Top 5 Beers

I'm a Brown, therefore I drink.  I consider myself a beer connoisseur... I know various beers fairly well, I enjoy sampling new ones, and I definitely love them for their taste.  There's nothing quite like a cold beer after a long day, a cold beer on a hot summer day at the lake, a beer on the porch in the peacefulness of Quincy, or a beer accompanied by ribs in the company of family and friends.  Beers go great with baseball games, with BBQ's, with pizza, with picnics, with celebrations, with birthdays, and with a thousand other events and occasions.  Different people have different preferences, and different occasions represent different beers -- Coors goes quite well with NASCAR, Guinness is the epitomy of St. Patrick's Day, etc... We all have our favorites.  And many of us have our top 5, which I am quite fascinated by.  I love hearing people's top 5 -- particularly because they often represent very distinct beers.  Unless you're my brother Chad, whose top 5 would be Coors Light, Coors, Bud, Bud Light, and dirty water... I mean Michelob.  Which brings me to this post -- I'm going to share my top 5, at this moment -- these are subject to change at any time.  Please comment with your top 5, I'd love to hear!

 

1. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale -- a classic!  Sadly, I cannot remember the first time I had one, but it is a staple in my beer diet.  It has the perfect combination of smoothness and crisp flavor, a timeless beer. Well done Sierra Nevada, well done. 

* P.S. Their brewery rocks!  They have an awesome outdoor patio and great food... check it out. 

Charlie Brown's Liberty Ale -- a sensation for the taste buds! This is a refreshing, tasteful beer with a hint of citrus flavor. My dad is an outstanding home-brewer and this one tops them all (in my opinion).  Perfection in a bottle. 

3. Stone IPA -- solid. I distinctly remember that Tim's uncle Leo introduced me to this beer. 

It has a strong hoppy flavor, the bitterness of an IPA, and the smoothness of a solid beer.  The best IPA around. 

* Cafe Bernardo's serves this on tap... amazing. 

4. Sierra Nevada ESB -- Sierra Nevada does it again.  Their Early Spring Beer has the hops and the spice to make a lovely beer to enjoy on a nice spring day.  It's seasonal, so enjoy it while you can. 

5. Firestone Union Jack -- wowza, this one's got a bite!!  This is a serious IPA, lots of hop and citrusy flavors.  Watch out, could be dangerous. 

 Ok, these are my top 5 for right now.  There are honorable mentions, however.  Firestone Pale Ale, Stone Pale Ale, Anderson Valley IPA, and Sudwerks Dragonfly are all some of my next best picks.  Duvel is not bad either, but not for the weak at heart. 

So many beers, so little time.  Enjoy. 

Welcome!

I've decided to join the blogging world!  Now I'm not certain that I have the most exciting life to blog about but... I would like a place to write about my experiences, adventures, thoughts, and other such items to share with my friends and family.  My parents aren't on facebook (yet!), so here is an easy way for you to stay connected with my daily life! And much easier to figure out -- you just read it!  Now I would like to preface this with the fact that some may say I'm not the greatest story teller (thanks Mom!)... so be warned that this could roll over into my writing abilities.  I'm not entirely sure where to start, either, so I'm going to go ahead and begin with my newfound task -- I hope that this task will turn into an enjoyable, leisurely, anticipated hobby but at this point, it's a task -- gardening.  I received a few (10+) plants from a regular at work... how thoughtful, right?  Right... unless you don't know how to garden and can't manage to keep a cactus alive, let alone something that needs soil, sun, and water.  But when I got them I thought to myself, "ok, I'm not going to let these ones die! I'm going to plant them, keep them fed, and enjoy the wondrous foods that they produce!"  One minor problem: I had no idea what they were.  Some had labels, one of which looked like it said "yellow pimp." I polled my coworkers and they came to the conclusion that they were all cucumbers.  I decided to email the regular just in case... turns out, there were over 6 varieties (peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, I forget the rest)... none of them were, in fact, yellow pimp.  Yellow pepper, in case you were wondering.  So I brought them home and thought that first on the agenda would be to go to Target (isn't that always the answer?) and buy the necessary "gardening tools," like shovels and those prong forked things to break up the soil.  Good plan.  I went to Target and guess what, they sold them in a pair -- mini shovel and pick thing!  I also thought that while I was planting plants, I would buy some flower seeds and make a pretty flower garden.  Another good plan.  One shovel, one pick, and 8 flower packets later... I was ready to garden.  I stepped outside at home... and had no idea where to plant the darn things.  There's lots of dirt (errr soil) around my house... how was I to know which was best?  I remembered something about worms growing, I mean living, in good soil... so I tried planting them where I found (and split in half) many worms (they grow back, right?).  So, I now have various vegetables growing in front of my house, on the side of my house, and behind my house.  Next were the flowers.  I always thought that when you bought a packet of flowers you opened it, scattered it around in some dirt and voila... flower garden 2 weeks later!!  Apparently, the directions were a little more difficult.  "Plant seeds 8-10" apart, 1/4" under the soil, press soil on top of seed, best in full sunlight, make sure soil is moist, better if planted indoors first and transplanted at 3" tall..." what?  Do they realize seeds are the size of... a poppy seed? So I opened the packets, scattered the seeds, and am hoping at least 3 flowers grow.  So there I was... 10 vegetable plants and 8 packets of scattered seeds later, and I was done.  I felt so accomplished -- I, killer of all plants, had gardened!  This was Saturday.  I woke up this morning and could hear the wind whipping outside my window, definitely a jacket day.  I stepped outside on my way to work and decided to check on the fruits of my labor.  My plants, my precious plants, were wilted and flattened to the ground... the wind had gotten the best of them.  Maybe I should stick to cactus, they take a lot longer to kill. 

R.I.P. yellow pimp