Notes on beer

The day we arrived we hit the grocery store to stock up on essentials. I investigated the beer aisle. Beer is cheap here, and our local supermarket (Hannaford) carries beer from quite a few microbreweries I recognize--Kona, Dogfish Head, Blue Moon, and Red Hook to name a few. I've also heard it's easy to find Alaskan over here. What isn't easy to find is Pyramid, and this is going to be a big problem when winter rolls around and Snow Cap hits the shelves in the Pacific Northwest. Ashley assures me that there will be good winter brews here too, but my stomach still yearns for Snow Cap.

Also, Sam Adams is everywhere. Everywhere. I'm trying to think of a beer that's as prevalent in Washington as Sam Adams is here, but I can't. There are Sam Adams displays, letterboards with sales chalked on them, giveaways, flyers, delivery vans--everywhere I look I see the smug grinning bastard face of Samuel Adams.

Drink my beer, Ian. You're in my land now. Mwahaha.

I had a glass of the Sam Adams summer ale at Fat Belly's, a grill Ashley and I stopped at in Portsmouth, and it was very disappointing. I know their lager is good, though, so maybe not all is lost.

That first day at the grocery I picked up a six-pack from an excellent brewery in Maine called Shipyard. Like almost everything else in Maine, this beer has a lobster on it:


This beer was excellent. Yesterday at the store I tried to pick up their Export Ale, but they only had twelve packs and I was feeling poor (also, I have nobody to share the beer with), so instead I picked up a six-pack of Smuttynose IPA. Smuttynose is based out of Portsmouth, just a few miles from my apartment, and this is one of the better bottled IPAs I've had. It's as hoppy as some of Boundary Bay's brews. It reminded me of Bellingham. Pretty tasty stuff.

In other beer news, Ashley and I made beercan chicken a few nights ago (this was a disaster--don't ask) and the only can of beer we had in the apartment was the Sturgis memorial lager.


For those of your unfamiliar with beercan chicken, you have to drink the can about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down before you can use it, so it was up to me to choke down six horrible ounces of biker brew. Unsurprisingly, it tasted like crap. Friends and family, you better get ready to fill me with delicious Northwest beer when I return. And now, here are a bunch of random pictures from the last week. Click for less blurry versions.

Our new apartment, still in its early stages.

Bedroom mess.

This is the single most difficult piece of furniture I've ever put together. Gah!

Ashley and I took a walk through Portsmouth, and it was good.

More Portsmouth.