I'd guess it was an Imperial IPA.

For the next version of Open It!, we'll celebrate reorganizing all my home brewing equipment scattered around our apartment.

An Early Tasting of Stone's Vertical Epic 10.10.10

I'm not exactly sure what about Stone Brewing's Vertical Epic series excites me. Maybe it's the fact that arrives once a year, with each years release date is on the same numbered day and month of the release year, this year's release falling on October 10, 2010. Maybe it's because for each release, Stone tries brewing something highly original, even by their standards. Maybe I'm just a slave to their particular hype.

Especially since I didn't think the first Vertical Epic I tried, their 8.8.8 was all that special. A solid Belgian Strong Ale to be sure, but nothing really noteworthy, despite their best efforts. However, last year's 9.9.9 was a mighty tasty, roasted Belgian porter with all sorts of lovely flavors and nuances. So with high hopes for this year's version, I bugged my local San Mateo BevMo! for days after October 10th, until their shipment came in. Thankfully, they had stashed a box up front for me and a few other people who had been pestering them about it, and so I picked up three bottles to try every few months as the flavors evolve over time.

Stone's website describes Vertical Epic 10.10.10 as Belgian Strong Pale Ale brewed with pale malt and triticale (a cross of wheat and rye), hopped with German Perle hops, and steeped with chamomile during the whirlpool stage. A juice blend of Muscat, Gewurztraminer, and Sauvignon Blanc grape varieties was added in the secondary fermentation.

And give them credit, it's a very unique, memorable, and most of all, delicious brew. I'm sure if it's a good idea to age it that long, since must white wine is typically something not aged for more than 2-3 years, and there weren't really any rough edges in the flavors to mellow out over time. Drinking this is lot easier than describing it, as it has a unique character all to its own. The white wine grapes are pretty up front, complimented by a nice clove spiciness, and a tea-like bitter finish. I also picked up an interesting floral component, which may be from the chamomile.

What is Chamomile? I had to look this up myself and found it is daisy-like flower which traditionally has been used to cure sleeplessness, anxiety, and diarrhea.

Anything that makes you relax and doesn't give you diarrhea is probably a good thing.

Beer of the Month: Saisson de Buff from Stone Brewing

Having spent last week in San Diego, it only seems fitting that the Beer of the Month of August should come from this great brewing region. And so I bestow this upon Stone Brewing's Saisson de Buff.

Saisson de Buff is one of those collaborative beers that were all the rage six months ago. Brewed by Greg Koch of Stone Brewing, in collaboration with Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione and Victory Brewing's Steve Covalesky brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Back in 2003, this trio formed an organization called BUFF, Brewer's United for Freedom and Flavor, which met a grand total of one time, and quickly adjourned to a nearby pub to discuss brewing ideas tactics, amoung other things.

All three breweries will take turns brewing the recipe at there respective locations, the version I tried having been brewed at Stone the past spring. It's one of those complex beers best explored on multiple occasions. The first thing that hit me was it's light, almost feathery mouthfeel. Then, a rich yeasty flavor kicks in with some clove spiciness and a little piney character, most likely from the rosemary. Finally a strong, yet smooth herbal bitterness finished the taste excursion. Somehow with all those strong, complex flavors, it remains refreshing and very drinakble.

And there's no better place to explore Saisson de Buff and the many excellent beers San Diego has to offer than Downtown Johnny Brown's, where I savored this beer twice last week. It's a neighborhood sports-like bar, located just north of San Diego's Gaslamp district, where few tourists venture. You could also go to The Toronado-San Diego or The Neighborhood for a great tap list, but those places just seem to have a manufactured trendiness to them. Johnny Brown's authentic character remains contemporary on its own terms. I guess you might have figured out Downtown Johnny Brown's is my favorite beer bar in the world.

And San Diego is one of my favorite cities. The Inner Harbor running trail is some of the most picturesque urban running in the United States, and the great scenery always seems to enegize me on when I run there. There's always great, innovative, and memorable beers to be found. When I die and go to Beer Runner Heaven, it will be lot like San Diego.

SoCal Vacation Day 4: Where the Wild Things Aren't and Stone World Bistro

The San Diego Zoo near the city's downtown, and its accompanying Wild Animal Park about 30 miles away in Escondido, are world renowned zoos, earning acclaim for educating millions, while successfully saving several key endangered species in the animal kingdom from certain extinction. But what most animal lovers and environmentalists fail to appreciate is that the San Diego Wild Animal Park easily boasts of the best beer selection of any zoo in the United States, if not the world. I mean, how many zoos give you a choice between Stone Brewing's IPA or Karl Strauss Amber Lager, two topflight local craft brews, as well as the usual safe Corona and Budweiser choices?


Of course, we really weren't there for the beer, but that was a nice bonus. Some people actually go to zoos to see animals, and for the two days we spent, one at each park, they all seemed quite happy, jumping or running around. A few were taking a nap when we strolled by, but right in front, rather than some far off corner where we could barely see them. There's an odd feeling, not of of danger but more of intrusion, when standing only a couple feet away from a sleeping carnivore, with an inch of Plexiglas separating you from a peacefully observing an animal at rest that would likely maul you otherwise.

And so after our day at the Wild Animal Park, we went over to Stone World Bistro in Escondido. Stone Brewing prides itself on angry beer. I can vouch for that, but they also make an angry looking deep fried grill cheese sandwich, which both kids enjoyed. But I was less than enamored of their angry session beer Levitation, which tasted like their Arrogant Bastard with the malt dialed down, but with the resiny, piny hop punch as strong as ever, resulting in an unbalanced brew that was difficult to drink down. I give them credit for taking risks, but not all risks pay off, and this didn't one just didn't work for me.

Their Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale I sampled next was more down Stone's alley, and it showed. Originally their 11th anniversary release, I found it one of those hard to describe beers with intrigue that draws me in. I'm getting flavors of raisins and other dried fruit, some woody and smokiness, and smoothly astringent hop finish. But Linda and my favorite beer of the evening was the Green Flash Imperial Red Ale, which was not an angry brew, but one with a smooth, slightly creamy and lively roasty malt with only the barest of hop bitterness at the finish. Very vibrant and drinkable, and gave us the warm fuzzies in contrast to the Stone brews which virtually dare you to like them. But as we found out for dessert, Stone Smoked Porter makes for a great beer float with vanilla ice cream.

There's a neat little garden where one run around and jump off and on rocks after dinner. Or, one can just relax.

On the way out, I picked up a few 22 ounce bottles of Stone Ale's on the way out, mostly brews I can't get in the Bay Area. Why I picked up a bottle of Stone's Ruination Double IPA, which I can find back home rather easily is a bit of a mystery. Of course, making a few impulse buys that make no logical sense is part of being on vacation.

The Session #36: One Lonely Night, Away from Home

For this month's Session on Cask Ales, Tom Cizauskus of Yours for Good Fermentables gives us many suggestions and passionately encourages us to "Make it a sad story. Make it a love story. But ... make it!"

I look back on my first cask ale rather wistfully. I was all alone, away from home, in a San Diego beer bar called The Neighborhood. Peering at me from behind the bar, its tap hiding only slightly so I would notice without it seeming obvious, was the lone cask ale selection, a special release of Stone Brewing's Pale Ale with coriander. Feeling awkward, but intrigued, I signaled my interest to the bar tender. When the beer came over, I didn't quite know where to begin or what to say, but understood this beer had been in this situation many times before, and knew exactly what to do.

I knew of Stone's careful balance of aggressive flavors in their beers, so was expecting it to be assertive and aggressive. So was taken by surprise how the cask conditioning created a lightness and subtly to its caress, of how willing it was to please. With its slight floral nature and savory character, it performed tirelessly in so many different ways, never losing its balance or place. After what seemed like hours, the hops finally kicked in, bringing the taste to an amazing climax well beyond what I ever imagined possible.

I've picked up a few other cask ales on lonely nights since then, but for some reason, none has equaled the first one. I've tried in vain to look up my first cask ale, but alas, it is nowhere to be found.