{"id":884,"date":"2007-04-27T21:11:12","date_gmt":"2007-04-28T01:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/27\/warning-the-consumption-of-alcohol-is-the-leading-cause-of-inexplicable-rug-burns-on-the-forehead\/"},"modified":"2007-04-27T21:13:17","modified_gmt":"2007-04-28T01:13:17","slug":"warning-the-consumption-of-alcohol-is-the-leading-cause-of-inexplicable-rug-burns-on-the-forehead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/27\/warning-the-consumption-of-alcohol-is-the-leading-cause-of-inexplicable-rug-burns-on-the-forehead\/","title":{"rendered":"WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No, this is not another post about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/19\/a-man-turns-34\/\">me getting epically drunk<\/a>. I just thought that title was funny. (It was selected from <a href=\"http:\/\/robertpanderson.com\/beer1.html\">Rob&#8217;s Beer Quotes<\/a> page.)<\/p>\n<p>What it&#8217;s actually about is the acquisition of new (to me) and interesting (I hope) beers.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been paying attention,  you know I&#8217;m coming to the end of a three week run of being at work in Boston, which had a very short break in the middle.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently I was able to go across the border already once, and will shortly do so again, and I could (legally, even!) bring several different beers with me each time. Of course I needed to make the effort to find some beers that I wanted to try. (As an aside, I have discovered that I am no longer the sort of person who can sit in a hotel room and do a comparative beer tasting by myself&#8211;while I want to try all these beers, I feel compelled to take them home and do it in a proper social environment with friends around.)<\/p>\n<p>This batch is what I took home during the break:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2007\/04\/ma_beers.jpg\" title=\"An array of uncommon stouts\" rel=\"lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2007\/04\/_ma_beers.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" alt=\"An array of uncommon stouts\" title=\"An array of uncommon stouts\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From left-to-right those are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a small box of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.victorybeer.com\/\">Victory<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.victorybeer.com\/storm_king.html\">Storm King Imperial Stout<\/a>&#8211;I&#8217;ve been hearing good things about this Pennsylvannian beer for a while now, so why not give it a try?<\/li>\n<li>a small box of <a href=\"http:\/\/northcoastbrewing.com\/ras.htm\">Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/northcoastbrewing.com\">North Coast Brewing<\/a>. Californian friends have been talking this up for a while.<\/li>\n<li>a single bottle of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dogfish.com\/brewings\/Limited_Edition_Beers\/World_Wide_Stout\/17\/index.htm\">World Wide Stout<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dogfish.com\/\">Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales<\/a>. Note that this single bottle costs $10US. That&#8217;s not why I got just one though&#8211;that&#8217;s because it&#8217;s 18% boozy. It&#8217;s pretty rare for me to enjoy beer with a percentage much above 7%, although I have enjoyed Imperial Stouts with rates up to 11%. I&#8217;ve been wanting to try this one since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/28\/buy-this-for-me\/\">early 2005<\/a>, just to see if it&#8217;s possible to make a stout that strong that still tastes good. I have finally managed to find a bottle in Boston. However, I am suspicious, so just one bottle.<\/li>\n<li>A single, large bottle of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogue.com\/\">Rogue Ales&#8217;<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogue.com\/brews.html#impstout\">Russian Imperial Stout<\/a>. For some reason this is the only Rogue product I can&#8217;t get at home&#8211;I can get the foul and offensive <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogue.com\/brews.html#crusty\">Old Crustacean<\/a>, but not this. I don&#8217;t know why.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that this particular haul will allow me to check off 40% of my &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/01\/beer-exploration\/\">beers to seek out<\/a>&#8221; list.<\/p>\n<p>Note also that most of these are <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Imperial_Stout\">Russian Imperial Stouts<\/a>&#8211;not a Russian style, but a style originally brewed for export to the Tsars. Because it was brewed for lengthy export journeys, and for drinking in cold climates, it has a much higher alcohol content than the &#8220;normal&#8221; stout. Sometimes these can be quite good, even at alcohol levels that would frighten me in any other kind of beer&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The Wikipedia description of the style says &#8220;The colour is very dark, almost always opaque black. Imperial stout exhibits enormously powerful malt flavours, hints of dark fruits, and is often quite rich, resembling a chocolate dessert.&#8221; Sounds good to me.<\/p>\n<p>Now I need to figure out what to get this trip.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve already picked up a box of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sierranevada.com\/\">Sierra Nevada<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sierranevada.com\/beers\/stout.html\">Stout<\/a> to try, and based on some sampling I did at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allstonsfinest.com\/allstonsfinest\/sunsetgrillandtap\/sunsetgrill&#038;tap.swf\">Sunset<\/a>, I might also want to get some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magichat.net\/\">Magic Hat<\/a> Ravell.<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, there&#8217;s still the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barharborbrewing.com\/cadillac.html\">Cadillac Mtn. Stout<\/a> from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barharborbrewing.com\/\">Bar Harbor Brewing Company<\/a> on my list. Since I&#8217;ll be driving through Maine tomorrow, surely I can find some of that&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And maybe I should get a couple of more bottles of that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dogfish.com\/brewings\/Limited_Edition_Beers\/World_Wide_Stout\/17\/index.htm\">World Wide Stout<\/a>&#8230; I have a couple of pals I haven&#8217;t seen for several months showing up for poker this week, and they both have been known to enjoy a stout&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">No, this is not another post about me getting epically drunk. I just thought that title was funny. (It was selected from Rob&#8217;s Beer Quotes page.) What it&#8217;s actually about is the acquisition of new (to me) and interesting (I hope) beers. If you&#8217;ve been paying attention, you know I&#8217;m coming to the end of a three week run of&hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/27\/warning-the-consumption-of-alcohol-is-the-leading-cause-of-inexplicable-rug-burns-on-the-forehead\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-and-drink","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-eg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}