I find it hard to slow down. I don’t even want to sit down for a minute. I don’t know if it’s chemical or just a fear of not getting back up. It’s been a long weekend. Work pays the bills, but there’s not extra, and the car is dying, and things are changing at work when any little change is enough to cause stress.

Tonight I made myself lie in the hammock and it was so nice. I had a Rogue Farms Fresh Roast. Kim and I have been to Rogue. It’s on the coast of Oregon, about halfway down the state. We went for the day. It is a large brewery, with long lines for the beer tours and a good selection of different styles on the blackboard. The food is good, but they are on the coast of Oregon, so things like clam chowder and fish and chips are subject to stiff competition from places that just focus on those things.

The Fresh Roast is a fine beer, a nice dry red, like the Jackie Brown that of course I can’t get anymore. There’s exactly the right amount of hops that I don’t taste it in front of the malt but I know that it’s there. I should go get more bottles. I noticed they had many, as though a shipment had just come in. Hopefully it’s something that will be readily available, like the Ninkasi Believer.

San Diego had the corner on the market there for a while, with Ballast Point and Green Flash, among others, but combined with the way I like their 7 Hop for IPAs and this beer I might have to say that Rogue has the edge now. Most brewers are trying crazy things right now to capture dollars, and Rogue is no exception, with their Voodoo Donut beer and a multitude of others that remind me of the list of jellybean/ice cream flavors. For what I like and the availablity of bottled brews in this market, when it comes to growing their own hops and malt and then making great beers that justify the price, I don’t think there’s anyone doing it better.

Eventually the dogs got up into the hammock with me. They wanted the beer.

It’s a good time to be a beer lover.

It didn’t used to be this way. I grew up in Portland, which has always had a beer culture. In those days it was Widmer Hefeweizen, which, if I remember correctly, was produced in a tiny little brick room near Pioneer Courthouse Square. It was only possible to get on tap, which is the only way to drink a Hefeweizen anyway, as bottling destroys all its delicious essence and leaves it flat and uninteresting. That’s the reason they put oranges in Blue Moon, and add spices and fruit. A true fresh Hefeweizen tastes great all on its own, with just its basic four ingredients, yeast, grain, water, and hops. After I went to college in Florida I had such a time trying to find Hefeweizen anywhere, until someone opened a brewery in Winter Park and started making a Hefeweizen of their own. It wasn’t great, but we drank it and were happy. (On a side note, Budweiser bought out Widmer and now it sucks.)

When we moved to Lake Tahoe in 1999 we couldn’t even get Fat Tire. I still remember our friend Jay showing up with two twelve packs that he picked up on his way through Colorado. Oh, how things have changed. Now there are so many yummy choices that I haven’t tried them all. In my time as a beertender I have been converted into a hophead. I love searching out new flavors in hops. I love these clean refreshing beers. Hops are definitely trending now. They may even have reached their peak popularity; it seems like everyone is trying to out-do everyone else with IBU’s and alcohol, and sometimes the beer suffers. There are great ones, though, and the only way to find them is to try them all.

At the moment I would say the next trend is sour beers, and that brings me to the brewer I am going to mention today, although I haven’t tried a single one of their sours, even though that is their specialty. No big whup, I always like to have somewhere new to go in reserve, but damn those things are expensive.

The brewer is Mikkeller, and they may be my favorite. Not, as I say, for hops, and not for sours, but for their brown ales. Mikkeller was started by two brothers, Danes I believe, who swoop in, take over a brewery, and brew whatever they want in there. They do not constrain themselves with the traditional German ingredient list, which made them popular in Europe, where people always want to try what we’re doing in America. They have put everything from cherries to civet cat poo coffee beans in their beers. I don’t really care about any of that stuff, either. I like what they do with brown ales.

My favorite Mikkeller beer is the basic Porter. Here is a picture of the label.

I haven’t seen this beer in two years. Kim and I even searched out the Mikkeller Bar in San Francisco, where I had the delicious hoppy Tenderloin Wit, but no luck with the Porter.

I hope they decide to make it again someday, and hope I am lucky enough to find a bottle. It’s not sweet. It’s not full of dessert flavors. It’s just a complex brown ale, and when I say complex I mean hops and malt tangling with each other to see which one tastes better and neither one getting the upper hand. It’s like a thunderstorm coming on. It’s like tucking your head under the blanket and reading with a flashlight. Love it. If you ever find it, buy it immediately, and don’t share, unless you want to send it to me.

This weekend Jay came to visit. He brought some Alaskan Amber, a popular amber ale, and I tried drinking that, but it didn’t really work out. (I don’t have anything against Alaskan, in fact their Pilot Series includes some excellent beers, the Smoked Porter, the Black IPA, and the Imperial Red, but the amber is a sticky sweet bowl of syrup that gives me gas.)

I went to my beer fridge and pulled out a Mikkeller that I hadn’t tried for us to share.

This is the Jackie Brown, another brown ale, and comparing those two beers, the Jackie Brown and the Alaskan Amber, really made the Mikkeller shine. In the glass the head was bitter, so much so that I was afraid, but once we got into the beer I remembered why I like Mikkeller so much. I think it went something like “Oh Holy F#@! that’s good!” Again, not a touch of sweetness, just dark brown layers of hops and malt. That is what an ale should taste like. I don’t have the proper brewer’s terms at my fingertips, but I know what makes my taste buds go bonkers, and I will be going to get another bottle of the Jackie Brown to put in my beer fridge as soon as I can. I recommend that you do the same. Hats should be removed before drinking.

This is a special day for me, because not only is it the blog weekend, the day I talk about my favorite beers, it is also Cinco de Mayo, which is an integral part of mine and Kim’s anniversary week. Eleven years ago today our friends and family began to gather in Boca Grande, Florida for what was to be the most amazing event in my life.

In Florida there is probably no way to get this beer, which makes me sad for a lot of people. It is actually pretty hard to come by in Nevada. Lots of beers don’t make it across the border from California, but this particular model is one of the most closely guarded by its brewer. There are occasional rumors of its taphandle going up in Stateline bars. It is also delivered to some California stores, such as Whole Foods, so if a person knows the day that it comes in, it is possible to arrive at the proper hour and maybe score a bottle. If you’re thirsty, you had better be ready to fight the other beer geeks who are already waiting.

The only surefire way to get this water of life is to drive to the source in Santa Rosa, California. Even at the brewery, hands are stamped at the door, insuring that each visitor can only take a limited amount. It used to be six bottles. Now they allow people to buy a case at a time. That, friends, is how you drive up demand. Is it worth it? Hell, yes.

I was lucky. My beautiful wife went for me. She brought back these bottles, freshly minted eight days ago now. Inside is the freshest, best tasting example of a double IPA that I have ever had, and I’ve had a lot of hops. There are many IPAs out there, and it seems like every month or so more come out. We might even be reaching a point where some other style of beer will become the new “it” thing. I’m not sure there will ever be a more perfect hoppy beer than this one. I hope that someday you have a chance to try it.

Love is the seventh blog.

It seems like a day for levity, an opportunity to take my hair down and relax. What should I talk about today?

Like a clean carbonated wave the answer comes flowing into my brain, like a rich mouthful of roasted grain I can almost taste on my tongue, like a sack of whole cone hops emptied over my head so that the green dust covers my pores and sticks between my fingers.

I should talk about BEER.

My guest and good friend Bill M. taught me a concept that I am going to pass on to you. If you have ever cleaned up your apartment the morning after a party, or if you fell asleep on your couch last night with a bottle of beer somehow balanced perfectly upright on your knee (how do I do that, when I can spill a cup of coffee just by looking at it?) then you are already halfway there. You have created a thudder.

Your thudder is the last beer you drank last night, the one you left on the counter with three or four swallows still in it. What should you do in the morning, when you wake up and find it waiting in its place, looking at you, accusing you of waste, inattention, and wussness?

Drink it, of course. Immediately. Do not pour your thudder into a cold glass. Do not wrap it in a wet paper towel and place it in the icebox for five minutes. Doing so changes its essential nature. Thudders are drunk at room temperature. Thudders are drunk in one long draught, without coming up for air.

The next time you wake up and find a thudder hiding in the corner of your kitchen, try it for yourself and be amazed.