The Beer Retard

Whatever I’m doing to try and get this blog going again isn’t working. I haven’t written a word since I left DC for Philly. Been back in Seattle for 4 days and still nothing. The way I work is that if I don’t write daily, the slacking begins and I start digging a deep hole. The only way out is to force myself to sit down and write every day. Whenever I get home, I need to crack open a beer and spew out thoughts. So that’s what I’ll do…starting now.

Drinking a Great Divide Old Ruffian. I’m not a big barleywine guy, but I’m judging one of the early rounds at Brouwer’s Hard Liver Barleywine Festival on Saturday and I feel the need to prepare. This will be the first time I’ve judged at an event like this and, yeah, I’m a little nervous. I know how a barleywine’s supposed to taste, the difference between the English and American versions of the style, what aging can do to the flavors, etc. I haven’t taken the BJCP exam, but I’m sure I’ll do fine. Still…I’m nervous.

About the beer I’m drinking: Old Ruffian falls squarely on the American side of the barleywine fence. There’s malt there…it’s not completely lacking in sweetness (a review of this I just read mentioned creme brulee…which puts the needle on my doucheometer in the red), but Old Ruffian is about hops and, to a lesser degree, alcohol. I have a taste for the sharp, dry and bitter…so it’s much more up my alley than barleywines that come at you from the malt bomb end of the spectrum. I’ll be trying one of those tomorrow night. And yes, I will be writing about Philly eventually. For now, I’ll leave you with this thought: It was fucking great.

This entry was posted on March 20, 2009 at 2:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.