Music to Drunk Your Halls & Fa-La-La

Having grown up in the Midwest and lived on the East Coast for the last decade, I have come to rely on the cold times of the year.

I’m spending my second Xmas out in Montana. The cold weather is a comfort. I have on thermals, jeans, a T-shirt, a flannel, and a wool sweater. The snow is about a foot deep. I might go fall down a ski slope later this week. There’s a fridge full of local and West Coast beers. Not too shabby.

Last year at this time, things were not going so well. I was looking at starting the New Year out of work. A writing project I’d been working felt stalled. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Being out of town helped me put some distance on cold reality.

I knew that if I allowed any of the psychic junk going on in my head to interfere with the holidays, I’d not only be a wreck that year – but every year thereafter.

The only way out is through, y’know.

Lately I’ve had that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt circling around in my head: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And to that I like to add some David Bowie: “I’m not a prophet or a stone age man, just a mortal with the potential of a superman.”

So there ya go.

When it gets cold again, I can think. It’s when I can see how everything falls. This year, 2010, has been a year of incredible highs and incredible lows. I got married. I went to Spain. I got to spend time with a lot of friends and family. I drank some nice beers. Those were the best things.

The bad was bad, and I don’t see the point in dwelling on it. The same goes for the people in my life who make things suck. I have shoved them out the airlock of my brain and watched them explode.

So as December rolls around and things turn towards Xmas, I like to assemble a collection of music that will keep me going through the season.

Here’s some music for you to enjoy. It’s a zipped file. If you want to know what you’re getting into before you get into it, here is the track list –

1. “Cosmic Christmas” – The Rolling Stones
2. “Xmas Riff” – T.Rex
3. “What Christmas Means to Me” – Stevie Wonder
4. “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” – The Staple Singers
5. “All I Want Is Truth (for Christmas)” – The Mynabirds
6. “Home on Christmas Day” – Capt. Elmo McKenzie
7. “Child’s Christmas in Wales” – John Cale
8. “Getting Down for Xmas” – Milly & Silly
9. “Christmas Time Is Here Again” – The Beatles
10. “Little Drummer Boy” – Hoot Owl Boys Choir
11. “If Christmas Can’t Bring You Home” – The Reigning Sound
12. “It’s Christmas Time” – Yo La Tengo
13. “Christmas in Heaven” – Monty Python
14. “Auld Lang Syne” – The Black on White Affair
15. “Silent Night” – Leonard Cohen
16. “Little Drummer Boy” – Lindstrom

Enjoy. Deck some halls. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la- Fa-la.

Featured at the top of the post is a glass of Til Fra (To From) by Mikkeller. It’s on tap at the Double Windsor in Brooklyn.

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Filed under: music, brooklyn, double windsor, mikkeller, til fra

Nemesis Unveiled! Bring On Autumn!

Today is the day for big beers. And by big, I mean beers with the mighty 12 percent ABV.

The Nemesis barley wine from Michigan’s Founders Brewing Company is available on tap and on shelves today. Founders has been busy tinkering with the recipe since the 2009 Nemesis.

What can change in a year? Quite a bit, actually. The 2009 Nemesis was described by Founders as “a Maple Bourbon barrel aged wheat wine holding 12% ABV and 70 IBUs.”

This year’s brew is a “dark barley wine that pours black with a subtle mahogany hue. Brewed with 5 malts and no shortage of hops for a pleasantly bitter booming flavor. Roasty and toasty with a multitude of tastes that melts on your tongue,” says Founders.

A barley wine is a strong ale that originated in this royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, this yadda yadda, this England.

There’s a subtle difference between a wheat wine and a barley wine. For one, wheat is a grass and barley is a grain. So, in the last year the raw material of Nemesis changed entirely. Both wheat wines and barley wines have similarly high ABVs, but they have different malts. When you create a mash for your beer, you pull out all sorts of goodies from the wheat or the grain. Those create the basis for the beer’s flavor. So – Wheat and grain!? Dogs and cats living together!?

Anyway, Founders wanted to maintain a strict street date of September 1, but over the summer there was a little distribution burp that found some cases of Nemesis on shelves in July, much to the consternation of Founders’, er, Co-Founder Dave Engbers (scroll down for Mr. Engbers’ post on the Beer Advocate forums). But now it’s here and we’re all the better for it.

So how’s this fucker taste?

Strong! Nemesis is not a beer that I would describe as a thirst quencher. It’s meant to be savored. The color is very deep and rich, while the head puffs up like a good loaf of bread at first pour.

The taste is crisp and sharply bitter. Nemesis is sweet, which is the case with most high-ABV beers. Despite the sweetness, the taste is more like that of molasses than maple syrup. The nose is smoky, and it makes me think of burning leaves for some reason. I can also taste honey and cinnamon. The honey is appropriate. This is a very sticky beer. I spilled some over the lip of the glass on my pour and each time I pick up the glass, my fingers are all tacky.

Halfway through, I noticed that the head remained as a line of suds around the rim of the glass. I wish I’d had more of a snifter glass or a tulip to pour it in, instead I used a crystal glass that has a nice rounded shape but isn’t really an official beer glass. I need beer glasses.

Nemesis is not a session beer. After one, I wouldn’t go back for another. But to linger over just one, well, that’s a luxury. If you’re buying it to drink at home, I could see even splitting a 12-ounce bottle between two people. I could also see drinking this beer with dessert.

September is a great month to release a beer as rich as Nemesis. This is one you want to sit down with on a cold evening. It’s very autumnal, and on a day when the temperature is pushing 100, it’s nice to have a reason to look forward to the changing of the seasons.

Nemesis is on tap at my local watering hole The Double Windsor as well as The 4th Avenue Pub and The Gate. You can also pick up one up retail at Park Slope’s Bierkraft, which is what I did. When I asked the guys at the shop if they’d tasted it yet, everyone was quick to point out their adherence to Nemesis’ release date. Good kids those Bierkraftians.

Filed under: beer reviews, 4th avenue pub, barley wine, beer advocate, bierkraft, brooklyn, double windsor, founders brewery, michigan, nemesis, the gate, wheat wine