beer wk: sunday boozy sunday

what better way to delay the consequences of a fun saturday night of beers and excessive high fiving, than a boozy brunch with a beautiful broad? that's how i started my sunday - met up with my friend D for the beer week special allagash brunch at the pope. over pancakes, tofu scramble and 2PM beers, we kicked off what would be the first of a multi-hour hang out sesh.

wish every brunch was an allagash brunch

D is a seasoned bartending veteran and a true beverage connoisseur , so i followed her lead when she ordered the allagash vrienden, which turned out to be a stunning ale in the flemish sour tradition. it was, we learned, an allagash collabo with new belgium brewery, brewed with dandelion greens and elderberries (the two breweries even blended their special yeast strains! isn't that cute?). the quiet amber liquid in this glass is the stuff beer week dreams are made of: tart, fruity, strong, and just the right amount of weird. i loved every little sip. i had hoped to catch a bit of the live set by our pals the glotones, but alas, they were breaking their gear down when we arrived.

after our plates were cleaned and cleared, D and i hightailed it over to her place of employ - and the only place in old city i'll regularly patronize - the khyber pass pub. they were in the midst of a supreme beer week jam: saison sunday! ten rare and immensely intriguing saisons on tap. oh dear.


the first of quite a few tulip glasses to grace the bar before us was la moneuse by the belgian brewery blaugies. malty, barn-y, aged to a nice warmth, but still wonderfully effervescent on the tongue, this was a classic saison. literally the perfect beer for a sunday afternoon, though perhaps a brasserie in belgium would have been a slightly more perfect place to be drinking it. no matter: a dim bar in philadelphia with D was a really good place to be, too.

i must confess that i forget which saison was second on my list. the sun was still shining a bit too brightly for the level of tips i was feeling, but our spirits were high, and we were deep in one of those great, rambling conversations. amongst a hundred other things, we talked about men and relationships, food and dietary choices, and going fishing as little kids. the third (and last?) saison i ordered was voodoo brewery's bitchin' camaro. this farmhouse ale is apparently a very new release from the brewery. so new, in fact, that there wasn't really a description for it on the draft list, and in the column listing abv there a mysterious "?." i distinctly remember that the last line of the description read something like, "any beer named after a dead kennedy's song can't be bad." though D wasn't crazy about it, i liked the hefty, malty, boozy kick in the teeth it gave me. if you're already getting loaded on super high quality beers on a sunday afternoon, why not go big?

after dutifully chugging some water, we called it a day, and headed home. woozily walking down walnut at sunset, we hugged on the corner of 6th street. D said she was going home to take a nap, but i was headed off to band practice in east falls. being tipsy on small quantity of good, strong beer is a distinctly light, energizing feeling, with 0% hangover. alright, alright...maybe just a 5% one.

love,
emily

keep your fingers crossed

when you've somehow sucked it up and gone jogging for the last three nights and eaten mostly fruits and veggies (trying to clean that fridge out before we move!) it's easy to just give in to temptation. especially when temptation is battered and deep fried.

but let's start with the booze. i went to the POPE on tuesday for the tapping of the flying fish exit 11 firkin. this is part of flying fish brewery's "exit series" of beers, which celebrates their home state by brewing a set of beers as diverse as new jersey itself. according to the website:

Exit 11 is a confluence of styles and ingredients, just as exit 11 is the point in New Jersey where the Garden State Parkway, the New Jersey Turnpike and several other highways come together.

cute concept, great beer. i was a bit taken aback to find that the beer was room temperature, but i now see that is the way of the firkin, normally served at 55 degrees. i read that exit 11 is an american-style wheat beer, brewed with english ale yeast, three different kinds of hops and half belgian pale malt and half white wheat. i don't know what all that adds up to except a crisp, clean pint of beer with a tart, fruity finish. and it's a big beer, with a 6.2% abv, meaning at $5.50 a pint, i only ordered (and only needed) one.

then it was on to dinner. i haven't been to POPE since they launched their new menu and i've heard mixed reviews of the veggie burger, the seitan steak and the polenta napoleon. it was hot out and i wasn't in the mood for something super heavy, but damn if i'm not a sucker for junk once in a while. enter: seitan fingers and french fries. these are the veggie version of chicken fingers and they MIGHT fool your carniverous boyfriend if his eyes are closed. the fingers were crisp and hot with juicy tender seitan inside. thumbs up to the fries - and i recently figured out the trick to successful leftovers: eat all the fries while you're at the restaurant and take half the sandwich/fingers/whatever home because those fries just ain't the same on day 2. so i had 2 fingers leftover for tomorrow (or later - drunk midnight snack, don't judge me). oh, how could i forget the spicy bbq dipping sauce? it's like a citrusy spicy light bbq sauce and i shall forever regret not taking a little cup to go with my leftovers.

(you might not think it, but in that condiment cup is liquid gold)

my buddy ciarra basically went the complete opposite direction and ordered the st. pablo's watermelon special which was 3 big slices of watermelon with cayenne, lime juice and salt and a sad side salad (that should be your new band's name).

the bite i had was pretty banging, but i want watermelon when i'm on someone else's parents' backyard deck overlooking the pool i'm about to wash said watermelon juice off in (confusing, i know, but true to life). when i'm at a bar with a pint of strong beer, i want something fried, even if it is 88 degrees out. that's just how you give humidity the middle [seitan] finger.