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1. INT. SIERRA NEVADA BREWERY - LATE OCTOBER

Six men sit around a table. A projector is displaying a marketing presentation on the screen.

BREWER 1: What the fuck is this shit about?

BREWER 2: Who fucking cares? Free beer!

BREWER 1: Hey shitdouche, you work in a brewery! You drink free beer all the time!

BREWER 2: You're just jealous because I got the fucking good stuff!

KEN GROSSMAN: Hey! Every beer we make is "good stuff"

BREWER 1: Yes, sir...

BREWER 2 (in unison): Yes, sir...

MARKETING WEENIE: Ok folks, let's get started. We here in Marketing are proud to debut the label designs for our new Holiday ale.

BREWER 1 and BREWER 2 start fidgeting anxiously.

KEN GROSSMAN: Great! What's it called?

MARKETING WEENIE:Picture this: A quaint little cottage in the countryside. Surrounded by evergreens, snow adorns its roof, smoke curling up from its chimney...

HEAD BREWER: Hey, shit-for-brains, he asked what it was called.

MARKETING WEENIE sighs, pausing for effect.

MARKETING WEENIE: It's called... Celebration.

KEN GROSSMAN: Love it, love it, love it. Let's go home.

MARKETING WEENIE: Well, wait, shouldn't we try tasting it first?

KEN GROSSMAN: Holy shit, yeah, duh, forgot about that. Where is it? All I see in this bucket here is a bunch of pale ales and IPAs.

BREWER 1 (under his breath): Fuuuuuuuuuuck

BREWER 2: What the fuck are we talking about here?

HEAD BREWER glares at BREWER 1 and BREWER 2

MARKETING WEENIE: You guys were supposed to bring a few bottles of the new holiday ale for us to taste.

BREWER 1: Yeah... so, uh, we didn't brew any.

HEAD BREWER: What!? So what the fuck is in all those fucking beer tanks out there!?

BREWER 2: It's actually a pretty bitchin' IPA.

HEAD BREWER: What about all the cinnamon and nutmeg we were going to brew it with?

BREWER 1: Brewer 2 heard a rumor it would get him high...

HEAD BREWER: That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.

BREWER 2: Duuuude, it totally works.

KEN GROSSMAN: Really?

MARKETING WEENIE (in unison):This is unbelievable. You assholes should be fired!

KEN GROSSMAN: Eh, not so fast. Do you still have any?

BREWER 2: What, cinnamon?

KEN GROSSMAN: Yeah, let's fire that shit up!

HEAD BREWER: I'm game.

MARKETING WEENIE: So what are we going to do about the holiday ale?

BREWER 1: Shit, man, bottle that IPA and slap those Celebration labels on it. Done. This ain't fuckin rocket science.

KEN GROSSMAN: You guys are fucking brilliant. I'm giving you all raises.

MARKETING WEENIE: This is amazing.

KEN GROSSMAN: Except for you, you're fired.

2. INT. COMPUTER DESK - 11:15 PM

MARK: Yeah, so it's pretty good, but I have no idea what makes this a winter seasonal. Pours a nice clear amber red color, with a solid, light colored head. Typical IPA smell of malt and hops, and a taste to match. Nice citrusy start, dry bready bitterness in the finish. There's absolutely nothing about this that screams "Holiday" (except for the label), but it's a good beer. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 6.8% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a tulip glass.

So I'm looking forward to Sierra Nevada's upcoming summer seasonal, a Russian Imperial Stout. (What? That makes about as much sense as this one!)

Update: This should go without saying, but I obviously don't think Ken Grossman (and his brewers) is a cinnamon snorting addict. However, I do think it would be funny if he was.

Again Update: Apparently I missed the opportunity to make fun of Sierra Nevada's "green" industry practices (which are praiseworthy, to be sure, but also probably ripe for hijinks).

I don't know, maybe this just isn't a good year to be drinking beers with "elf" in the name. Not that any were super bad, just that none of them really connected with me. I had high hopes for this one, as I've heard many good things, but I found myself disappointed:

Tröegs Mad Elf - Pours a light, clear, reddish color, with a relatively small head that dissipates pretty quickly. Smell is a bit fruity and musty. Taste is sweet, with some of that cherry taste, and very boozy. The strong alcohol taste isn't nearly as well balanced with other flavors as this weekend's other big holiday brew, Three French Hens, but it's not out of control (like the Insanely Bad Elf I had on Thursday) either. Carbonation is low, which makes it a relatively smooth drink, but drinking a whole bomber of this gets a bit cloying towards the end. It's not bad, but I just didn't connect with it at all. B-

Beer Nerd Details: 11% ABV bottled (22 oz bomber). Drank from a tulip glass.

I'm getting close to the end of my Holiday brews, but I think I've got enough to tide me over until Christmas. So far, so good, even if there've been a few missteps.

I've been catching up with 2010 movies lately, and one that I've been looking forward to was Blood Into Wine, a documentary about Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan's winery in Arizona. As a film, it tends to focus more on the personalities involved and their motivations rather than what they produce (though there's some of that as well). This makes a certain sort of sense, as there's something fascinating about an already mysterious rock star putting his music career on hold while he jaunts off to make wine.

It's a very slickly produced film, and it looks fantastic. Some of the sequences are obviously staged (including one embarrassingly stupid scene in a bathroom), but they don't pretend not to be and it does indicate something about the quirky personalities covered by the film. Keenan has always been a bit impenetrable, so the mixture of fact and fiction makes a certain sense. Arizona is clearly not a haven for wine-producers, and the winery shown in the film is absolutely tiny - kinda like a micro-winery. It's still a young business, but early indications seem promising. It seems for a moment that the film is gearing up towards a Beer Wars-style (or maybe King of Kong-style) underdog versus monolithic corporation confrontation, but it doesn't really go that way. The wine world certainly seems competitive, and there are big entities there, but it hasn't quite reached the epic alcoholic-drink-as-commodity levels that the beer world deals with. As such, all we get are a few other wineries and wine critics who opine on the oddity of an Arizona winery. There are a number of other celebrities that make appearances, such as a hilarious, recurring Tim and Eric interview, Milla Jovovich (Keenan's coconspirator in music with Puscifer) and Patton Oswalt. In the end, it's quite entertaining. I don't particularly love wine though, so I substituted beer for wine whilst watching:

The Bruery 3 French Hens: The Bruery is only a few years old at this point, but it's gained quite a reputation in that time, and from what I've seen/tasted, it's very deserving of all the attention it gets. This beer is the third in a planned 12 year series of beers based on the 12 Days (or should we say Years) of Christmas. You have to respect that sort of audacity, though as I understand it, there's some controversy about the first couple of years of this (in particular, Partridge in a Pear Tree) being hard to find and thus fetching quite a price on eBay and the like. Regardless, when I saw a bottle of this at the local beer garden, I had to pick it up... It pours a very dark brown, almost black, color. You can only really see it when you hold it up to a light, but when you do, you can see through it (just barely). The head is well proportioned and surprisingly light colored. It also smells a bit lighter than it looks, which I have no problem with, as it smells great. The taste is sweet, a little fruity, and spicy (maybe a little clove), with a bit of a syrupy middle and a nice boozy kick at the end. Sometimes that sorta booziness can overpower a beer (as it did with last night's Insanely Bad Elf), but in this case, it's relatively well balanced, and you can get that sort of flavor without being overpowered by it. I think I can also get a bit of that oaked flavor as well, which just adds to the complexity. Overall, it's an exceptional beer, and something I wish I had the foresight to buy a case of and the willpower to store it for the next ten years. As it is, I guess I should just be happy that this West Coast beer is even available here at all! Now I find myself greatly looking forward to Four Calling Birds. A

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml, capped bottle). Drank from a goblet.

This is only the second beer I've had from The Bruery (the first being Coton, which I thought was amazing, if a bit powerful), but they seem every bit as excellent as their reputation implies, so I'm quite excited to seek out more from them...

Towards the beginning of every month, a bunch of friends from work and I meet up at a local BYOB and bring some new/interesting beers to try. This month's haul:

It was a mostly holiday ale theme. Conditions aren't exactly ideal for tasting, so take the following with a grain of salt, but here's what I thought of each:

• Affligem Noël: My contribution and one of my favorites of the night. Much like their dubbel, but a little spicier. Great beer that I plan to revisit in more detail this holiday season (I have another bottle on my shelf).
• Anchor Special Christmas Ale 2010 - My other contribution, I've already written about this, but it went over well with other folks too...
• Delirium Noël: Raisiny and sweet, another popular beer and something I want to revisit in detail.
• Ridgeway Insanely Bad Elf: Super boozy red ale. Not terrible, but the high alcohol overpowers everything. I'm not sure I could drink a 12 oz bottle of this, but it's interesting nonetheless...
• Ridgeway Reindeer's Revolt - Not as dark as the Delirium, but it shares that certain raisin smell and flavor, a little syrupy sweet too. Not bad.
• Ridgeway Reindeer Droppings - Doesn't sound appetizing, but a solid light flavored beer (technically an English Pale Ale). Not a favorite, but a decent session beer.
• Ridgeway Warm Welcome: A reasonable brown ale, I think this one was overshadowed by some of the above beers.
• Southern Tier Unearthly IPA - Solid DIPA, but not the top of the line (like Dogfish 90 Minute or Stone IPA)
• Ridgeway Lump of Coal Stout: I suppose this is a reasonable stout, but there's nothing special about it and there's no holiday style to it either. Not offensively bad or anything, but not especially noteworthy either.
• New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale - Nothing really holiday about this, but a solid session beer (I assume that this is someone's Yuengling Lager style beer).
• Unibroue La Fin Du Monde - A first time beer club attendee brought this. Hard to fault him for that, as I love this beer.

Well, that about covers it! Again, not an especially rigorous tasting session, with the palate cleansed by a burger and fries, but still, as always, a really good time. After beer club, a few of us hit up the local beer distributer. It being PA, we could only buy a full case of stuff, but someone became enamored with Anchor's Christmas ale and bought a case of that, and four of us went in on a St. Bernardus variety pack (each of us got 6 St Bernardus beers, which is pretty awesome). As usual, I'm already looking forward to next month.

The latest edition of The Sessions is today (this is my seccond post in the series), and it's about unexpected discoveries. Mike over at Burgers and Brews once found great beer in the last place he expected to look, and he wants to here about everyone else's unexpected discoveries:

Has this happened to you? Maybe you stumbled upon a no-name brewpub somewhere and found the perfect pale ale. Maybe, buried in the back of your local beer store, you found a dusty bottle of rare barleywine. Perhaps a friend turned you on to a beer that changed your mind about a brewery or a style. Write about a beer experience that took you by surprise.

Indeed, I've already hinted at my discovery... There was this bar/restaurant in the gleaming metropolis of Norristown, PA called the Moody Monkey. A bunch of friends and I went there for dinner one night and were pleasantly surprised to see a huge beer selection. We were just out of college at the time, and thus were used to the joys of Natty Light and the like, so when handed a gigantic beer menu, we were pretty much lost. Since we had no idea what to order, we opened the menu, closed our eyes, and randomly pointed at the menu. As it turns out, two of us, purely by chance, had selected Ommegang's Hennepin. It came out in the 750 ml bottle, caged and corked, and pretty much blew our minds. I'd never seen anything like that at the time. When I poured it out, it looked kinda like a "regular" beer, but the taste blew my mind once again. It was a revelation, and while not really my first experience with craft beer, it was the most influential. From that point on, I was ready to explore the beer world, and went out of my way to find other Ommegang brews and I'd always try something new whenever I could. Alas, the Moody Monkey fell on hard times not long after my discovery of Ommegang. I don't know why, but apparently the owner "forgot" to renew the liquor license, and all of the sudden that fantastic beer selection was gone and it wasn't long after that that the place had to close down.

But I never forgot Ommegang, and have gone out of my way to find and try every Ommegang beer I could. This was several years ago, and in PA, it's hard to find places that would sell single bottles of stuff, so I had to buy full cases. I remember paying through the nose, sight unseen (or tasted), for Three Philosophers when it first came out. And I've never been disappointed. While I've since come to expand my horizons and try all sorts of other beers from other brewers, Ommegang remains one of my favorites (if not my absolute favorite). There was a time, though, where it seemed like the brewery had stalled a bit. They had their usual stable of fantastic year-round brews, but their specialty/seasonal beers were somewhat rare. Lately, they've been doing more specialty/seasonal brews though, and tonight, in honor of my original discovery of Ommegang, I decided to try something new:

Ommegang Adoration Ale - Ommegang's first holiday ale, a belgian strong dark ale with unusual holiday spices. Pours a deep, cloudy brown (maybe a little red), with a solid head. A little lacing, but not a lot. Smells fantastic. Sweet and spicy, with prominent coriander (apparently a favorite spice of mine) and maybe some yeasty aromas. Taste starts sweet and spicy (again with the coriander), with some fruitiness apparent. Suprisingly drinkable considering the high ABV. Solid carbonation, with a bit of a bite, but I enjoy that sort of thing. It's a complex beer with lots of flavors, but for something that's not very subtle, it's pretty well balanced. It's not quite perfect, but it's in the top tier of Ommegang's offerings, which is nothing to sneeze at... A-

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet

So yet another well balanced Ommegang brew that I'm most likely going to fall back on every year (like I do with a bunch of other Ommegang brews). I've also recently come into possession of Ommegang's Tripel Perfection, which I'll probably get to soon (look for a post, probably in January).

No filmic double feature this week, but I started off the seasonal beer tastings for the year on Friday as I watched the Flyers in a disappointing shoot-out-loss, courtesy of a total bullshit penalty call on Chris Pronger, without which we would have won in the initial overtime period (and the article was wrong, it wasn't a split-second before the goal, more like 3-5 seconds... not that I'm bitter). Anywho, the night's beer selections were more enjoyable than the game...

Anchor Special Christmas Ale - Anchor is one of the pioneers of independent brewing in the US, and since 1975, they've put out a special Christmas brew as the holiday approaches. The recipe is different every year, as is the tree on the label (which is quite nicely designed and very classy). It's apparently quite a popular tradition in the beer nerd community, and so I've been looking forward to this. Pours a nice dark brown color (almost black), with a big tan head that leaves lots of lacing as I drink. Smell is spicy (spruce?) with some roasted, earthy character as well. Taste features some of that spice (Spruce? Cinnamon? Nutmeg?), ample sweetness (maybe some raisins in there), and some light roastiness. Maybe a little chocolately bitterness as well, and it lingers a bit (but not in a bad way). Mouthfeel is smooth and crisp, with a medium body. It's not a particularly big beer, but it's quite delicious and I can see why everyone looks forward to this every year. A bit too rich to drink several of these in a row, but that's not a bad thing at all. I normally don't spring for a full six-pack, but in this case, I'm glad I did (not sure if I'll be able to keep one for comparison purposes next year, but maybe I'll try). B+

Beer Nerd Details: 5.5% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a goblet.

Rogue Santa's Private Reserve Ale - Perhaps not as storied as the Anchor, this one seems to be a popular seasonal choice. Pours a deep brown color (lighter than the Anchor ale), with a thin head and a little lacing. Smell has some spiciness in it, maybe clove, but it's mostly a hoppy aroma. Taste has more of a nutty malt flavor, with a little spiciness and a bitter finish. It actually reminds me of Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, but a little darker with some more spiciness. A solid beer, but not as good as the Anchor and not something I see myself visiting very often. B

Beer Nerd Details: 6% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a goblet.

So there we have it. Still stocking up on winter/holiday brews, so there will most definitely be more of those coming soon...

Well, I'm cheating here. Two nights, two beers, and three movies. Not quite a double feature, but close enough! Or maybe not. The point of the beer double feature is to compare two beers of similar style, and the two beers below couldn't be more different. On the filmic side of things, it's a weekend of Trolls. One of the documentaries released this year that I've been really interested in seeing was Best Worst Movie. It's about the movie Troll 2, once crowned as the worst movie of all time, but which has somewhat recently undergone a resurgence as a cult classic (a "so bad it's good" kinda thing). Best Worst Movie was recently released on DVD, so in addition to adding it to my Netflix queue, I wanted to check out the movie itself... and Troll 2 is only available on a double feature disc of its own (with the original Troll). Intriguing, as those two movies have nothing to do with each other. Well, let's just say that the movies are all just about what you might expect .

The original Troll is actually a pretty interesting movie. Terrible, of course, but very watcheable. Plus, it's got midgets, a troll-filled musical number, and, I shit you not, a boy named Harry Potter who learns magic in order to defeat the trolls (seriously, Harry fucking Potter!?). Troll 2 is... hard to explain. I don't really think it deserves the title of worst movie ever, but it's certainly in the running. There are so many nonsensical components to the movie that I don't really know where to start. There are no trolls in the movie, only goblins (perhaps a pedantic distinction, but the lack of trolls is part of the movie's charm), and they all live in a town called Nilbog (that's goblin spelled backwards!). They lure people to their town, turn them into trees and plants, then eat them (you see, the goblins are vegetarians! Yes, the movie is an attack on vegetarians.) But it's so earnest and completely ridiculous that it's almost endearing (and most certainly funny), and so the cult that's grown around the movie makes some sort of sense. Best Worst Movie chronicles that cult and it's rise throughout the naughts. The documentary is made by Michael Stephenson, who played the little boy in Troll 2. There are some interesting parallels between the film's popularity and the way the actors view the film - they are as aware as anyone of the inadequacies of the film, but even they come around as the cult grows. The film gets a bit repetitive as it goes on, but that's also part of the point. Even the actors start to get sick of the screenings and repeating the lines over and over again ("You don't piss on hospitality!") and attending weird horror conventions and the like. It's an interesting bit of filmic nostalgia and I greatly enjoyed it, along with some beers!

Saison Dupont - The saison style of beer has apparently been somewhat endangered, but in recent years it's had a bit of a resurgence, led by the likes of Ommegang's excellent Hennepin, and also Saison Dupont, which was named by Men's Journal as "the Best Beer in the World" a few years ago. Pours a slightly hazy golden color, nice fluffy head with some lacing as I drink. Smells great. Perhaps a bit of fruit in the nose, lots of spices (coriander? clove?), but nothing overpowering. Taste is sweet, citrusy and a little tart, with a full body, lots of carbonation and a bit of a harsh mouthfeel (as I've already established, that sort of harshness isn't necessarily a bad thing). There's a bitterness, but it's not hoppy. Is it the best beer in the world? I have a terrible time choosing favorites and picking bests, but I could certainly entertain the notion, which says a lot. A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet (get it, goblin? goblet? Ha!).

Southern Tier Creme Brulee (Imperial Milk Stout) - Recommended to me by Kaedrin regular Sovawanea, I have to admit that part of the reason I wanted to try this was that it's got such an evocative name. It just sounds like a perfect match. Pours a deep black color with a very thin, beige head. Smells very sweet, lots of vanilla and caramel. Usually the nose tapers off as I drink a beer, but not in this case - aromatic to the very end (even the empty glass gave off a strong scent). I didn't notice it, but the bottle says to drink it chilled out of a snifter, and that makes sense given the great aroma this stuff gives off. That vanilla and caramel shows up pretty strongly in the taste as well, but it's tempered by the roasty malt sweetness in a decidedly, well, creme brulee fashion. It's not as roasty as other stouts I've had recently (either that, or the sweetness is overpowering the roasted flavors). I found myself drinking quite slowly (it lasted longer than the documentary), but that's probably a good thing given the 10% ABV! Even so, it's perhaps a bit too sweet for one person to drink an entire 22 oz bottle of this stuff. It gets a bit cloying towards the end... (apparently I'm not the only one who recently tried this and felt that way) Nevertheless, it's an excellent and unique beer. It would make a nice after-dinner dessert to share with someone, and it's also something that showcases the amazing variety of flavors that beer can have (it could be a decent gateway beer in the right scenario). B+

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (22 oz bomber). Drank out of a pint glass (apparently shoulda been a snifter though)

So two pretty different beers, but both are pretty great.

Despite a recent disappointment from Yards, I went ahead and picked up a pair of their Ales of the Revolution. As I mentioned before, I'm kinda a sucker for local beers and this series, based on recipes of our founding fathers, is particularly intriguing. I drank them whilst watching the second half of last weekend's double feature (sadly, movie theaters around here generally frown upon the drinking of alcohol during the show - perhaps someday, we'll get an Alamo Drafthouse or something similar). Winter's Bone is a very good movie, but not exactly fun drinking material. Nevertheless, I found myself enjoying both of these brews:

Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale - As legend has it, when Ben Franklin learned that barley and hops were not very plentiful, he attempted to bypass the shortages by leveraging spruce and molasses (I have no idea bout the proportions here, but whatever). It pours a dark amber color, mostly (but not entirely) clear, with a thin head. Smell is a little spicy and malty, though not super strong. Taste is a bit spicy (apparently that's the spruce), but otherwise it tastes like a pretty standard amber ale. Would have perhaps liked a bit more maltiness in the taste, but it's got an excellent, very drinkable mouthfeel. It reminds me a little of Yuengling Lager, but with a little more spiciness (which is a good thing, in my book). I could drink these all night, and at 5%, that would work really well. It's not blowing me away, but it's better than most of the offerings I've had from Yards and would make a fantastic session beer. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 5% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a pint glass.

Thomas Jefferson's Tavern Ale - Pours a lighter amber color, mostly (but not entirely) clear, with a solid head. Smell is a bit muted here, not much going on in the nose. Taste is sweet, boozy and spicy, an interesting mix. Carbonation isn't as strong here, perhaps because of the high alcohol content, which seems to be the dominant characteristic of this. It's not really appropriate to call it oily, but that word does come to mind (perhaps that lack of carbonation contributed to an oily mouthfeel). Neverthless, I like it. It's probably not something I want to drink a lot of, but there's something unique about the beer. Flawed, perhaps, but still an interesting experiment. There are rumors of a Bourbon Barrel Aged version of this beer, and given the high alcohol content, I think the addition of rich flavors imparted by such a process would suit this beer well. B

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a pint glass.

So a good showing for Yards this week. Now I just need to find me a bottle of George Washington's Tavern Porter and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Ale (this one seems a bit rarer than the others, though it appears to be in the variety pack). And of course, if I come across the Bourbon Barrel Aged versions, I'll have to try those too.