Too Good, I Guess

I was planning to put on a feed for my cousin and his friends today, but they decided to hit the Keys instead, giving me an extra day. I think that worked out well.

I planned to deep-fry dolphin and snapper and have some twice-fried fries and roasted corn on the side. But since I had more time to screw around with it, I was able to make a batch of brownies and add macaroni and cheese to the offerings. I made the brownies today, and the fine people at the grocery set me up with some free beef fat for the fry grease, so things are looking good. Tomorrow all I have to do is fry the fish and make the macaroni. The fries are already blanched and in the fridge.

I decided to reward myself for my industry by trying a new beer today. Sea Dog Raspberry Wheat Ale. I went to the beer store and checked out all their crap, and there were so many things available, I didn't know what to do. I had never heard of Sea Dog, but raspberry wheat ale sounded like it would hit the spot, so I bought a six-pack.

I decided to drink it out by the pool with Maynard, with my new Casablanca DVD. I can't say I'm thrilled. I think any beer will taste good if you put raspberry syrup in it, but this stuff had kind of a Budweisery finish, so I suspect it's like that unbelievably shitty Hurricane Reef stuff they make down here. Basically megaswill with a pretty label and a hefty price. Hard to tell without drinking a non-raspberry Sea Dog product. I'll say this. It was pleasant. I just wouldn't buy it again.

After the Sea Dog, I rationed out a pint of my magnificent, awe-inspiring Room Temperature Ale. I honestly have no idea how I managed to come up with this recipe. As brewers go, I'm fairly ignorant. But I have a way of getting lucky. Supposedly Napoleon preferred lucky generals to brilliant ones. I think there's something to that.

You don't realize how great a good beer is until you drink it after a shitty one. The Sea Dog stuff had a nice raspberry flavor, and it gave me a slight buzz. But that was it. I inhaled the aroma, trying to see if they had done anything interesting with the hops, and there was nothing there. As I drank it, I looked for complexity, but I couldn't detect a damn thing other than generic beer flavor. Then I tried the Room Temperature Ale. Oh, God. Before I even got it to my face, the scent of citrus and allspice (which isn't in the recipe) whacked me like a bat between the eyes. And then as I drank it, there were so many flavors...sweet, sour, bitter from both hops and suspended yeast, and something like peaches. More citrus. Cloves. That weird, penetrating aroma you get from crystal hops. Caramel. And after I put it down, I was still tasting it, and the flavor was still changing.

I knocked that recipe out of the park. I can hardly wait until the new batch is ready to keg. As soon as it stops blasting out CO2, I'm going to keg it. I don't even care if it's done fermenting. Let it finish in the keg. I need my fix. By eyeball, I would estimate that I have two pints of the last batch left.

A recipe this good makes all my lame, unsuccessful recipes seem worth the trouble and expense. I come up with something good about 80% of the time. The relatively bad stuff is just part of the cost of experimentation.

I have to get a grip on myself. If I keep falling in love with my beer recipes and making huge feeds on weekends, I'll end up on a Paul Prudhomme cart in no time. No, a halftrack. I'll be a big pallet of jiggling flesh with a head at one end, motoring back and forth between the beer freezer and the stove until I explode.

I better take Marv out and make him listen to some jazz.

Tomorrow is going to be sick. Someone really needs to stop me.