beer, beer, and the dog puked on the couch and "male clitoral literacy"

Well, last night Sebastian, the Doberman that I share a house with (he doesn't chip in at all, he just pukes on stuff) was acting a little strange. He was having trouble pooping and that is never a good sign. When I woke up this morning I discovered that he had vomited on the couch and apparently then had eaten it because there was just a little yellow patch of paste on one cushion with a clearly defined left-to-right tonguing pattern impresed upon its grainy mass. Anyway, I scolded him (which only seemed to confuse the poor buddy) and have yet to clean it up.

It might have had something to with the fact that Eric, Ryan, Grant, and Yaniv were over last night for some beers. Here is what we had (click for bigger):



Here are my thoughts about them, from left to right: The Bornem and the Augustijn are good beers. I got these for free at the Van Steenberge dinner I went to a while back. Go here to see what I think about Van Steenberge.

The De Dolle Dulle Teve Special Reserve Calvados 2003 might have been my favorite beer of the night. Incredible head. Sticky lace. Huge nose. Hot nose. Big alcohol and fusels and phenols and esters and just about everything else a beer can throw off at you. Plus the apples. The beer tasted not quite as good as it smelled, but almost. Very interesting palate. Definitely some apples, but they are subtle. Definitely fruity in a Belgian way and hot on the palate. A very nice final gravity, not too dry but dry enough to accent everything just right.

The Nostradamus from Caracole was probably my second favorite beer of the night, if not tied with the Dulle Teve. Both beers were very distinctive. The Nostradamus has a huge, beautiful nose of massive malts, licorice, caramel, raisins, kind of winey, just really nice. Awesome palate on this beer. Starts out kind of musty, earthy, mushrooms, but moves quickly to big raisins and finishes with a long mellow sweetness pricked here and there by a mild astringency.

New Holland's Red Tulip is just kind of weird. I swear it smells like strawberry ice cream. Maybe some buttery diacetyl? It was hard to tell what the hell this beer was all about. Very strange tasting beer. Definitely that strawberry icecream on the palate too with some caramel. Very strange.

The Flying Fish Dubbel was pretty undistinctive. Not much fermentation character. Kind of bready, doughy, malty, very flat for a dubbel. Not so good.

I was expecting more from Troegs Mad Elf, an 11% cherry infused Belgian. It was fairly mellow. Definitely couldn't tell it's 11% which is impressive. But not very rich or distinctive. Not bad though either.

The Sapient Trip-Ale from Dark Horse pretty much was the worse beer of the night. Really weird nose, lots of strange fermentation character, kind of plastic-y and chemically. Very sweet beer. Way too sweet. I've had a better experience with this beer here.

I've had 3Floyd's Dreadnaught, the King of American double IPAs, several times now and I can still say I just don't like it that much. It's too much. The nose is awesome. The biggest grapfruit nose I've ever smelled, but the hops are overpowering on the palate and their attempt to balance them leaves the beer far too sweet and goopy. I have the following vague idea when I drink this beer: a large, sticky, suagr-infused plaid wool blanket with rusty nails sticking through it is being dragged across my tongue.

The Sly Fox Saison was definitely at the top of the list too. Very well made. Massive sticky head. Really pale. Nice nose. Cotton candy, some nice ripe fruit notes. A touch of citrus. Citrus on palate. A medium high dryness and a nice tart finish make this beer a great example of the kind of saison I really like.

Prof. EA Lloyd, myself, and Mr. Jason Byron were talking about Lisa's book yesterday and I made the following very excellent pun:

Lisa says the phrase "male clitoral literacy" got a laugh at a talk she gave recently and I said "well, it does just roll right off the tongue".