Official Endorsement

In a stunning move that surprised loyal readers and physically sickened one of the candidates (pictured here), the editorial board of Beerlocavore has agreed--by consensus--to endorse Barack Obama in his bid to become the next president of the US of A.

Beerlocavore has never endorsed a candidate before--hence the surprise of the readership--but was moved to act for the following reasons:

• There's a huge difference between the two candidates. And it's important to weigh in on the difference. We are a very different country now than we were in 2000 and the difference is 8 years of a Dubya presidency, not 19 whack job terrorist assholes. We can't afford to fall further as a nation, and there’s a risk that we would with John McCain.

What are the key differences between the two candidates? I’ll explain briefly here:


1. John McCain is an unrepentant neoconservative who drummed up support for the Iraq invasion by spewing lies (the 9/11 tie in; the WMD; and an Anthrax lie he seems to have made up on his own) on national television. In addition, he repeated the Dick Cheney promise that the war would be over quickly and we’d be greeted as liberators. Okay, he was wrong, and guilty of poor judgment (more on that). The bad judgment is a concern but the big issue is that he continues to claim he was right. Does he think we’re idiots?


2. John McCain, by his own admission, doesn’t know much about the economy. So who does he rely on for economic guidance? Phil Gramm. That’s right, the guy most responsible for the deregulation of the Finance industry. Yeah, the deregulation that has led to our financial collapse and subsequent taxpayer (you and me) bailout. Oh, and he’ll check in with campaign manager Rick Davis, the Freddie and Fannie lobbyist (as in he pocketed $2mm from those outfits so that they could avoid regulation). Look, cutting taxes for the richest Americans doesn’t create jobs (except for Dom Perignon importers). It’s been tried (most recently for the past 8 years) and it has failed, repeatedly. There is no trickle down.

3. John McCain’s judgment sucks. Enter Sarah Palin. He thinks she’s qualified. She clearly is not. Her flimsy resume’ doesn’t necessarily disqualify her. It’s her lack of knowledge and her inability to respond to even the most softball of questions regarding foreign policy, Supreme Court decisions, and economic concerns. And here’s the judgment issue: he picked her.

That’s it. Back to beer. Vote for Obama. Buy local.

Lost on the Allagash

The Sox are still playing and I have 'frige full of Allagash. Let us count our blessings! Lobster is cheap! Life is good!

Actually, the Four is gone. I drank it, and enjoyed every bit of it: it's a classic Big Beer--full bodied, balanced, beautifully colored, malty and bitter, with a touch of fruit. In short, it's wonderful.

Damn! The four-pack of Grand Cru is gone, too. It would've been the perfect lobster pairing. Allagash's winter seasonal is a malt maverick that stands up nicely to a spicy seafood red sauce.

At least I've got the other malt monster, the Dubbel. Shit! That's gone too. Oh yeah, it stood up well to my salami-and-cheese sandwich lunch. A fantastic pairing.

Oh, well. It's happy hour. I'm going to tuck into the Tripel while I cogitate which of my remaining beauties (the magnificent Curiuex and the sinful Black) goes best with lobster.

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.

Getting The Beer Right

Beer is important. So why do so many otherwise fine restaurants get the beer list wrong? It doesn't have to be an extensive list to provide the needed variety. An example of a local venue which gets it right is Blue, the live house on Congress Street between High and State. It's a small place, with limited taps, but the beer menu is thoughtful and demonstrates knowledge of beer and beer drinkers (confession; I have to be careful there because the taps include Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA, non-locavore compliant and one of the world's great beers).

Barry, who runs Blue, includes an English style pale (Geary's), a White (Allagash), a flavorful lager (Brooklyn), a shite lager (PBR), a pretentious shite lager (Stella), the mandatory Guiness (which Barry tells me is his best seller), and two IPAs, the best-of-local Frye's Leap, and the aforementioned 90 minute. Maybe a brown or a red could be added to the mix, and a seasonal (which he may have, I forgot), but that's nit-picky. This is a fabulous beer short-list, with something for everyone. I also appreciate his apparent unwillingness to stock anything with "light" in the name (water or Chardonnay works for light "drinkers".)

Twitch Itched

A very good beer. A little bit of a sweet nose but with a nice full flavor and crisp, bitter, flavorful hoppy notes throughout. I need to sample more.

Big News!!

Big Twitch is at the Bear! I'm I've got a Big Twitch to get there and sample it. I'll satisfy that twitch later today and report back.

Streak Over

The Red Sox had been undefeated (6-0) over a period of 3 years when I'd been able to have a beer at Bukowski's on Dalton Street before the game. That streak came to an end on Sunday. I drank an Opa Opa Ipa (brewed in Western Massachusetts), then tried the Opa Opa Amber, which was on tap. I drank that one because it was only $2 if ordered with the BBQ Chicken Sandwich special. I had the Chicken sandwich because it came with the beer. Neither of those were very good, creating the bad karma that led to the Sox defeat (4-2, to the Chicago White Sox). The IPA was pretty good, though, as was the Leatherlip IPA (Haverhill, Ma brewed) I had after the game. A little too malty and balanced for my taste was the Ipswich IPA, also after the game.