Monday work nights

There are very few acceptable ways to correct papers. My favorite is starting with a mug of tea, then moving on to a mug of wine.
"What's all over my assignment?"
"the only reason you have an A, kid; pinot noir."
Last night i sat down with a bottle of Bella Sera pinot noir from the big wine sale a month or so back. I'd finished most of it last Tuesday, but there were still enough to get me good and in the grading mood. (*facepalm, i hate grading.)
This fairly moderately priced pinor noir turned a fairly lame evening into a fairly delicious one. It is nice and smooth, but with only subtle flavor. The nose is also weak. I'd drink it though. I don't think i spent more than 4 dollars for the bottle. Bonus! I get to feel snobby because its an import from Italy. Supposedly, it contains rich fruit (cherry and plum) flavors. I'd say its on the milder side for a Pinot Noir. 4/5 for flavor. Mild can be good and 4.5/5 for value. On sale of course. At its normal price of about 7 to 14 dollars, it would only get a 3.5/5.

Try it for yourself! This one comes with my recommendation. A quick warning, though, not everyone on the internet seems to share my description of mild. Keep in mind, friends, this is a cheaper wine.

Newcastle Beer, and What is Skunked?

Last night while enjoying after finishing some leftover bottles at a friends place, I came across a bottle of Newcastle ale. While I don't think Newcastle is bad, this bottle might have been on its way out. The normally  nutty, mild beer smelled a little bit off. I think think it was on its way to being skunked. After saying as much, i realized I don't actually know that much about what skunked is. Time to do some research, both for myself and to educate my friends who argued that the beer wasn't.

What  I knew about skunked beer before:
Light affects flavor molecules
Beer has a shelf life that is frequently exceeded by smarter-than-smart college students


What I know now (and i wasn't even totally wrong!):
Light does affect beer! Ultraviolet light can over time degrade the flavor molecules derived from hops. These broken down molecules can bind with sulfur compounds to form that wonderful skunky aroma. While i did not think there were any hops in Newcastle (that's a joke because its so mild) this may have been the problem. Especially since Newcastle comes in its striking looking while useless clear bottle. Also, my friend was storing the beers on top of her fridge. Boo.
Good news however, it was only slightly skunked. We drank it anyways.

Now for the shelf life of beer. I was under the impression that beer lasts about 6 weeks. WRONG. Beer according to various sources on the ever accurate Internets beer can last 8-12 months if properly stored (away from heat and light) in cold environments (the fridge). Beer that has a higher APV can last even longer. Oh, alcohol, you are a wonderful preservative. Beer companies also take care to protect their product by employing filtration which can remove most of the microbes that help make the wondrous result, and by pasteurizing the beer.

Well now I know a little bit more. There is no way, however, that beer will last 8-12 months in my fridge.

Why I may never like Heineken

What do you reach for when you want a classier big beer?
 For me, its never Heineken, I've been told i'm a snob, but there are a few good reasons why I can't drink this beer that many assume is highly palatable, cheap, and still maintains a feel less like a miller or coors, and more like a 312 or semi local beer.
One of those reasons was my first drinking experience as a stupid, stupid 17 year old. Somehow my friends and I got a hold of wayyyy too much heineken for our own good. We drank a lot. Well, I had 4 beers. Ha, and proceeded to get super drunk and throw some if it up. Its hard to forget losing your cookies over alcohol for the first time. Doesn't make good memories.
The second bad experience I had with Heineken has to do with those mini kegs they sell. One of my friends as an undergrad received one for a housewarming present. It was just plain skunked. Skunked beer is one of the sadder things in life. Well not really, but its still pretty sad.
Anyways, this has pretty much cemented my aversion of the green bottles. I will on occasion sample one of their special darks, so i guess its not a complete loss. Drink to your hearts content, but mine won't be a heini.
Just so you know...

Becoming a Boring Drinker

Yes, I'm a terrible (or terribly boring) person. I've been ignoring my blog and working on things like rock climbing and doing actual work. Boo. I clearly should be drinking more.
In honor of what a boring person I have been lately I shall blog about the Miller lite i had last night at Trivia night where my team was coming in 8th (last) place out of 24 teams. There were a lot of ties for much better scores.

Their registered trade mark. Duh.

I suppose this will serve as something of a meter for my beer rating system. I'd actually give Miller a 2/5 for taste. It tastes like almost nothing, and therefore, when i want it to look like i'm attempting to drink something at a bar, and don't want to actually have to drink, then this works out. For value i'd actually give it a 3.5. That its not very good, adventurous and flavorful actually brings this beer down. That and the shame of drinking but big beer company beer recently :/. Otherwise, Miller is unpretentious. It knows its not a spendy fancy beer. Its just beer (almost). So they price it that way. Thank you Miller, even if i scoff you, mock you and rarely "enjoy" you, you do have a place in our beer drinking. Just not frequently.

Making New Friends With Tequila

I'm not sure how most people try and make new friends, but one of my favorite methods involves going out for a drink or two.... or pitcher. Last night in a bid to be less antisocial I went out for some delicious angry orchard cider. Then when I realized that i was clearly enjoying drinking, I popped by a friends place for some tequila drinking. Oh yes, tequila Tuesdays. We started normal, knocking back some patron silver. The shiny fancy stuff I normally don't buy myself since its out of my tequila price range. Clearly, its simply too smooth and delicious for my palate.
Next, we found a bottle of this quite interesting Patron xo cafe in the freezer. Essentially its Kahlua but made with tequila. It imparts a rich coffee or chocolate flavor followed by a nice tequila burn. For flavor i'd give it a 4/5, i'm sure it would be good mixed, but for cost, i'm just going to assume its not in my price range.
Then I found a nice comfy patch of floor to work off my buzz on. Very nice. Onward and upward. Oh, and have a sweet new year!

Working Weekends

 While everyone else seemed to have a rather inebriated weekend, I kept things relaxed and easy. On Friday a midst a tornado warning I drove over to the liqueur store to try something new. I only had a bottle of the homemade wine in the car (have i remembered to blog about that at all?) and decided I could use something different. I picked up a 6 pack of the Southampton Pumpkin Ale and a 4 pack of Kahlua mudslides hoping for a good time. At first I thought the Southampton might be a local beer. Turns out it is... to New York. Happily it wasn't overpoweringly pumpkiny and it had a nice finish. I'd consider this again, although it was on the spendier side ringing up at about 11 dollars for the 6 pack. 4/5 for being a not disappointing pumpkin ale at 5.5 apv, and 3/5 for value.

Next up are the Kahluas. Ever feel to damn lazy to mix a drink? Then try these out. They are super sweet, but still tasty. They are definitely on the girly side and a little spendy at over 6 dollars for the four pack, but hey, a girl deserves something nice now and again. Next time i'm getting the mudslide variety :). Please note, the bottles are extremely breakable, i had a few of these in with the 6 pack of beer. The bottle sweat caused the bottle to fall out and all the bottles to hit the ground, the only one that broke was the single full white russian in the bunch. So sad for me :/.
3/5 for taste, and 2.5/5 for value. Party on.

Adventures in Colorado (Take me back!)

 What better adventures are there to have than those that combine all the things i love together? Awesome people, awesome views, awesome body breaking treks and BOOZE! My labor day weekend consisted of driving down to Colorado, 18-20 hours in a car, quick camp, hiking like a maniac up a 14,000 foot peak! (WHOOT! we are awesome.) Then packing up and driving home. If you get the chance, you should do it too. It comes highly recommended.

 On the way down our caravan of cars got a little bit separated and we had to wait on a few people. The best way we could think of to fill this time was to head over to the wine tasting room right next to where we had stopped for a bite in the sleepy little Colorado town of Georgetown, Colorado. Canyon Wind (www.canyonwindcellars.com/ )offers 4 free tastings of their wines in their tasting room, which we happily took advantage of. With 3 of us, we tried just about everything on the menu. While mid-priced (meaning above my price range) I still managed to be impressed enough to walk out with a wine bottle. Yeah, I might be a sucker, and I usually do buy something at wine tastings. It is still pretty good, though! After the tasting I came away with a few findings. Their blended table wines, meh, only so so. However, some of their specialty varieties were damn good. They had two in particular that really impressed me. Unfortunately, they were both over 20 dollars. The 32 dollar Zephyrus was spicy, rich, and hardly sweet at all. I was in love. The Petit  Vedot was also quite fruity without being sweet. Really rich in flavor and just overall super yummy. I picked up a bottle of my third favorite, the cabernet franc. I'd never heard of this variety before, but apparently it is normally just blended for table reds. This is a rich, somewhat fruity red. Not quite as complex as the other two reds, it still 100% better than most of the 3 dollar reds i indulge in frequently.
It was quite refreshing to try wines that are left in their less sweet, or even dry states. Oh, Colorado. Don't let me leave you! I give the Cabernet Franc a 4/5 for yummy, and a 2/5 for value. I paid 20 for my bottle. Boo.

 Later on, when we had finally made it to the campsite, up the mountain and back down, it was time for some VICTORY BEER! One of the alumni from a club i'm in brought some delicious local beers that he was willing to share. I hypothesize that some of the reason he shared is because us less acclimated folks are funny to watch get drunk in the high altitude off one beer. Or he's just nice. Thanks either way, i think your taste in beer is amazing. The first one i tried was Old Chub Scotch Ale. This dark malty beer is award winning. At 8% it knocked me to my behind at 11,000 feet. I very much enjoyed its smooth flavors and rich overall taste. 5/5 for taste. I have no idea how much it costs, but since one was good enough to put me in a great mood all afternoon, i give it 5/5 for value.

 A little while later everyone else was drinking some hot chocolate. I decide beer was more my speed and picked up another out of the cooler. This extra special bitter from Ska brewing company, another local to the area, was also really good. In Indiana when they say bitter the beer tastes basically green from all the hops. This on the other hand was well rounded. Rich, highlighting a bitter, but delicious flavor, this is one esb that I would drink again. 4.5/5 for flavor. No idea on value :). It was a good afternoon.
Sadly, now, back to the real world. Boo.