alonewiththemoon | beer, babies, baladi

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Friday was the American Craft Beer Festival. I had:

Avery Brewing Co.'s Fifteen, a Belgian farmhouse style ale. Tasty, but at 7.68% I thought a bit strong for the style.
Cambridge Brewing Company's L'amour du Jour, an unhopped beer with jasmine, lavender, orange blossom and chamomile. I am allergic to oranges but I think it is the oils in the peel and pith so I figured orange blossom would be safe. This was very enjoyable, and in fact I had a full glass of it later when we went to Cambridge Brewing Company for some (awful) dinner.
Cape Ann Brewing Company's Fisherman's Ale, a Kolsch. Good, but I opted not to have any more of their beer after noting the "I'm not a gyneocologist but I'm willing to take a look" t-shirt on one of the booth workers. A guy's got a right to be an ass, I suppose, but why on earth would the brewing company think that's an ok thing for their rep to wear?
Dogfish Head's 120 Minute IPA, not the regular bottled kind but a 3-year cask conditioned version. Utter heaven.
Legacy Brewing Company's Hoptimus Prime DIPA (double IPA), an excellent strong IPA. Luckily I had this before the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA or I might not have enjoyed it so much.
Otter Creek Brewing Company's Otter San, a sake-infused ale. This was actually quite good; it reminded me of Rice Krispies but in a pleasant mouthy kind of way. The artwork that goes with it is charming and the guy at the booth and I had a nice talk about otters making a comeback. I like their beers even more now that I know they care about otter conservation!
Sixpoint Craft Ales' Mason's Black Wheat, a dark wheat beer as the name might make you expect. I'm not exactly sure what the point of it was, but it did taste pretty good. I'm not sure I would have it as opposed to a regular wheat or dark beer, though.
Sixpoint Craft Ales' Hop Obama, a beer of no particular variety (Indefinable, they called it) but it tasted good. If the presidency is as good as the beer, then we'll be in good shape.
Southern Tier Brewing Company's Cherry Saison, an "Imperial Belgian Farmhouse Ale." This one sort of annoyed me. The point of a farmhouse ale is its simplicity, it's young and fresh and you'd want to drink it after working in the fields all day. I don't even know what Imperial would mean applied to a farmhouse ale. Didn't taste bad, per se, but it was so far out of style I just couldn't muster much enthusiasm for it.
Stone Brewing Co's Double Bastard Ale on French Oak Chips. Pretty pretentious, huh? That's how it tasted, too. I didn't dislike it but it rather typified the trend of beers that are too strong for their own good with wine or bourbon wood thrown in.
The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery's Duck-Rabbit Brown Ale. For starters, I must observe that The Duck-Rabbit had a creepily compelling logo of a Duck-Rabbit head in silhouette. It was hypnotic. Anyway, the beer was quite good, too dark with roasted malt for a brown ale but then they do bill themselves as dark beer specialists, so I guess roasted malt is their thing.
The Lion Brewery's Stegmaier Porter. I tried this one because the brewery is in Wilkes-Barre, PA, right next to Scranton where my parents came from. It was an excellent porter and I would drink it again. Also it was nice to see Mr. Spitcurl there, if I am correctly remembering which booth I encountered him at.
Weyerbacher Brewing Company's Merry Monk's Ale, a Belgian Tripel. Enjoyable example of its style.
Woodstock Inn Brewery's Raspberry Weasel Wheat. Totally picked this one for the name and the cute artwork of a weasel enjoying a pint of beer. It was a nice raspberry beer, dry rather than sweet which is how I prefer fruit beers.

I'm pretty sure I had more than that, but I'm having to build this list based on what's in the pre-printed program, which wasn't totally reflective of reality. My list here is also alphabetical, and not the order in which I tasted the beers. These were just 2oz pours so I was not quite so smashed as one might think, though some of these beers were too alcoholic for their own good.

Saturday started with a much needed massage, and then a fun and heartwarming shower for my future nephew up in Lowell. That will be one well dressed kid, I tell you! Funny moment when somebody said they needed a knife; my dad, my uncle and I all said "I have one!" Later somebody remarked that our whole family carries knives, which was pretty funny if you know my family, as it made us sound like some kind of crazy gang.

Today I went to the Dance Complex and sweat buckets while working on my piece for next Sunday. Did not feel super awesome about what I accomplished but I'm still not 100 percent over being sick, and it was awfully hot. The mirrors in the studio I used are angled slightly so that you look extra squat and stout in your reflection, which didn't help but at least I could keep sight of the fact that it was the mirrors, not me. Glad I went, anyway, so that I could use a lot of floor space.

Now I am going to do carpentry on our futon frame to prevent weasels from sneaking in through the sides of the frame. It's fine if they go under the bed, but we're afraid they'll get squished squeezing through the small holes between the slats and the futon. Hopefully I am stronger than the drill right now...

Oh! Saturday night we went to La Buona Vita in Arlington Center. We'd never been there before. Very good uncomplicated Italian cooking. Not a long menu but a well-chosen one. Definitely somewhere to go again.