Lost Abbey Lost & Found is beer 350 but isn't the only big event of the night

Today is a milestone for our blog, but three particular noteworthy events happened tonight:

1. David and I enjoyed our 350th beer of the year
2. We hung out with our friend Cassie, who we haven't seen in at least 6 months
3. Someone was shot in our apartment complex

Whoa, whoa, what? Yeah...Let's start with the beer of the day.

The marked up calendar to the left will be our road map for the remaining 15 days. We've plotted out a few random brews, but for the most part we will be drinking 11 different trappist beers from 5 different breweries and some of the highest regarded beers in the world.

The Lost Abby Lost & Found was one of our favorite beers from our May San Diego trip. It is a Belgian Dubbel brewed with raisins and the label on the back serendipitously sums up why I, personally, started the blog - to give myself a renewed purpose and creative outlet - and in the process discovered a new community and passion for beer. On top of that, our friend Cassie is over sampling home brew and catching up on the last half year. It's getting all sorts of sentimental up in here, so let's drink to the Lost & Found.

Here is the label, which I'll type out below:

"A Life worth living is full of discovery and we are reminded everywhere there is opportunity. All it takes is desire to seek out and find those things, these moments and everything in between. We brewed Lost and Found Abbey Ale to pay homage to the great monastic breweries of Belgium. Like us, we hope you'll take the time to discover a beer that breathes aromas of figs, raisins and candied fruits. Please join us by raising your glass as we offer a toast to patience, perseverance, and all the things we have lost along the way and we somehow lucky enough to find once again."

The perfect beer to pour while reminiscing upon an incredible year with friends, right? This is an 8% dubbel. The raisins add a complexity to the dark fruit flavor not possible through using just grains and the result is a sublimely balanced beer between the dark fruit, sweetness and raisins. The carbonation creates a really crisp beer, nice Lost Abbey! This is a very unique beer and is something you should try. THE ROCK rating.

I could tell you I saved this beer for the 350th milestone months ago when it was purchased, or maybe that I planned this out on my chicken-scratch calendar pictured above a couple weeks ago, but then I'd be a big fat liar instead of a nerd and a gentleman

Truth is, this was all chance. I picked our beer tonight by looking into the refrigerator for a good 30 seconds and randomly selecting Lost Abbey. And fortuitously so, it was the perfect beer for the occasion. Like so many events this year, in particular the night before our halfway point, an experience that reminded me of our beereveryday mission in a unique way: Lips of Faith Erics Ale reunites me with old friends (the point I'm referring to is just under the beer picture).

My point is, you really don't know what's around the corner. We live in Marin del Rey, right on the water (as you can tell from many of our pictures). It's an extremely quiet community dominated by large complexes that are fairly disconnected from the energy of Venice. We also don't have any crime. Up until tonight I thought the Marina was Pleasantville. Right after we'd popped the bottle on the Lost Abbey, the three of us heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots (4-5 of them). The problem was, we couldn't tell you where they were coming from because everything echoes off the water. We go back to drinking, a little disturbed but unable to really do anything. Then we heard sirens.

I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but basically our complex sits above an open carport style garage and there's about 20 yards of asphalt in between the building and the sailboats for parking, specifically for boat owners. The woman was shot right by the car port on the other side of the complex, maybe 80 yards away. After the police and paramedics arrived, I went out on my balcony and if I peered through palm branches, could see her from the edge of my deck.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Woman-Shot-in-Robbery-Attempt-in-Marina-Del-Rey-126007118.html

Thankfully and luckily, she survived. What's really shocking about the experience, is how it happened. She gave the robber her purse and then was shot in the back while walking away. She did everything right and still got f**ked. Yikes. They still haven't caught the guy. Looking back I wish that I would've run out to the balcony and tried to glimpse the attempted murderer, but we had no idea where it was. There were people above us on the third floor who were asking us what was happening, and they had a better view of the street.

It's scary stuff and she was very fortunate the robber had horrendous aim and was only shot once. As you can see in the news photo, there were multiple bullet casings near the body. We the ambulance leave for the hospital and peering through its window, she didn't look good. Pretty soon we bid Cassie adieu, locked our doors sliding glass doors to the balcony and turned in.

Milestone 350: You never know what's around the corner, and if you lose something, maybe what you'll find will be something even greater.


That reminds me of...

“But that’s life. One minute you’re on top of the world, the next minute some secretary’s running you over with a lawn mower.”

                                                Season 3, Episode 3: “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency” 

Uinta Tilted Smile Imperial Pilsner isn't as desirable as Joan Holloway

Well, today is my officially my 28th Birthday. The party started Friday with the All-Denim extravaganza, continued Saturday with Beach day Sloshball and followed through with lobster and a partial mash homebrew. I've been celebrating this day three times over before the sun debuted on May 9th 2011. Cookies for lunch and chips and dip for dinner is all I need for birthday celebration. I'll be out all this week and I'll be tasting 7 or 8 breweries this weekend with my parents and David.

Some people would argue that you have to do something for your birthday, or that you shouldn't be alone on your special day. To them, I say that thinking is for the birds. I've been surrounded by great friends enjoying memorable experiences for 72 hours. I think I'll be okay if I take a night off, open up one of my favorite beers as an appetizer before the beer of the day, demolish some guacamole and watch my best show on TV, Man Men.

Next to all the special whiskey we keep in the hard to reach cupboard above the microwave, I keep a bottle of North Coast Pranqster and Drake's Denogginizer Imperial IPA for a special occasion. Tonight is perfect for the Drake's, which has an incredibly rich caramel and Munich malt. It's inspiring enough that I have decided here and now to design my next homebrew to hopefully create a malt of this caliber and richness. It's amazing. 

But the beer of the day hales from Utah and is a strange bedfellow. Almost as strong  as the 9.75% Denogginizer, the wacky Tilted Smile is an Imperial Pilsner. This is our second imperial pilsner, a very odd style but one that some American brewers apparently like to play with.

I immediately taste that it's too malty. On the flip side, David says that it's not hoppy enough. He's right. An imperial malt bill needs an imperial amount of hops to balance it out. Unfortunately, Uinta didn't adjust accordingly for their increase in alcohol. Maybe they kept the same IBU number as they had with their regular pilsner. Either way, it doesn't work. I'm not impressed, ARMAGEDDON rating.

I'm going to climb onto my soapbox for a second here to spout about Imperial Pilsners as a style. To me, increasing alcohol content serves two purposes. Obviously, one is you create a potent beer. In order to make a higher content brew, you have to increase the amount of malt. This allows for a greater complexity of malt to be used - or so I think. As a style, however, Pilsner are brew to be clean and crisp. They are not known for their complexity. I really don't see the need for them. Maybe they're fun to toy with, but I don't understand why you make them.

Hair of the Dog Adam is an Old Ale meant for Don Draper

I'm watching the Lakers game, but it's starting to annoy me because each time Lamar Odom scores, I know that somewhere Rancor known as Kloe is clapping and I strongly dislike her, to put it mildly. For many reasons, but most strongly because I pass this billboard every morning on my commute, and it's just too much at 8am.

Gross

People who are famous for no reason+Reality Show+Annoying People+Shirtless shooting guards for basketball team I don't like = everything I hate about this billboard which I see everyday. But it is beer like today's and shows like Mad Men which help me forget these horrible images.

Old Ale is a style of beer which I've read about but never had the privilege to sample. It's a high alcohol beer with a complex full malt body. David is on a flight to Aspen tonight so I'm having this one solo.

 

The Hair of the Dog Adam has 10% alcohol and is made with an organic pilsner malt and Northwest Hops. Pilsner is an incredibly light and thin grain, and I'm excited to try such a dark beer created using a pilsner base malt. My tongue is no wizard, so I read the label to discover what flavors to expect - chocolate, smoke, leather and figs. That's a hell of a complex profile! I'm stoked now, even though I'm traditionally skeptical of tasting claims made by labels, thanks to my inability to taste what is promoted on a wine label.

But sweet Betty Draper! This brew is complex. They weren't lying to me. I will now admit, these guys are straight shooters, like boy scouts at a urinal. You really taste each flavor advertised and they're all delicious. I've never chewed leather but it's about damn time I've started. Apparently I'm missing out. It's rare to find a beer that's not a barleywine with this complexity. Hair of the Dog Adam is an inspired beer and at $4.50 from Whole Foods, worth every penny. THE ROCK rating.

Don Draper is the shit. Even watching him drink himself to death in the third episode of the first season is inspiring. How can he do that? Recently, I've felt twinges of irritation about essentially forcing myself to drink everyday and the amount of blog entries posted have suffered because of it. But on evenings like tonight, feels damn good to prop your feet up and have a cold one whilst enjoy some 60's schadenfreude. Cheers Donald Draper.