The Twelve Beers of Christmas: Days 1 through 4

I'm not humble. We can fucking solid brew up here in the Pacific Northwest.

I don't know about the rest of the country. I've heard some idle talk about the quality of the beers in California, but I put that down to the natural arrogance of the Golden State; they think they do EVERYthing better in California. But they're wrong, oh, so, tragically, criminally wrong.

"California Pizza Kitchen".

I rest my case.

So this year I've tried to get myself into a little more Christmassy mood. And, to me, nothing says "Christmas" like "drinking".

Well, that and sex under the Christmas Tree, but if you think I'm blogging about that you're effing nuts. Beyond the tasteless factor Mojo would toast my organs of generation over the Yule log. I like the magic in my marriage the way it is, thanks.

So this year I've decided to test-drink twelve of our local "seasonal" brews.

Seasonal brew?

Yeah, I forget that a hell of a lot of you live in places where Budweiser is consider a boutique beer.

(Oh, and for the record, I'm not sure what Bud Light (or is it officially "Bud Lite"? Gawd.) being the "favorite beer of NFL fans" says, but I suspect that it slanders either beer, football, or the people who consume both)Every year's end our local breweries produce some version of a "winter seasonal" beer. The tradition usually extends to spring (when the brewers come up with a märzen-style), summer (which usually means a light, crisp brew - a pilsner or very hoppy ale such as an India Pale Ale) and autumn (which is usually greeted with an "oktoberfest"-style product). But seeing as how I like my beer like I like my women; strong, dark, and a bit of fun effort to wrestle down, the "winter warmers" are my hands-down favorites.

This year I've worked my way through four:

Deschutes Brewing's "Jubelale"
Full Sail's "Wreck The Halls"
Old Lompoc's "C-Sons Greetings", and
Ninkasi's "Sleigh'r"

So let me quickly catch you up to where I am in the Solstice Suds Sampling:

Day 1: Jubelale (Deschutes Brewing Co., Bend, Oregon)

Jubel is an Oregon classic; perhaps the single most thought-of brew when a webfoot thinks of the word "winter seasonal" or "winter warmer".It's an English "strong ale"; dark in color, malty rather than hoppy, with a powerful ale flavor over a very rounded, crisp finish. It does, in fact, "warm" you. I accompanied mine with a Kansas City-style T-bone, garlic-mashed, and winter vegetables, and it was nearly perfect. Jubel hits the tongue with a rabbit-punch of malt, teases the uvula with a tingle of hops, and swirls through the mouth with little hints of pepper and fruity goodness. It's a hell of a damn fine brew, and though this year's model is a little less...well, "perfect" than I expect - the brewmaster at Deschutes talks about how the formulation was changed back to the early versions this year and I noted a little more "sting"; less smoothness, more pepper than in years past.

But, still, the Jubelale is the King of Winter Beers, and the first day set a tough standard for the rest to follow.

Day 2: "Wreck The Halls" (Full Sail Brewing, Hood River, Oregon)

Last Tuesday I was working all day in the field and didn't really have much time to make a decent meal to accompany this brew. It didn't really need it; even with Stouffer's Lasasgna with Meat Sauce this tidy little IPA was tasty, hoppy, clean, and delicious.I liked that WTH was truly hoppy in the Northwest fashion but avoided the lip-puckering bitterness of some of the "brewmaster's reserve" creations that NW brewers seem to like to challenge their drinkers with. Darkish and full enough to make a mouthful satisfying the Full Sail boys did a nice job keeping their "winter warmer" free of the more commonly encountered sorts of holiday-busyness; no spices, no fruitiness, no citrus, just a lovely, rounded malt with a crispy hops tang and a lingering hit of alcohol - a tallboy had me pleasantly fuzzed. Damn fine.

Day 3: "C-Sons Greetings" (Lompoc Brewing, Portland, Oregon)This Imperial/Double India Pale Ale went with takeaway; haddock-and-chips from "The Fish And Chip Shop" on N. Killingsworth (one of the hidden treasures of North Portland - no-bullshit Brit workingman's food for a decent price) and was the polar opposite of the simple heartiness of the flaky fish and rich 'taties.This is one complex brew; spicy, hopped-up, malty, fruity...and at 8% alcohol it hits like Donder's spinning backkick.

I liked C-Sons in a very odd sort of way. One tallboy was outstanding, a truly interesting, challenging beer. But I can imagine that another might have been less welcome. And more then that? Just too much; too busy, too spicy, too...too.

So. I've polished off the fourth of our local winter brews sitting here with Mojo sewing and the two kiddos playing an exciting game with their "hex bugs"; everyone is having a heck of a good evening.

Day 4: "Sleigh'r" (Ninkasi Brewing, Eugene, Oregon)

Let me start by saying that I normally enjoy the product of the Ninkasi stable; they tend to make very classic Northwest beers.

But I found their seasonal to be...well, less than something to celebrate.It was drinkable, but just that. Supposedly a "dark double alt" it had very little altbier character being, instead, a fairly conventional Northwest dark ale. Surprisingly underhopped for a Ninkasi release, it was rather "flat" and malty, with a "muddled" impression that did little to enhance the ginger-garlic chicken stir-fry I made tonight. Indeed, the combination of our CSA kale with baby bok choy and Chinese sausage from Anzen was more interesting than anything in the bottle.

Not terrible, not even bad, but not particularly memorable or tasty. Not a keeper, in my opinion.

So there we are - another day tomorrow, another treasure from the Pacific Northwest. As good a way to pass the Yuletide season as I can imagine.

I'm almost surprised; at a time of year when I'm usually overwhelmed with curdled loathing for the masturbatory commercial splurgegasm that is the commercial Christmas season I have actually managed to get some pleasure out of this December.

It helps that the kiddos are not overcome with insane greed. They're excited about the upcoming loot but not utterly deranged about it. And we don't have any relatives visiting and infecting us with craziness, and without any real need to tote any out-of-towners around to Portland Christmasness we have managed to miss the most horrific of our local Wenceslausy glurge as well.

Now if my legs would just stop fucking with me. And we could catch and savagely beat the sonsofbitches that jacked Mojo's credit card and bought the airline tickets to Manila.

But those are stories for another day...

Beef with Spiced Sauce

I had to flip through my key ring the other day looking for some damn key I hardly ever use when I came across my P-38.

Those of you who weren't in the service, or were not in the forces before 1980 probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's the little rectangular thing on the top of the ring in the picture below. Yeah, that thing, with the little hook sort of blade piece on it.It's a can opener.

Really. I shit you not. The little hook blade opens out at a right angle to the rectangular piece and you hook it over the rim of the can and punch the tip of the blade into the top. You work it around, punching and moving, punching and moving, until you get most of the way around, and then you bend the top of the can back.

It works slicker than water off a cat's ass, usually. I've opened all sorts of cans with it, from gallon tins to tiny potted meat cans. It's slow, and you have to take your time and be thorough, but I've never had one fail on me. It does what it's designed to do - open tin cans - and does it well.

I always thought it was a neat little piece of American ingenuity, but it turns out that the original design shows up in 1913 as the brainstorm of one E.M. Darque', so the American in question seems to have been French, or of French extraction.The version I was introduced to in Basic Training back in 1980, though, goes back to WW2 and looks American as the Andrews Sisters. It worked pretty well even in the hands of a cherry private learning which meals to open and which to bury and which to try and trade away.And it occurred to me, as I was thinking about this little gadget, that the things that were of crucial importance to me; finding a way to wear my P-38 on my snap-link key ring because I hated the way it would open inside your shirt and poke your chest when you wore it on your dogtags, making sure I opened the boxes of C-rats (or Meals, Combat, Individual, to give them their right name) prior to getting on the 80-pax for Green Ramp to ensure I dumped the nasty crap and stowed the trade goods somewhere out of the way. Fruitcake? Fuck THAT. Cinnamon Dust Roll? Somebody might trade you a B-1 packet for that. Pound Cake? OhsweetjesushappydayIloveyoudarlingpoundcake..!

Were as useless now as knowing how to speak ancient Sumerian. I had carefully amassed all this knowledge and lore...only to pass on and, though retaining most of it, find it completely and utterly useless.And the hard-won knowledge of arcane foodie lore now lost and useless? Things like knowing which C's had John Wayne bars (a round chocolate bar with tooth-busting nuggets of toffee all in a silver foil wrapper found in the B-2 units [I think] - legend had it that the name came from a scene in the movie "The Green Berets" where the Duke himself gnawed on one. I've seen the movie - it's terrible, as advertised, BTW - and I don't remember the candy bar scene. But that was the story, anyway) and which had the loathed "Charms" fruit candies.Knowing which meals had the good desserts, like peaches or pears, and which had the dust rolls and the apricots. You had to know which cases had which, because to bring back a case full of Beef and Shrapmetal and Fruitcake was to be pounded by your squad.And the little tricks to eating well in the field, like humping a bottle of tabasco (I liked soy sauce, instead) or something to mask the flat, heavy taste of almost everything in the meal. Or remembering to keep the box, which could be used as a stove when you didn't get the little blue or purple Trioxane heat tabs. Punch a hole in the can, put it back in the box, light the box, and when it burned to ash the meal would be at least half cooked. Warm Spaghetti with Beef Chunks, while not as good as hot Spag & Chunks, was better by far than COLD Spag & Chunks.Mind you, there were some C's that you only ate if you were truly starving. Chopped Ham and Eggs? Sweet fucking Baby Jesus, but those were awful. Find someone who would trade for them and you were golden. Or not, and get stuck with the horrible foodlike thing and eat it or go hungry.

And remembering how to trade. Marketing was key; packaging a couple of jam tins with a tuna can for a Beans and Baby Dicks. Or, frabjous day, getting someone to trade you a Pound Cake.

One of the medics in my outfit liked to play the same mean trick on the new grunts in his platoon. At the first meal stop on a field problem he'd pick through his C-rat tins and casually ask "Who wants to trade for a Pound Cake?"

A gang of hopeful cherries would shower him with largesse in hopes of taking advantage of the obviously feeble-minded Doc, and he would wait patiently, picking his victim and make the trade. At which point the outraged new meat would squawk that he had, not the treasured Pound Cake, but a Chocolate or Cinnamon Dust Roll.

"Yes, but pound it up your ass and it will be a Pound Cake..." Doc would sneer, and all the old sweats would roar.

And sitting here, remembering Doc's scurvy trick and the laughter and the cursing, all my memories, for good or ill, of the canned meals and the guys who shared them summed up in the little metal gadget still on my key ring all of thirty years later, I realize that the are probably no more than a tiny handful of soldiers now in the Army I served who remember those cans and those days. And that they, like me, have nowhere to take their old wisdom, no reason to impart it to the next generation of soldiers. We might as well know how to load and fire a crossbow.

And realizing that I realize that time and a way of soldiering, a way of life, has truly passed by, that the Army I knew and the times I served in have gone, are part of the Past, and like all past things have left just the merest of traces behind, like the tiny OD metal shavings floating in the yellowish jelly of a newly-opened can of Pork Slices, Cooked, With Juices.