Buttercup Industries

I’ve had some amazing beer this week.  I should say, I’ve had one amazing beer this week, and many really good beers this week.

I haven’t had all their offerings from the past year, so I can’t say for sure, but Allagash’s Confluence is the best beer they have put out in the past year.  Technically it is a Belgian style golden ale that undergoes more fermentation with Brettanomyces in stainless steele fermentation tanks.  But to put it in more tasty terms, it is an ale with a beautiful golden color, that has a very crisp carbonation, and a  body that is very light and crisp.  The taste is strongest of a lemon-like flavor, and a good counterbalance of the mild sourness from the brettanomyces.

So really, it is delicious.  One of the best beers I’ve ever had.

Today, I also drank the Green Flash Imperial IPA, And the beer definitely reminded me of Campari, and I’m not totally sure why.

But now it is late, and I’m getting home drunk, and thinking about those two beers.  They aren’t the most recent beers I’ve drank, but they are in my head because I’m remembering them as having some of the strongest flavors.  I also want to know why.

These beers were both amazing, I cannot in any way deny that.  But these beers were both very flavorful, and I don’t want to know why but what.  I like, and I care about what I drink, because I want to like it.  But there is a difference between liking something, and knowing what I am eating or drinking, the flavors involved, and why I like it.

I gotta say, I am writing this drunk, because it’s been too long since I wrote something, and I will keep up my goal for the year.  But I also have been thinking today about flavors. I’ve been thinking about the different flavors which are tasted in complex drinks, about being able to identify them when you take a drink and the ability to make drinks to showcase all those flavors both individually and as a whole.

I want this for many reasons. I want to better be able to explain the tastes I  get when I try something new. I want to better understand why flavors go together. I want so much more from my mouth.  And above all, I want to explain flavors as a teacher so that so many more people can better understand what they are consuming.

PS>  this is a drunk post, I am drunk. Think about what you consume.

So…

I just got home from work, a little later than normal, kinda tired, mostly sober, and check my mail, because it’s been a few days, I don’t get much mail, mostly e-mail spam, not much normal spam.  I’ve been getting even less since I started sending back those prepaid credit card envelops, empty.  I just want to make sure somebody has a job opening empty envelopes.  I also like to be an asshole in small ways.

But I’m getting off the point.  Somehow, I got mail that was addressed to me, but also to buttercup industries.  I don’t even want to capitalize i don’t take it seriously enough, but now buttercup industries is getting mail. SWEET!!!

I gotta be honest, it’s not quite legitimate mail, it’s a catalog selling shipping supplies.  I don’t need no bubble wrap.  I mean, I do, for some of the various exchanges I got going on with friends and such, but I don’t need a giant roll of it.  just a few feet.

but dude, seriously, MAIL!!! that so rad.

I still have over a month to study and prep, but I bought a plane ticket to go to St. Louis in January.  I am going to visit my sister, a friend who lives there, and take the Cicerone Exam.

I’m scared, and it’s time to take my studying more seriously, and get some note cards and shit. learn scientific names for hop varieties and the different flavors imparted to beer between American ale yeast and British ale yeast.  It’s time to get intents.

Last week, I had dinner at the lovely Barley Swine Restaurant.  It was lovely, I had scallops, I had pork belly, I had sweet breads, and then, I had dessert.

The dessert, oh my, the dessert.  The dinner was great, I felt wholly satisfied afterwards, not planning on having that final course.  In one sense, I wish I didn’t ordered that final course, because that dinner was great, worthy of much praise.  At least, I think it was great, I might have even licked the plate, everything is kind of forgotten compared to the amazing dessert that I was able to finish my meal with, and the beer I drank with it.

Pumpkin cheesecake and a bourbon barrel aged porter, I had to get it, it seemed too perfect to not get, and wow.    The cheesecake had a mild pumpkin flavor, but was heavy on the spices used in pumpkin pie, had a graham cracker based crust, a dollop of housemade cream which was equally, if not slightly differently spiced, a dark chocolate grid thingy, and came on a bed of rum reduction sauce and granola made in house.

That sounds delicious, doesn’t it.  Now, imagine going back and forth between that, and a glass of  dark porter, aged in bourbon barrels to give it that strong vanilla and slightly charred flavor to add to the dark porter flavor.  Wow, yeah, wow.  I think that I had a good meal, but somehow, I’ve forgotten everything about that meal except for that desert.  I don’t know if I win or lose in that situation, I wish I knew more about the fancy meal that I ate, or that I could remember much about it, I do know that next tiem I go back to barley swine, to save room for dessert.