North Carolina.

Outer Banks. Local-ish beers (North Carolina, at least):

Natty Greene's Buckshot Amber Ale: Not super crazy about this. It's a little sweet, but just doesn't seem particularly balanced or interesting. Just not really worth the effort.

Natty Greene's Pale Ale: This one, on the other hand, is pretty good. Maybe I've just gotten well into hoppy beers at this point in my life, maybe it's because this is nicely hoppy and refreshing in the heat and humidity of Duck, North Carolina, or maybe it's just good. I think that. I can't say it's much besides hoppy, but it was well received by a group of people who typically prefer hoppy beers.

Highland Oatmeal Porter: GOOD STUFF. I like that beers with oatmeal involved are generally pleasant and not too strongly flavored like anything but stout (or in this case, porter). This was delightful. Malty but balanced, smooth but interesting. Definitely a winner. I'd do this again or recommend it to others who like dark beers (or perhaps even those who are still conflicted in their feelings toward darker beers; Mike, who wrinkles his nose in an epic way to most of my black-paint beers besides Guinness, liked this).

I saw Paul and his awesome wife at a wedding last weekend. Congratulations, Tyler and Christie! We drank a lot of your Yuengling. Paul keeps promising he'll tell us all about Dogfish Head...

Come hell or high water...

Late late Friday night, I got to catch up with two of my favorite people who I haven't seen in months: Gurzo and Jeremy. They and many others were celebrating Jeremy's birthday at his family's shore house, which is only a few minutes from my all the time house. The only problem was that I had to work till 11. I didn't think it would take me too long to get there, so even with my grandma-like bedtime tendencies, I thought it'd be worth it.

I didn't expect the insane downpour and flash flooding in Ocean County on Friday night.

Lucky for me, I was borrowing my brother's ginormous Ford Explorer this weekend while he was away, so I fearlessly drove down by the bay in Seaside Park and made it alive... just very late. Totally worthwhile for the company. Gurzo handed me 21st Amendment's Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer, which I guess was the right theme. The biggest problem was that I had Heavy Seas' Loose Cannon IPA first.

The Loose Cannon is a great IPA, slightly floral tasting but not too much. That's kind of the last hops flavor that I'm still wary of, but it's well rounded in this beer. With the warmer weather, I have found myself mostly wanting hoppy, fresh beers. This totally fit the bill.

So, after that, the Hell or High Watermelon. Hell or high water indeed. Bayview Ave definitely had some flooding going on (it always does). This sweet beer was awful immediately following the slightly bitter taste of IPA. I'm not a huge fan of fruit in my beer, but the more I had of this and the further away from the IPA I was, the more it was all right. It was even a decent watermelon flavor, not like candy or anything. This would probably have been better if it was super super ice cold in the middle of a hot summer day. Not terrible, just not really my thing anymore.


Got the following text from Paul yesterday morning--

"The choice was sitting on the beach or taking a tour of dogfish head. Most of the girls chose the beach. Laura picked the brewery tour. I married a winner."

1. Fact. Laura is a winner.
2. I am jealous. I love Dogfish Head and look forward to someday taking the tour (I mean, come on, Sam and I are already totally buds, I need to check out the place!)
3. Paul also promised he'd blog about it. I can't wait to hear how it was!

Does this make Laura my beer-buddy-in-law?

The most wonderful thing happened on Saturday. Paul and Laura got married!

Congratulations to a truly beautiful couple. It was really an honor to be part of such an awesome day. The ceremony was great, the weather was incredible, the company was excellent. And yes, there was beer. Paul chose two brews from Williamsburg Alewerks which went over pretty well--

Red Marker Ale: Good, hoppy amber ale. The website talks about all of this fruit but it came off as more of just slightly sweeter hops. If you've been reading our updates over the past few years, you know that I was not into hoppy beers until more recently, so I understand how people find them offensive. However, this is a pretty accessible hoppy-ish beer. Either ALL of Paul and Laura's people are into fancy beers, or people were just enjoying the slight bitterness in this otherwise very smooth, pleasant, refreshing brew. I had several.

White Ale: My favorite beers are ones that look like black paint or ones that are wheat-related. This was a very fresh Belgian witbier. Paul described it quite well as being similar to Sam Adam's Summer Ale but more orangey instead of lemony. Not one to turn down a new brew for my list, much less a recommendation from my beer buddy, I went to the bar and asked for it. No one knew what I was talking about. It wasn't until I insisted that the groom himself told me to go try it that someone went and found the case that was hiding in a refrigerator somewhere. I'm not much into fruity beers, but this wasn't overly sweet, just a really clean, refreshing drink.

People kept asking me if I approved of the beers. Of course I did. If I didn't approve of Paul's taste in beer, this blog would not exist.

Hopefully now that they have moved past the wedding part of their lives and into the marriage part, we'll start hearing from Paul (and Laura?!) more. Congratulations again to you both-- I look forward to sharing many years of happiness with you both (and maybe also a few beers).

GUINNESS MILKSHAKES.

Enough said. New March tradition? Yes, please.

I MADE GUINNESS ICE CREAM.

Happy birthday, Paul! Even if you never write down the awesome beers you try anymore, you're still a super awesome friend and I hope your day is great.



Remember how much I love Guinness? So much.

A while back, this recipe came up in my Google Reader. I love stout (though I admit I have not had the one she uses in the recipe yet) and I love ice cream, so I kept this in the back of my head. Recently, my friend Mike said something about his ice cream maker.

Bingo.

So when I say that I made Guinness ice cream, really I mean I found the recipe and Mike did most of the work (except pouring the ingredients in the bowl, which his five year old nephew did*, and stirring, which I did).

BUT IT'S AWESOME. Initial taste tests post-churning were really, really good, though we found it to be a little icy the next day. I've never made ice cream before so I don't know why that is? And it was fine as long as I let it melt in my mouth a little bit. We obviously used Guinness instead of chocolate stout (mostly because of the pending Irish holiday/knowing Mike likes Guinness but not other stout/I love Guinness so who cares), and I love Guinness for its very plain and subtle sweetness, which is very conducive to a not overly, terribly sweet dessert (as noted here, when I made Guinness chocolate cupcakes). I would absolutely try this again with a chocolate or oatmeal (or maybe milk, or World Wide?!) stout.

2 eggs-- stir for two minutes alone, then stir in the rest of the stuff:
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
12 ounces stout

Chill for five hours. Churn for a while (we did for 40ish minutes, the original recipe called for 45). Freeze overnight. Enjoy.

Later today I will be serving as DD for several others, but I'm hoping that will earn me a single regular liquid Guinness early in the evening. Wishing you all a very happy and safe St. Patrick's Day/Paul's 26th birthday!



*We did not let the five year old try the beer ice cream. When he asked what flavor we were making, I told him grownup flavored, and Mike promised him we could make whatever flavor he wanted next week. He chose cookie dough. Not relevant to this blog, but I imagine it will be pretty great nonetheless.

Flying Fish just released a new Exit Series brew. Exit 8 involves chestnuts and local honey. I am already hunting for this. Let me know if you find one first...

In honor of the beautiful weather we've had today and other recent days, weather that has been flirting with being springy even though we technically have several more weeks of winter no matter what Punxsutawney Phil says, I thought I'd recommend a few nice springy beers I've had in the past week or two.

Sam Adams Alpine Spring: I liked this the same way I liked last spring's seasonal, the Noble Pils-- surprised at just how much I enjoyed it. Similar to Noble Pils, it's just pleasantly refreshing and easy to drink, not too strong in any way. Alpine Spring is well balanced and smooth. I've already had more than one.

Sam Adams Mighty Oak Ale: a pleasant malty red beer with an aftertaste of oak tree. I like oak trees. Well, I like trees in general, and spend a lot of time measuring (hugging) them, which might be why I recognized it was oak (I mean, besides the name, related to the aging of this beer in oak barrels). But it's good. Not like that time I tried the beer aged in bourbon barrels, and it tasted like bourbon. Gross. This is not Dear Liquor Friend. This is Dear Beer Friend. Anyway. Oak. Good.

Speaking of oaks, my favorite one ever:

Red Oak, a feral kitten I rescued from the woods last summer

Right, this is not a cat blog either, so moving on...

Hitachino Nest White Ale: The infamous Gurzo's suggestion at the infamous Stuff Yer Face... this was delightful. This is a nice, light-feeling witbier that's got a slightly floral taste to it, but not prohibitively so. Very fresh.

Oh, and what the heck, I'll throw in the other Sam Adams I tried recently, the Whitewater IPA. I mean, after all, Sam Adams brews make up 5% of my beer list (current count 453). I found this to be an enjoyable IPA. Sam Adams' IPAs generally are for me; nothing mind boggling incredible about them, just a nice, refreshing IPA. I'd recommend it to the casual IPA fans out there.



Paul is still alive, in case anyone was wondering. We exchanged text/facebook/email messages over the past 24 hours. Maybe he'll even share a beer recommendation or two with you soon...