Annoying the Wife – Beer of the Night
Posted in Uncategorized on March 18th, 2003 by Bigwig – Comments OffTonight we sample from Young Brewery’s Dirty Dick’s ale, the beer name that begs to be mistyped; the beer that the wife wants me to take elsewhere, anywhere, as long as it is away from her.
Just like regime change in Iraq, the Ibook is producing unforeseen consequences. In the era B.L., blogging to her was a solitary, second floor endeavor, annoying in that took me away, but at least quiet. No longer.
Today she opened the door to the downstairs bathroom and there on the toilet sat I, hunched over in all my glory, laptop on the floor before me, chuckling over Doggerel Pundit’s lovely Babs poem.
If there is such a thing as a look of incredulous disdain, she wore it. “I cannot believe you took that to the bathroom with you.”
“Why not? I’ve read all the magazines. Gotta read something.”
“It’s a laptop!”
I grinned at her, full of pith and vinegar. Well, full of vinegar at least, if possessing somewhat less pith than before, and remarked. “Don’t you mean…..craptop?”
Which ended the conversation, as she flounced upstairs in annoyance, leaving me to giggle inanely over my exquisite bon mot.
Dealing with a husband who has apparently grown a new appendage is one thing. Dealing with him while he blogs beside you in the marital bed at night is where she draws the line. The beer posts bother her the most, thanks to my lead fingered typing, omnipresent beer smell, and the horrible sounds that accompany every other sip.
Usually there’s a sniff, and then a bigger sniff, and I try to coax my crippled olfactory receptors into detecting a bouquet, followed by an inverse raspberry, one created by me pooling a sip of beer on the front of my tongue and drawing in air across it. This is supposedly done to spread the beer out over the taste buds, to pick out some of the subtler flavors. It sounds like Hannibal Lector discussing fava beans and niche chianti.
thipthipthipthip.
Wine tasters and beer judges do it a lot, and manage to look fairly professional about the whole thing.
I tend to cough a lot, and drool.
thipthip Hack. hack. Nice….hack.caramel…overtone….hack, wipe. Not a pretty sound or sight if you happen to be a seven months pregnant woman finally drifting off to sleep after an hour of arranging things so that neither your sore hips nor your bulging, gravid belly is complaining about the extra heavy nighttime gravity.
So I was dismissed, and sent to the computer room/guest bedroom to finish my beer and record my thoughts there.
“Please don’t throw me in dat dere briar patch,” I said, and was rewarded with a face full of pillow.
Married life is so romantic.
Speaking of marriage, back to the Dirty Dick’s. It’s a very nice reddish brown ale with a fairly fast disappearing head. As always, not much of a bouquet, but that’s my fault, not the beer’s. I can smell it, of course, but I don’t have the nose to separate out any specific themes. Smooth, glassy mouth feel, with an initial faint taste of spun sugar. It’s a fairly hoppy ale, though far less so than the Brutal Bitter of the previous night, with a strong citrus note, something you should find in almost all bitters. (I prefer bitters at the moment, and bought a number of them on the last trip to the beer store, which is why there’s been several reviewed. Alts, whites and hefewiezens also grab the spotlight now and again as well.) There’s kind of a slight charcoal type finish, reminiscent of mesquite chips. I think this is probably what most people would call “oaky.” A good beer with peanuts, but then again, what beer isn’t?
Here’s another review.
And we have a request in, to review a child of the Philippines, San Miguel Dark Lager. I’ll see if I can locate some.