http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/12-22-2008/How-to-Know-If-You-Are-a-Beer-Snob-92

The Sarge brewed what I guess I’ll call a Holiday Ale if I must classify it. The beer is spicy, rich and bursting with a crisp tartness supplied by copius additions of fresh and dried cranberries. A lovely amber hue.

My beer is a Scotch Ale and, if I may be so bold, manages to both cleave faithfully to its style while boasting notes of honey, spice and a secret hobo twist I’ll never reveal. Oh… OK… the secret ingredient is… is… RIGHT BEHIND YOU! AAUUGH!!!!! GLAUAWAUGH!!!!!

*Except that “you” means “me.”

So stand by, friends! I shall report in when we rack to the secondary fermenter next weekend and then at the bottling and then… the drink!

*this is true assuming you are me, Sergeant Stout, Brigadier Bock or Admiral Ale. The rest of you can go home now.

*DAMMIT! It’s not uploading. I’ll deal with this from a differnt computer. Oh yes… I’ll deal with this…

IT WAS A DRINKY OLD TIME, FRIENDS! Fine beer, fine food and fine friends. And then more beer. Folks gathered at our house around half past twelve and we set out on the (slightly longer than I had said it was) walk to the lovely Red Carpet Liquors. There we came upon several tents, tables laden with krauts—er, kraut—and brauts and potatoes and… why… there was another tent… a tent where upwards of 15 kinds of BEER were available!

And oh, many a fine beer was had. There were the staples: Franciskaner Heffeweizen, Edel Weisen, some Paulaners and Spatens… there were some curveballs, like Brooklyn Brewery’s wonderful Schneider Weissen. If you’ve not had this beer, have this beer. It is a Weisen unlike any weisen… it’s… hopped! Yes, that’s right: a wheat beer with a significant hop balance to the sweet malt and with a refreshing, bitter finish. Florals and pine. In a wheat brau. Very nice, friends, very nice.

There were also plural cases of Sam Adams Oktoberfest and good old Sam Lager. Now… we’ve made our feelings clear (more clear than this take on a Marzen—oooh!) on Sam’s take on Oktoberfest beer. It’s only OK. But, hey I’ll take a Sam Lager any day! And I did. I took a lot. It didn’t hurt that there was some sort of weird cooler-connected to-keg-with-taps-coming-out-of-the-cooler thing that was essentially a never ending supply of a light but refreshing and crisp pilsner.

Much of the Fleet and some friends assembled. Why, we had Sgt. Stout, Admiral Ale, Brigadier Bock, Commander Cheap and, of course, this good Captain. Once we had drank our fill, we ate our fill. Delicious Deutschness! They even had some fine young vegetarian brauts for Mrs. Beer. So thoughtful, those guys. Aw gee. Anyway then we drank our fill again and indeed it was good that the comfort of home (and more beer) was a walk and not a drive away.

That’s right! Captain and Mrs. Beer’s Maple Porter received a score of “very good” from the professional panel of tasters from the Sam Adams Longshot homebrew contest! Not only that but as you’ll see below, one of our judges indicated they would “pay money for this beer” which is rockin! I think. Look I’m struggling with humility here.  I  swear I’m awesome trying. Anyway…

Oh, happy day! Look, some people have been brewing for decades. Some people have more time and capital than certain young men. But dammit, I gotts me some moxy! Or maple. It was maple. See here:

Now I’m not saying I’m King Brewhammer (though if there’s any justice in this world some day I will be, and you will KNEEL, dammit!), but I do direct your attention to the bottom grid. Notice any marks? No… you don’t. Because THAT is where the tasters noted flaws. So… maybe we didn’t win uber alles but… flawless? Why thank you, Mr. Koch! Anyway, they sent a letter, our detailed score sheet and a free t-shirt! The t-shirt could easily house four of me and at first I was all: “What gives!?” But then I remembered that this is A) A hombrew thing and B) in America. So the Mrs. is going to try to do some magic to make it fit, as it would be awesome to have a lovely Longshot 2008 shirt to strut around. Booya.

I think it may be time for the captain to ease back a bit…For the next 2 or 3 batches, I think I’m going to brew a brown ale, dammit. Or maybe a light porter but whatever it is, 2 batches, same ingredients, same boil times, etc etc. Then, once they both turn out just great (which they will) I’ll brew a third… this time, going apeshit on the recipe. If that turns out well, well then dammit, we patent. And then kick back smoking Dominican cigars and sipping moderately priced port—er, beer.