Catching Up

I have a lot of catching up to do, sorry. I've been to New York City, Saco, and an even more exotic location, Western Maine. In the time since I've last blogged, John McCain has gone from feeling a little cocky to feeling desperate, and the campaign has gotten quite nasty. We've had an economic melt down--it's good to know that the barter system is still out there (guns for Peak Organic beer!). You'd need to sell 3 shares of AIG stock to buy one six-pack of quality beer, and Joe Six-pack has moved to national prominance. I wonder who he is?

New York: I took the Fung Wa bus from Boston and arrived in the late afternoon, with an empty stomach and a raging thirst. I walked out of Chinatown because although it's a great place to eat, it's a shitty place to drink, and beer takes precedent. I spotted Kenn's Broome Street Pub, found a stool, and ordered two beers: A Dogfish Head Pumpkin and a Brooklyn Lager. I use a new rule in applying the 100 mile limit, by the way: as the crow flies. Also, in an attempt to be a little less uptight, I don't feel a need to beer-map the measurements. Delaware seems close enough to NYC, for example. Anyway, the Pumpkin is skippable, as is all pumpkin beers. The Brooklyn Lager is brewed in Utica. I don't know where that is and I don't care. NYC is underserved in quality beer in many ways, the Brooklyn is my fallback beer.

Saco: Run of the Mill pub in Saco is a beautiful drinking establishment with above average food and high quality brewed-on-premise beer. It's a big space in an old tannery. All the beers are very good. My one complaint is that none of them are particularly extreme. I'm still looking for that locally brewed hop monster! But they've got a pale, a red, an ipa, and a brown. I found their lager quite good.

Western Maine: It's good to go check out the fall foliage. And there's no place better to do that than Ebeneezer's Pub, in Lovell, the foothills of the western Maine mountains. I don't know why it's there (and I wish it were a short walk from my house) but it's a Belgian Beer bar with an unbelievable (as in fabulous!) beer list in a building that feels a bit like a snowmobile club. Using another locavore rule variation (when in a Belgian beer bar, all Belgian beer is considered local) I sampled the wares a bit. I could've stayed there all day and into the night. I ordered food and had a burger that I'd like to forget. The beer is memorable, though, and worth the trip.

The Seasonals: Geary's Autumn is great! I really like the Gritty's offering (Halloween ale?) also. I'm not big on the pumpkin (sorry, Shipyard). I have yet to try the Peak Organic/Coffee by Design hybrid but I'm looking forward to it. It's seems that combining two of my three daily drinks (water would be the third) is effecient, if nothing else). In general, though, I'm a big fan of the switch from the summer beers to the autumn brews.