Beer and Loathing in Boca Raton

The lady by the door of the Funky Buddha is gorgeous. A patron, but I was willing to be patronized. Alone and reading a book, she seems tormented despite her rose tinted glasses. A writer perhaps. Another day with another crowd, and I'd have given her my card.

We are served by a young lady who was hostess, bartender, waitress, and cook. The beer and food were both outstanding. I get a T-shirt as a gift from someone in my party, it being the Christmas season, and I treasure this shirt for months to come, and further months to go. I have the Maple Bacon Coffee Porter (fulfilling a life dream), So This is Christmas Mint Chocolate Stout, Bonita Applebum Apple Pie Brown, Red Dawn Ale, Missionary Lager, and Piiti Porter. All are outstanding. Everyone remarks that the Bonita smells and tastes exactly like apple pie. I like the MBCP and Mint Chocolate better still, but these are polarizing flavors (as is my lapsang souchong tea).

I switch gears from being apologetic (this trip is evidently an inconvenience to my convoy) to thankful that everyone has humored me. The experience has been better than I could've hoped for.

Portland, OR Part 2

I awake, if that's the word for it, thinking that if I have in fact killed myself with beer, I hope to be eulogized as a man who died as he lived. My recollections of last night remain clear however, particularly the man in the pink gorilla suit whom we encountered on the street. The pink ape-man followed us into the doughnut store, got behind a register, and sold us some donuts, communicating only in a series of grunts. My partner in crime couldn't deal with this, but it seemed like my kind of town.

We hit the festival after a hearty brunch consisting of mostly poached eggs. The Hair of the Dog offering had come and gone already, but we tried Golden Valley Santa's Smokin' Bock (which was up to par with any German rauchbock), Viking Braggot Winter Squash Porter which had delicious spice backed up with a full squash body an sweetness, Crux Oud Freakcake which was a quality Oud Bruin, then swung by VIP to taste a very old Goose Island Bourbon County and North Coast Old Stock, the vintages of which escape me. The Bourbon County turned into delicious beer candy. We tried John Barleycorn Mele Kalikimaka which didn't really taste like coconut or bourbon barrels, and Stone Spiced Unicorn Milk which was a total spice bomb (nutmeg, cardamom, allspice). The flavors were running together, so we ran with them, out of the tent, and onto the street

I bought some film for my camera and we beat feet across the river while I made phone calls to phone trees which hung up on me repeatedly—far more efficiently than any human could've. At Hair of the Dog, we try Cherry Michael (the 'from the wood' variety on draft at the time) which is delicious (cherry is hard to do well, an argument we later have in depth), Blue Dot, the best IPA I've ever had, then we hit the bottle list: Adam from the Wood has the rich leather, fig, and date it ought to plus soy, chocolate, and sweet bourbon. Matt is similar: licorice and a bit of apple from its barrels. Bourbon Fred tastes like candy cigarettes, which suits me fine. We meet a nice couple sitting next to us on a beers by bicycle tour, fitting for Portland. We meet them again at Cascade, where I hope we provided ample entertainment.

We sprinted back across the bridge, or rather a different bridge, as this one appears to be missing a sidewalk. It puts us in a convenient location to encounter the ape man from Paragraph One. We stumble back to the hotel, and wander into a restaurant, about to close, evidently a repurposed bank building. I order the boar, but they are out, so I think I get macaroni. I wake up at 2AM, perhaps the most hung over I have ever been, wondering if I have in fact killed myself with beer, and wondering how I got back to Paragraph One. I'll ask the ape man if I find him.

Beer and Loathing in Portland, Oregon

Touching down at PDX feels like coming home. There's a girl handing out samples of whiskey, and she remarks upon seeing my ID that we are almost exactly the same age. She's quirky and cool; I like her style. And her whiskey.

We call for a free airport shuttle for the airport hotel and get there just before the kitchen at the off-track betting bar next door closes. Which it evidently did at 10:45. I get a French Dip which seems to be made on garlic bread with cheddar. Together with my Lagavulin, my coconspirator's onion rings, and my side salad, it fills my favorite taste groups: beef, salt, cheese, and whisky, while the green leafy bits soothe me with the illusion of health.

We check into the hotel, and check out of consciousness.

Saucony Creek Captain Pumpkin's Maple Mistress

No lie, a beer with packaging like this does not inspire confidence, per se, but the disproportionate blue-haired cartoon pirate wench is not altogether uninspiring, if that's not too much entendre for this particular blog.

Hazy amber-brown with some floaters. A fine white head that dissipates in relative haste.

It smells of rich brown sugar with a hint of the promised butternut squash and a bit of maple and spice. Real maple, not 'breakfast syrup', so it's restrained as to not be too intense.

Tastes like rich maple, butternut squash, and some pie-spice/pumpkin. Funny that they get the 'pumpkin
 vibe with a different gourd, but whatever works. Definitely on the sweet side, but spicy enough not to be syrupy. This flavor portends its higher ABV, but makes it dangerously drinkable.

Thick (and there's some serious sediment, so not for the faint of heart) feeling and rich, appropriate for this style as far as I'm concerned. You'll want a glass of water though, as it lingers a bit and can be overwhelming especially if you are thirsty or dehydrated to begin with, as I am.

I bought this on a whim for novelty value because it wasn't too expensive. I found it so good that it's one of the few pumpkin beers I liked so much, I'd buy again (not that I dislike pumpkin beers, but I've had so many that they hardly ever stand out).

Dogfish Head Immort Ale

Drunk fresh, this beer tastes like a shopping list. The ingredients on the label can be picked out and isolated. Laid down for a year (I'm drinking a 2012), the flavors meld into a smoky fusion, not unlike a Scotch whisky with maple syrup. Not that I condone doing that; you should drink this instead.

I'm not sure what it is I smell, but I think it's some kind of wood. I want to say juniper, but that would be kind of asinine to claim. Actually some of it is peat. To taste, there's more peat for sure, along with oak and vanilla. It drinks like a tawny barleywine (which I'm pretty sure it is).

It is with deep regret that I admit to having buried one of these along with a bottle of Olde School per the instructions on that bottle, in the backyard of my parents' house. I have never found it. My Mom, wonderful person that she is, spent hours searching long after I gave up, hoping to produce it as a gift for me for some holiday occasion. Either squirrels have absconded with it, or one day, when the plastic bag, glass bottle, and metal cap fail, forth shall spring a delicious, delicious tree.

Though I shall be dead and gone, yet this gives me some comfort.

Colorado - Part 15

Classism on Airlines

In light of line-skipping payola schemes and executive clubs, luxury in airports, the greatest equalizer of humanity since Samuel Colt's, fascinates me.

Ideas for value-added premium airline experiences:

Superimpose your millimeter-wave-scanned face onto the body of a more attractive naked person for security review.

Pay toilets, to add a European flair.

Seat upgrade option to a cabin in which no children are allowed.

For a fee, a passenger may bypass the ban on cellular phone use in flight. For a higher fee, another passenger may reinstate it.

Liquids are now allowed in carry-on baggage, but passengers are prohibited from carrying any solid objects.

No person trained in martial arts shall be allowed as a passenger. Their whole body is a weapon.

In the event of sudden cabin decompression, swipe Visa/Mastercard/Discover for an air mask, which are available for convenient purchase above your head. Please purchase your own mask before assisting others in purchasing theirs.

Colorado - Part 14

A girl walks backwards in place on the moving walkway, and a man in the next lane has a mustache that shakes my faith in facial hair.

"Did you hit yourself?" I overhear a mother say, "Now you know how it feels. It hurts, doesn't it? ... I don't need your slime on me!"

A woman lounges on the floor like a Roman chaise, waiting for grapes from nubile maidens. There's a reason the seats here have metal dividers, ma'am, and you have circumvented it.

On the plane, the girl in the window seat is drawing somebody. Probably not me... hopefully not, since I was eating a sandwich and haven't shaved in days. Or months, depending on your definition. But then again, air travel doesn't do wonders for anyone's appearance. I think I'd take it as a flattery—she seems skilled.

As the plane starts to taxi, she stops of necessity, but we seem to be delayed due to a mix of maintenance, weather, and personal politics. Flickering static and tumbling bass noise on the teevee screns, lights turning on and off, the cabin begins to remind me of Escobar, sans Scotch, sans soda, sans dancing.

Nevermind, she was drawing some sort of airplane wing-inspired nautilis curve study. A hype piece on the teevee screens placates the crowd in the wake of a high-profile plane crash and kills time on the ground during our delay.

Airport security isn't scare tactics after all, though I had firmly believed it was. 'Pro' travelers look back at poor schmucks getting stopped at the scanner, thinking, "Why can't they simply follow the regulations and breeze through as I do?" A culture in which compliance is valued and, dare I say, rewarded. This—not plastic water bottles and toenail clippers—is the real danger.

The drawing is abstract but taking form. Lines fill in even as the bumpy ground travel hints at an eventual liftoff. She mutters to herself, unsure whether to look out or shut the window. Praying, perhaps, and it is a choppy takeoff.

In ORD, my Gonzo twin dashes off to Frontera: a highly rated, tiny, packed restaurant, to try the signature Goose Island Marisol. It's expensive as it is delicious, but I have to grab a table as I seem to be in everyone's way.

I admire the light orange, the trace of unobtrusive mango, and the less-sour pineapple of the brew as I glance up at what are apparently decorative HVAC sculptures, a mural, and a teevee evidently showing teh mastermind chef blending fennel into a casserole. This place needs a delivery door. Four PM should be off-hours for a restaurant, but airports know no such thing. Description says "Latin-style White Ale," but it's godlen in body and wheat (grains of paradise?) is not overbearing, though there's a cling-ering sweetness that could be a wheat presence.

'Copperplate' (the typeface) is EVERYWHERE.