Basically, Samuel Adams (The Boston Beer Company) is looking to see which beer will be added to the “Brewmaster’s Collection” you probably have seen at your local grocery store. Last year, it was the Blackberry Witbier (which, had I voted in that, I probably would have considered whatever option B was). This year the choice is between a Pilsner and an IPA style beer.

We received a taste of each, and first tried the Pilsner – according to our representative, it was first brewer by brewmaster Jim Koch himself for his daughter’s wedding. Very smooth to drink, a little sweetness to it, but not overwhelming, and a very clean finish that definitely led me to want another sip.

Next up came the Samuel Adams Ale, which although an IPA, was an amber color, with a much more aggressive IPA style bite to it. Like most IPAs, it left that lingering hops taste after the finish (am I the only one that sometimes feels like that aftertaste is almost a “spicy” one?). A very good beer to be sure, however we could only vote for one…

And out table of 8 went, unanimiously I believe, for the Pilsner. From the sound of our representative, I think the Pilsner has been laying waste to the Ale competition since they started this event.

Overall, the evening went very well, my sister won a Samuel Adams T-Shirt in a raffle (the XL size of the shirt means pajamas, I suppose) and I had a few other brews on draft, including a Leffe Blonde Belgium style Pale Ale (Thumbs up) and Founder’s Red’s Rye Ale (Thumbs down).

But, on my vacation, I did manage to sample a couple beers and I’ll be posting very frequent updates here over the next few days, so more to come!

As for the rest of the day? Who knows…. it’s lazy Saturday, slept in, watched Kirk win a stay at Ceaser’s Palace in Vegas on Twitter:

1st place winners (3rd batch)@paulwaling, @jmoneyallday, @benji08, @theclairemarie & @dkirkward

Maybe I’ll head to the pool, or sit around watching The Dark Knight… have to head to the Home Depot for Father’s Day. The questions is, what to get? But that’s why I love Home Depot, walk around for a little while and you’ll have to decide what NOT to get him (as well as what you can and can’t afford to get for yourself).

Then a little showing of Evil Dead: The Musical at Actor’s Theatre and then we might be headed to Connolly’s on 5th in Charlotte afterward (haven’t decided yet) but they have:

Hunt for a Cure @ Connolly’s
Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009 – 3:00 PM

Hunt for a Cure Charity Event at Connolly’s on Saturday, June 20th starting at 3pm. Pig Pickin, Cornhole Tournament (please email lu.ulma@gmail.com to sign up), Live Band, DJ WoJo, 50/50 Raffle & more… Please email HuntforCure@gmail.com for more information & find out how you can help!

So at least it would be getting a few drinks for a good cause.

All the news for now, perhaps I’ll see you uptown later tonight. You can also follow me on Twitter through: @worldofjay

Until next time…

Saturday, we had quite the night. After a morning of taking care of Gunther and Heidi, Emily and I headed uptown and had lunch at Zink. Pretty good food, ended up filling me up quickly – only had room for the pita-hummas appitizer and half of my pulled pork sandwich. Still a very nice place to go eat and have a drink before…

DUHHHHHHHHHHH DUH DUH DUH DUH Dahhhhhhhhhhhh

The Phantom of the Opera was back in Charlotte, I haven’t seen it in a long time, long enough to not remember half of the plot, and Emily loves the show so it worked out perfectly. Our seats were in the Orchestra section, left side, very close to the stage, really good seats – we were able to see everything. I thought the production was done very well, impressed by Christine, a little let down by the Phantom – but not his singing, his acting was a bit on the hammy side. I thought the Phantom was supposed to be all badass and cool and all furious when Christine took his mask off, but this Phantom decided that losing his mask meant he was supposed to stumbled around like she blinded him or something. Still, a great show.

Afterwards, we met friends over at Nikko’s Uptown for Katie’s sushi birthday dinner, Emily was getting a bit tired after that and headed home (we had drinks before Phantom, drinks after Phantom at PJ’s, drinks at the bar at Nikko’s, drinks during dinner – she was probably the smarter person to stop there) while I decided to continue the party. We moved the party to Mez uptown and then, finally, the XYZ bar located in aLoft uptown. Somehow, I found my way to an ATM and a taxicab and headed home to pass out. Good birthday times – and I know Jon has some ridiculous pictures that I’ll have to link to once he uploads.

Sunday – woke up feeling pretty bad – although I have felt much worse. And I decided to work through the hangover by using…. manual labor. Mom & Dad were extending a retaining wall in their backyard so I was brought in to move and place the 80-lb blocks. Amazingly, this seemed to help me sweat out the leftover booze and left me feeling better. Then it was back home for a little studying before Pops in the Park. “Magical Night Music” was the theme, definitly some good stuff. Theme from Harry Potter, Pirates of the Carribbean – my favorite was Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. You know it from many different cartoons (Donald Duck – Daffy Duck dueling pianos in Who Framed Roger Rabbit).

Monday was full of work and studying, we had another softball game that didn’t end in a tie, but like the game the previous Monday, it got ugly quick. Ended up beating Morningstar Lutheran something like 41-6. They played the whole game a man short and didn’t have many hitters on the team (but the ones who could hit, smashed some serious HRs) I think I wound up 5 of 5 or something, and that includes the two times I came up to bat and TRIED to get out. Not the best fielders.

Tuesday was my test, and Jon Harding and I started another home brew. I believe it’s based off Rouge Hazelnut Brown. I’ll be posting my thoughts on our current brew, Dante’s Honey Whear Beerferno soon and I’ll have to coin a name for the batch that’s currently fermenting.

Whew, sorry for the novel, but now I’m caught up and will remember to post more frequently so I don’t have to jam everything into a huge post.

Bear Republic Racer 5 India Pale Ale

Was served this one up as they were out of Bear Republic’s Hop Rod Rye. 7% Alcohol by volume, brewer information is HERE. I’ll admit right out that I’m not a huge IPA fan, but this one was interesting in the fact that it wasn’t nearly as hoppy as I expect IPAs to be and in that I was a bit disappointed.  In fact, this beer seemed to try to straddle the worlds of a wheat beer and an IPA. Ended up pleasing neither side of my spectrum, but it was at least smooth to drink. 6 of 10.

Triangle Belgian Golden Ale

After the IPA, I wanted to move toward my one of my favorites – a Belgian style Ale – lo and behind, Triangle Brewing Company based out of Durham, NC makes a Belgian Golden Ale. Their website is HERE. Sadly, they don’t have any pictures of this brew and I neglected to take a picture with my phone, but the cell phone in a dark bar area wouldn’t do the color justice anyhow.  This beer, however, was delicious! I’m not saying that you can skip beers that are actually from Belgium, but Triangle has done an excellent job here. You would probably compare this to Duvel and it would fall short of that mark, the depth of taste just isn’t there – it’s just not as full bodied, but overall, and for the price, cheers to the N.C. Brewery on making a Belgian Golden Ale effort. 7.5 out of 10, and I look forward to future batches of this beer to see if you can match other Belgian Golden Ales.

Chimay Cinq Cents

Before my review – you note the picture above? Chimay in a Chimay glass. This was the same issue I had with my Duval serving a few nights ago. Certain beers require certain glasses so they pour correctly and when I was looking for an image to use, my google image search also showed up a picture from a site called www.mustlovebeer.com. I CALL SHINANIGANS, since they showed the beer poured into a regular pint glass. Bad form sir, I’m not sure if you do love beer.

At any rate, Emily has this beer, I had a sip. For me, like pretty much everything Chimay makes, it was deliciously complex, a good bite to start and a smooth overall finish. It’s an 8% alcohol content. And now, Emily’s comments!

“It was honey-ed with a, I don’t know what is was, no, it was, I don’t know how to describe it. That’s your job, you’re the writer!”

So, I’ll just say that it was very good, I recommend it and Emily rates it a “Two-Thumbs Up!” on her thumb scale.

I’ll keep up with beer postings, since I do enjoy trying different and delicious beers!

After that, met up with a few people (Lindsay, Mitch, Kelly, Emily) at the Yn bar off East. Had a couple Duvel Beers, which is probably one of the tastiest beers I’ve ever had. Except Yn has TERRIBLE glasses for this. Notice the picture.

Versus the glass they had…

This meant that the glass would up being mostly head. Had to pour extremely slowly due to this. No good.

Saturday, we had a little Surprise birthday party for Liz, which I had mentioned back in an earlier post until Kirk called me out on it and told me I had to take it out of the blog. Emily made her awesome guacamole dip before leaving for Chapel Hill, so I brought that with me and spent most of the afternoon playing cornhole or HORSE in the pool. Saturday night was depressingly boring – no takers on going out. I tried!

Sunday I got up early to help Kelly put out the tarps for Charlotte’s Pops in the Park – it was a perfect day for it. I also started a week of taking care of Gunther and Heidi while Bo and Angie are off on vacation. Although I’m normally 100% against getting up early, especially on the weekends, it ended up working out OK. Was able to get out to the pool for a little bit, met up with Lindsay and Mitch, before going to check on the dogs and get ready for Pops!

It was a great kickoff to the season. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, and you live in Charlotte, you need to check it out. The Charlotte Symphony plays a free concert over at SouthPark Mall – we usually bring a picnic out there, lots of wine, beers and snacks to share. This year, with all the economic problems, the Symphony asks for $5 donations per adult versus “Whatever you want to Donate” in years past. We did pretty well – http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/770655.html.

Yesterday (Monday) The St. Matthews (Fighting Team #2′s) played Christ Covenant Team #4. The result was not pretty, as we ended up winning by mercy rule 27-1. I finished up Reaching base four times, but I’m going to say I was 2 for 3 (First at bat, they made an error instead of catching my pop-up) with a walk a double and a “triple” that would have been an inside the park homerun if the game wasn’t already out of hand and I wasn’t trying to make it any worse.

Coming up this Friday, we’re playing Christ Covenant Team #2 at Park Road Park at 8:15 over on field #6. Hopefully it’ll be a better game for spectators! In other activities coming up, Phantom of the Opera for Emily and I on Saturday the 13th, then, next Saturday – “Evil Dead: The Musical”. Yes, I’m for real. – http://www.actorstheatrecharlotte.org/

And a word of warning to anyone who remembers the old “Worldofjay.com” site (before some stupidhead took it over after I didn’t renew it) by the request of Lindsay I might post up a few of the archives for your enjoyment. Until next time!

Weekend was great – finally a good patch of weather, Emily and I got out to the pool on Saturday and Sunday for a little while. Saturday night we went to dinner at Del Friscos, which was fantastic. Emily won a contest at work by being the most productive team member so we spent basically all her prize money there. Steak was delicious and Emily has an excellet martini. Apparently they soaked pineapple in the vodka, and then after a few weeks, they squeeze the pineapple chunks and strain using a cheesecloth. Result? Awesome.

Then we met up with friends at M5 in South Park, I had a couple beers, and we headed home.  I surprised Emily with tickets to the June 13th, 2:00pm showing of Phantom of the Opera – looking forward to that!

Also going on in this crazy summer, I have my first Exam for summer school tomorrow, haircut Wednesday, class again Thursday, another softball game Friday, more pool-ing on Saturday, Pops in the Park Sunday and we’re back to Monday again. Time flies…