Wassail

I first had Wassail (pronounced WAH-suhl) when I was a young lad of 17, courting the beautiful maiden, now one-score and 4 years my bride.  Apparently it's of English derivation, and my redneck roots had yet to encounter such a drink.  Last Saturday's Wall Street Journal, Off Duty section brought the drink into perspective, and nurtured my newfound appreciation for the English holiday staple.  Their version, detailed in the "What Does Christmas Taste Like" article, uses hard cider (which I have N.E.V.E.R appreciated) so I procured a 6-pack of Woodpecker Hard Cider and followed the recipe.  It tastes like Christmas.  In fact, it tastes like Winter, Christmas, and New Year rolled into one.  Experimental variations with spices and citrus (orange slices are nice) will be rewarded.  You will not be disappointed.



courtesy of wikipedia

Anchor Christmas Ale

Now that Christmas is past, try this year's Christmas ale from Anchor Steam (reformulated every year).  From the maker of one of my favorite draught beers comes a Christmas Ale without an overload of spice. Not a session beer, but definitely worth the magnum at Costco, or the six we get down South. Ya'll have a merry one.

For That Special Beer Chick in Your Life

Serious Eats has a nice short list of unique beer-related gifts for that special beer lover in your life. Most intriguing is the Hop Flavored Whiskey distilled from Bear Republic's Racer 5 IPA (don't forget to click on the link to the tasting review).  Yes please.

Twinsburg’s September 2012 Results

September = Oktoberfest, of course.  Actually, fall = Oktoberfest (and college football), but I digress. Below are Twinsburg's results from the Octoberfest sampling, proving it is just better to be left handed.
  
1st – Left Hand Brewing Company - Oktoberfest

2nd - Brooklyn Brewery - Oktoberfest

3rd - Shiner - Oktoberfest

Twinsburg’s August 2012 Picks(forgot to post)
August had a summer flavor with summer shandies, a pale ale, and summer pilsner.  The Cleveland area was well represented, but alas, all the locals fell to Burlington, Vermont's finest.  Results below.

1st – House of Shandy - Curious Traveler Shandy

2nd - Indigo IMP Brewery - Summer Pale Ale

3rd - Hoppin Frog - Turbo Shandy
4th - The Brew Kettle - Lake BeErie

Flying Dog by a Nose

McLean's Results for September.  All the beers were good but Dogtoberfest was a unanimous decision.  I don't remember that happening before.  I could be wrong, though, and that has happened before.

1. Flying Dog Dogtoberfest
2. Brooklyn Oktoberfest
3. Port City Oktoberfest

Merrifield Lost Dog Cafe

We checked out the newly opend Merrifield location of Lost Dog Cafe.  The restaurant is located in the new apartment/retail area called The Halstead and is on the Merrilee (far side from Gallows) side of it.  There is a free parking garage if you drive and it is a 5-10 mintue walk from the Dunn Lorring metro.  It was a nice afternoon so they had the patio seating availabe.  There are 6-7 tables on the patio.  There is a garage door type wall that opens from the bar to the patio.  Pretty nice.  The bar is a square but I think there is only seating on three sides so it's a U-shapped bar.  I think there is seating for ~20 people at the bar.  We got a table although it wasn't crowded at the bar.  The dinning area seemed bigger than the other two locations I've been to,  McLean and North Arlington.  The food menu is identical to the other locations.  When we arrived, we were pretty much the only ones in the dinning area.  By 7, it was mostly full with a fair amount of families.  Our server, Andrew, seemed to be knowledgable about beer and was nice.  We'll be back.  Below are the beers we had.  All were good except one.  None of us cared for the Punkin and we were glad that we only got a tasting of it.  There are 19 taps (if I counted correctly) with one of them having Dominion Root Beer.  I think the ones we didn't have were all micro brews.  They also have tons of bottles and you can stop by and pick up a six pack to go but they don't do growlers, unfortunately.


delirium nocturnum (bottle)
dale's pale ale
flying dog underdog atlantic lager
southern tier moka stout
southern tier harvest ale 
weyerbacher double simcoe
blue mountain full nelson (flight)
dog fish punkin (flight)
mission imperial stout (flight)
youngs double chocolate stout (nitro, flight)