Nora McGunnigle

THANKSGIVING!!!! Man, I've been so busy writing stories about, like, pairing beer with turkey that I haven't even remembered to forget to update the blog.

Beer: The Reason For The Season! As pumpkin beer season fades and Thanksgiving beer pairing season looms, I was just thinking about how much repetition there is in the kinds of articles beer writers are called upon to produce. In New Orleans, especially there are some sacred cows of seasonality that cannot be messed around with. January :  What Beer Pairs Best with King Cake; Winter Beers to Drink Now That It's Actually Pretty Cold Outside February : Best Canned Beer For Mardi Gras; Where to Find Decent Beer on the Parade Route; Romantic Beers; Best Beers Paired With Chocolate or Despair March : Strategies to Bring Enough Craft Beer to a Crawfish Boil All Season Long Without Going Broke; St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans; Beer to Drink to Forget That Football is Gone for Six Months April : How To Smuggle Craft Beer Into Jazz Fest Because All the Beer There is Really, Really Terrible; Places in the French Quarter to Get Non-Abita Beer for French Quarter Fest May : K...

I am currently watching snow fall in the frozen North, so I have not been drinking beer in New Orleans, thus, not much to say till I return on Monday. Trying to decide if I should try to get out for the Crescent Pie and Sausage New Year's Eve beer dinner (featuring NOLA Brewing beers) on Monday night. Check out the menu: Happy Hour (Starting @ 6pm) w/ Hors d'oeuvres: Grilled Sausage with Ice Cold NOLA Brown Ale in the Can Amuse: Foie kisses with raspberry coulis Irish Channel Stout 1st Course:  Deviled Chappapella farms duck egg, lardon & arugula 7th Street Wheat 2nd Course:  Local cauliflower bisque with citrus marinated fried oyster Guajillo pepper infused Blonde Ale 3rd Course:  Choice of grilled gulf fish-spicy cioppino and corn porridge Hopitoulas or Seared beef tenderloin served with two sauces tableside Smoky Mary Dessert:  Homemade Cake & Ice Cream (made by French pastry chef Jasiah St. Pierre) St. Bernardus Abt 12...

Stayed in for Christmas Eve- Tom doesn't feel great and we certainly have enough beer on hand to keep ourselves happy. I made a particularly delicious spinach lasagna and we cracked open a couple of beers to celebrate the season. Samuel Smith's Winter Warmer (2011-12 vintage).  I have such a soft spot for the SS Warmer. I still recall a Thanksgiving several years ago when a friend also visiting family in CT stopped by our hotel room with a bottle of seriously vintage SS Winter Warmers.  Not because he collected them or anything, he just wandered into a gas station selling them for cheap 'cause they were old.  He loved the Winter Warmers and scooped up pretty much the rest of the stock. God, they aged great. But I digress!  The Samuel Smith Winter Warmer is on the list of the Anchor Christmas and Sierra Nevada Celebration that I look forward to every holiday season. For a winter beer, it pours out quite light- a dark gold, which is somewhat unusual.  But it's ...

Happy New Year, beer lovahs. (Someone introduced their SO to me last night as their LOVAAAAAH, which is always good for a giggle.) Anyway, I met up with some old college friends at Lucy's Retired Surfer's Bar and had a Miller Lite and 2 glasses of sangria. Beer count: 1 Then we drifted down Tchoupotoulas to the Ugly Dog Saloon , where they had NOLA Blonde, NOLA Brown, and Abita Jockimo IPA. We sat out on the veranda and enjoyed the warm weather with a few pints (1 Blonde and 2 IPAa). Beer count (running): 4 Hoofed across the St. Charles Ave circle to the Exxon for a case of beer and brought it back to their hotel room and had a couple (Modelo) while they got dressed to go out. Beer count: 5 Tom picked us up and we went off the the Avenue Pub where the Beer Buddha and his wife and some other Beer Advocaters were congregated. I had a Brooklyn EIPA, a Brooklyn Blast, a sample of a Yeti Imperial Stout (from Great Divide Brewing), and about a third of a bourbon barrel aged ...

So, yay, Ohio beer that I can't get in Louisiana! Acquired: Great Lakes Commodore Perry IPA, Chatoe Rogue First Growth Wet Hop Ale, Goose Island Winter Mild, Dogfish Head Raison d'Etre, and a few Goose Island Reserve Ales: Sofie, Matilda, and Pere Jacques. Have not busted into the Goose Island Matilda yet, but here are some quick thoughts on the ones that were sampled: Great Lakes Commodore Perry IPA : a solid, tasty IPA. Hoppy with citrus notes. Very drinkable and a beer I almost always reach for when I come visiting this part of the world. Apparently Great Lakes makes a small batch of a Christmas Ale that is supposed to be amazing, but we couldn't find it. Sad! But we had others to drink so sadness was tempered. Dogfish Head Raison d'Etre : I was feeling nostalgic for this while watching Brewmasters (though I would have been more psyched to see Indian Brown Ale). A Belgian Strong Dark Ale. Dried fruit aromas and sweetness on the tongue, balanced by a nice hopp...

You ever think, "YAY BEER!!!" because it makes you so goddamn happy? Yes, often under the influence of beer, but who cares? Beer had made me friends that I never would have thought I'd have. Beer is delicious. Beer is basically, as Ben Franklin says (??), proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. (Tom the atheist likes to say instead that "beer is proof that SCIENCE WORKS, BITCHES!") Beer was a huge part of my wedding and of many excellent adventures I've had with my best friend FOR LIFE. YAY YAY YAY FUCKING YAY BEER! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and all that stuff, but mostly, Give Thanks to Beer! Bitches!

It's the anniversary of the passage of the 21st Amendment, which repealed the Prohibition of alcohol (aka the 18th Amendment) Happy Repeal Day!

Finally got off the couch today and headed over to the Avenue Pub for Firkin Friday: Parish Brewing Company's Canebrake cask with Hibiscus. Tasty! Would have enjoyed more than the one except I needed more Anchor '08 and '09. In the holiday spirit, I wanted to link to a fellow beer blogger's take on Thanksgiving beer pairing - it perfectly encapsulates my own thoughts on the craziness of Thanksgiving Day food and the accompanying boozing. Take it away, Beer Buddha! (Bake him away, toys!)

This being a holiday week, we have been able to justify more getting out and drinking beer than we usually do (and can) during the regular 5 day work week. Whoo! Last night, we went to the Avenue Pub's Pub Quiz, and came in 2nd! Which, sure, there were only like 8 teams, but still, we were pleased with our showing. We won a mix six pack of a beer I hadn't heard of before- St. Arnold's and 2 lovely belgian tulip glasses, which, shamefully enough, we'd been lacking in our beer glass collection. (We do have one of these , though!) We had a great time- it was just the two of us on our team, and we actually didn't know anyone else there except for Polly. But that was fine, sometimes it's just nice to relax. I drank a Unibroue Trois Pistoles, a Brooklyn EIPA, a 10-oz of Brooklyn Chocolate Stout, and then downstairs, the '08 (10 oz) and '09 (4 oz) He'Brew Jewbilation. Somehow this got me completely hammered. Well, I had a beer at home before headi...

Ok, so our "cellar" is our office, because New Orleans homes have no cellar, because we are like a foot above water level (if that.) We brought a lot of beers down from Salem, including a couple Trader Joe's holiday Vintage Ale. Trader Joe's gets its annual beer from Unibroue and they are usually dark Belgian style. We had 2 2008s and a 2006. I brought one of the 2008s to the Beer Advocate beer swap a few months ago, and we still have one cellaring in the office. Tonight, after a crap ass Monday, I thought it would be appropriate to crack open the 2006 vintage. It's good- while cold it pours dark, dark mahogany brown. About 1/4" or so of light tan foam. Smells like dried fruit, ginger, deep spices- kind of like fruitcake the way we make it at home (which is SO AWESOME.) It drinks easy, and it gets tastier as it warms to room temperature. I think it's aged beautifully- it is so smooth and quaffable. I have a memory of the 2006 vintage still being a ...

OK, I've only had a few beers today so my sass quotient is on the more mellow side. After the BrewHaHa yesterday, we stopped at Felipe's for post-beer burritos and then to Elio's for MOAR BEER. I was super excited that the Sierra Nevada Celebration and the Anchor Christmas Ale were both on the shelf. Sure, it's still shorts weather here, but I have loved both these seasonals for YEARS. I was sad when we were in San Francisco last year too early (in October) to enjoy the Christmas Ale at the Anchor Brewery. After an extensive look at the packaging the beers came in, I cleverly gleaned that Sierra Nevada has been brewing their Celebration Ale since 1981, which makes this year's version the 29th edition of the style. Celebration has consistently been much hoppier than other holiday seasonal beers, and this year is no exception. However, it contains more maltiness than Sierra Nevada's flagship Pale Ale. It pours a bright orange-y copper color, with good carb...