Saturday, August 29, 2009

Laurelwood Organic Portland Roast Espresso Stout

Cookie Monster and I shared a delicious beer from a local brewery tonight. Here are Cookie Monster's well thought-out notes and tasting nuances:

Laurelwood is one of the many, many local breweries that we frequent, and we've always enjoyed the happy hour and its $3 pints. This particular beer blends organic beer with organic coffee from a local coffee roaster.



You won't find many beers with a richer, darker color: it looks like espresso. It's intensely fragrant, with heavy coffee aromas and malty sweetness. When I opened the bottle, our kitchen filled with these pleasant smells. It pours thick, with a head reminiscent of the edges of a dry cappuccino, appropriately enough, where the milk foam absorbs the rich brown of the espresso below.

What surprised me upon tasting was how dry it actually tasted; the sweetness of the malts was diminutive compared to the acidic espresso flavor, creating a beer that smelled considerably sweeter than it tasted. The espresso is bold and the beer has a smooth mouthfeel, if a bit astringent, with a modest chocolate flavor hiding behind the roast coffee.

The Espresso Stout sports a solid 6.3% ABV. I enjoyed this beer, though I might have appreciated just a touch of additional sweetness to bring out more of the complexity of the espresso. Others have rated it well...I'd give it a 8/10.


And here is my take (this is pretty par for the course for us):
Mmmmmmm.
*burp*
Mmmmmmm.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Sushi Dinner Club

Here is a dinner party I recently had with some friends. We do a "dinner club" about once every three months or so. I'll let the photos speak for themselves this time. It was a lot of fun!









Thursday, August 13, 2009

Holy Shit!

So, I just got a comment from a person I don't actually know. This is huge. People who read my blog include: well, right now, no one. But when I was posting semi-regularly the people who read my blog were my friends, my mom and Cookie Monster. I had a grand total of about five readers! Woo hoo! But now some dude named Jeremy (I don't know anyone named Jeremy) says he likes my blog! Oh, sweet sweet validation, how lovely thou art. Kinda makes me want to actually do something on my blog!
Hi Jeremy! Thanks for saying nice things. I'm blushing.