With great expectations, doe-eyed and anticipating copious amounts of high percentage alcohol, we stepped out of Ian’s marshmallow-on-wheels. Boston was chilly, and we were in the parking lot of the Samuel Adams Brewery, in a small inconspicuous looking neighborhood. The brewery tour was fairly short, comprising of a ten minute DVD on the history of the brewery (which skipped repeatedly for the last three minutes), a walk-through and a tasting. The walk-through was short, the tasting was good. Everyone got a free 7oz. glass which they filled with the freshest Boston Lager I’ve ever had, White Ale, their special Boston 375 Colonial Ale and their special Finnish style Sahti. The 375 was the weakest of the four, the Winter Ale had a subtle taste that was alright, and the Sahti was really good.
From the Brewery we went around the corner to Doyle’s for lunch, and then we headed for the 3rd Annual Extreme Beer Festival. We stood outside the Cyclorama for maybe ten minutes while a fire alarm went. Some young women walked by and handed us their leftover beer tickets that they had, which meant more boozeat no cost! Once inside the giant circular room (which Ricky remarked would make an excellent Rollerball arena), we made a b-line for the Boston Beer Works Peanut Butter Porter (brewed with 20 pounds of peanut butter added to the boil), which the four of us downed quickly. We walked over to the Samuel Adams table hoping they’d have Utopias available, but they said to come back in an hour. Instead we went to Dogfish Head’s table and sampled their Fort (brewed in over 2,000 pounds of pureed raspberries and 18% ABV) and Festina Lente (a no-longer-available lambic ale aged on 400 pounds of peaches). At this point we realized that not only were we already slightly buzzed, but we could all go to different tables and share our samples, since most of the time we were getting full glasses of beer. The only other beer that caused a huge commotion was Utopias (which is more like cognac than beer, and costs over $100 per bottle… it’s also 26% abv). We all got our samples, which knocked us on our asses. Ian claimed he was getting pretty drunk at this point so we went to the food area and had some of their special culinary delights, including cheese stuffed pretzels and beer-battered anything. Afterwards we drank a lot more, including:
Avery Brewing Co’s “The Reverend” (Belgian-style Qaudrupel brewed with dark candy sugar) and “The Kaiser,” (imperial Oktoberfest) Brooklyn Brewery’s “Winter Ale,” Founders Brewing Co’s “Kentucky Breakfast” (beer aged in bourbon barrels) and “Breakfast Stout” (sweetened with chocolates and coffee), Magic Hat’s “Thumbsucker” (imperial stout), Middle Ages Brewing Co’s “Dragonslayer” (Russian imperial stout), Milly’s Tavern’s “Whisky Barrel Porter” (porter aged for a month in Jack Daniel’s barrels), Pizza Port’s “SPF 8 Farmhouse Ale” (made with caramelized fruits), Stone Coast’s “Jamaican Stout Reserve” and “Jalapeno Sunsplah Golden Ale” (which comes with a half-slice of jalapeno in every can… tasted like a bland lager but with an insanely long-lasting aftertaste), and more I can’t remember. Ian claimed that after Utopias he couldn’t even taste anything else, Ricky drank a lot, Justin gave us his extra tickets, and I was heard to have contributed the very astute assessment, “My burps taste awesome.” I’m very observant when drunk.
Before leaving, we wanted to sober up by listening to the president of Dogfish Head deliver a speech entitled “Fuck Wine,” but of course he had a ton of free beer to sample so we had some more “Fort” and something else with a name I either didn’t catch or can’t recall.
We got home before it started snowing, partied a lot more, and slunk around for a while doing nothing at all really, until we realized, “Oh wow it’s really snowed a lot out. Our cars are the only ones on the road. Maybe there’s a parking ban in effect.” Of course, there was, and at about 2am we all had to attempt sobering up to get our cars to a designated parking lot. Then we walked back and partied even harder.
