Celebratory Beer Blogging

In honor of the Giants amazing comeback road win against the Chicago Bears, I decided to blog the beer I am using to celebrate. The beer? Sam Adams Holiday Porter - 5.8% ABV.

The Bouquet: A deep whiff of the aroma of the poured beer reveals a chocolatey smell with hints of dark roast coffee.

The Pour: The beer sits dark and opaque in the glass. A deep brown nearing black. The head is a solid 3/4" tan foam. (Note: I forgot to take the picture BEFORE I drank a bit. But I was celebrating the Giants, after all)

The First Sip: My first reaction of the beer was a bit of surprise over how buttery the chocolate malts tasted, the first sip is smooth with a full-bodied warmth that coats the mouth. The finish is surprisingly peppery. In fact, it provides a very pleasant offset to the initial buttery chocolate favor and leaves the drinker with a clean, refreshed palate.

The Result: An impressive beer. While I was relatively unmoved by the previous two beers I drank from the Sam Adams Winter Sample Pack - Brown Ale and Old Fezziwig Ale - this is a very different porter than most I've tasted. The warm start and peppery finish is the perfect compliment to a cold winter day, a warm fire and a Giants comeback. Unlike other excellent Porters I've had (Otter Creek's very good Stovepipe Porter, for example) that are more aggressive with a sharper hoppy edge to counter the natural chocolate flavor of a porter, Sam Adams Holiday Porter takes a different approach. They make mellow the chocolate with a buttery evenness and therefore can be more subtle and offset it with the peppery finish. All in all, an excellent beer with high-re-drinkability. In fact, I'll be hitting my favorite package store to see if I can find this beer by the six pack or even a 12. Recommended.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5


Go Giants!

Jorge Posada Resigns With Yanks - Punches ticket for the Hall Of Fame

The Yankees finally got around to announcing the signing of Jorge Posada today. 4 years and 52 Million is significantly more than most teams would like to spend for a 36 year old catcher. Catchers typically just don't stay productive into their late thirties and early 40s. Here's the thing, though: Posada is not a typical catcher. He's exceptional.

That's where the Posada haters out there will simply have to deal with it. Jorge Posada will be voted to the Hall of Fame. Frankly, it shocked me when I learned that there actually were Posada haters, but they're out there and this will get their panties in a bunch. Yankee fans look at Jorge Posada and say, how could you hate the guy? All he does is play hard every season and You know who you are, haters. The average Posada hater falls into two categories: 1) Members of Jason Varitek's backwards hat wearing boy band, who are jealous of the clearly superior and far less self-aggrandizing Yankee and 2) Met fans who see Posada as a whiny, undeserving rider of the Yankee captain's coattails. Collectively, they spend lots of time dismissing the acheivements of the second best catcher of the last ten years.

Posada is one of only eight catchers in Major League history to record at least 20 home runs in seven or more seasons, joining Mike Piazza (11), Johnny Bench (11), Yogi Berra (10), Gary Carter (9), Carlton Fisk (8), Lance Parrish (7) and Roy Campanella (7). He and Ivan Rodriguez are the only two catchers in Major League history to record two seasons of 40 or more doubles.

Damn right! And all he needs is one more and that list drops to an impressive Piazza, Bench, Berra, Carter, Fisk. Wow. That's like the Mount Rushmore of catchers.

Well, he's just a .277 lifetime hitter! That sucks! Not so fast, haters. Jorge Posada has incredible patience at the plate. His active OBP of .3806 ranks 21st overall and leads all catchers, including the amazing Mike Piazza.

Let's assume that Jorge retires at the end of his Yankee contract, when he is 40 years old. He's averaged 68 runs, 21 HRs and 82 RBIs over the last three years. Were he to match that production for 4 more seasons and do it all as a catcher, his career totals would be

302 HR, 1189 RBI

Those are first ballot hall of fame numbers. Those numbers are right behind Yogi (358 and 1430)and Fisk (376 and 1330) in 17 seasons, rather than 19 and 24 seasons, respectively. They aren't that far behind Bench's (389 and 1376) in the same number of seasons. They are significantly behind Piazza's (427 and 1335 and counting - albeit as a DH now). In short, those numbers are very impressive. They'll get him in.

The obvious question is, is it realistic to expect him to do that? Probably not. You'd have to expect a decline from Jorge as he gets older, despite the fact that he's a very durable player and diligent worker. I do expect him to stay at catcher for the rest of his Yankee career, at least primarily. I don't expect him to move to DH full time like Piazza did, although he's a good enough hitter to warrant it. What I expect is for him to play two more years as the full time catcher before working in a young catcher that is currently in the Yankees system - someone like teenage offensive force Jesus Montero is the main plan for Jorge's successor, but it could be Frankie Cervelli (the yanks most advanced catching prospect - reminds me of LoDuca, hopefully without the crazies), Chase Weems (kind of a lefty Biggio) or Austin Romine (compared to pudge in arm strength and build). At the point that they work those guys in, he'll spend some time at DH or possibly even 1B. He probably will experience a decline in numbers because of age and this potential change in role, so let's discount those numbers 25%. That would make Jorge's final line roughly:

280 homers, 1100 RBI

That, with his championships and being an integral point of the most recent Yankee Dynasty, will be enough. Those numbers may seem a little unremarkable in the "steroid era", but not when you consider the day in, day out wear and tear that 13-17 seasons at catcher puts you through. And don't forget the five all-star appearances. Jorge's durability and production show he's an exceptional player. They count. And when you consider everything he will have achieved when he hangs it up, he'll deserve the honor.

So some day in July of 2016 or so, I'll drag my family to Cooperstown so they can watch Jorge Posada be inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. And I'll stand and cheer a great Yankee and Hall of Famer.


P.S. And as preparation for the event, Toast and I will have to hit the local Ommegang brewery.

Movie Review - Beerfest

This movie should have been great. Really, a sports spoof based on drinking games? Genius.

But, something is lacking that keeps this movie from being great. To elaborate, let me use today's most overused rhetorical devices. The self-interview:

Is it funny? Mostly.
Are there naked hooters? Absolutely!
Is there a grandma doing strange and unspeakable things to a sausage? Yes.
Is there an extremely memorable beer goggled hookup scene? Damn right.
Do they masturbate frogs? Yeah, but that's so cliche.
Did you learn about something called a "strikeout"? Yep. Apparently, that's doing a bong hit and then chugging a beer and doing a shot before you exhale.
Why didn't you love it? That's the hardest question to answer. This movie had lots of great bits, but for a sports movie to really work, you need to have entertaining villains. The German team (always a good ethnic choice) was truly annoying. Their was this quality of over-acting in each of their performances. I just hated whenever any of them were on the screen. They ruined the movie. Plus, they shoehorned Jurgen Prochnow into the movie, apparently just so they could have him say "I had a bad experience in a submarine once." Get it? He was in Das Boot! Problem is, Jurgen Prochnow is not funny. That side of the movie didn't work and that's where I think the movie failed.

So, you're better off watching this one on cable, or even just checking out the YouTube clip below.



Rating: 2.5 out of 5 possible couches.

Quick Hits

-- Fuck you Kanye West. I have both The College Dropout and Late Registration. Both are great albums. But, seriously, do you need to credit every performer that is on every song? See, each of these shows as a different artist on my iPod. Two albums = 18 artists. That's annoying, bro. Next album, all "Kanye West", please.

-- The first time your three year old son says, "Daddy, I want to go to the potty." from the back seat of your car is fantastic. I am a proud Daddy.

-- Someday the Yankees will get a decent starting pitching performance. At least I'm pretty sure that will happen.

-- I hit my favorite package store (Connecticut-ese for Liquor Store) and grabbed Thomas Hooker Hop Meadow IPA and a belgian amber whose name escapes me. The Hop Meadow was too Hoppy even for me and the belgian was waaayyy too malty. You can't really mix them either. This clearly is the weakness of trying new beers.

-- From God Tube: Chatting with Charley. In it, you will see Charley answer the question of how a kangaroo could hop from Turkey, where Noah "turned it loose" all the way to Australia (Spoiler: Ice Bridges). And that a llama and camels are the same species. I'm addicted to GodTube.

-- Apple shipped 100 million iPods. Holy crap that's a lot. Who doesn't have one that wants one? Sell your Apple stock, people.

-- I don't know anything about Sanjaya or why people are so interested in the fact that he's still on American Idol. But, I like his sister. (WARNING: MUTE YOUR SPEAKERS OR BE SUBJECTED TO ANNOYING HINDI MUSIC).