Longshot Night

"While the wives are away, the BC4M drinks more beer". And so it was another night of beer tasting. A few of the ladies auxiliary wing of the BC4M (otherwise known as the wine club for women) decided to have a night of bacchanalia (or lots of chatting while gulping down the vino) down at 10pm's house. Bim and Fred went to J. Wilder's for a quick sampling of this years Sam Adams Long Shot winners. Generally, two random folks and one Sam Adams employee are selected as the winners of Sam Adam's annual homebrew competition and then their recipes are made into beer that is sold to the masses. First up was Mile High Barleywine Ale (9.8%) made by Ben Miller of New Mexico. The bottle said this was the 100th homebrew that old Ben had conjured up. It might not be a well known fact, but the BC4M members have been avid homebrewers for several years, and in fact we were making beer (well technically it is beer) long before we ever thought about rating beers for sport. Several of our homebrews, namely CHC Best Bitter, Swamp Fire Ale and Pole-smoker Porter have garnered the attention of not only the E.P.A., but the A.T.F. and the U.S. Surgeon General for their toxicity to the general public. But unlike the lads in the BC4M, it seems old Ben Miller knows how to make a good beer. As resident brewmaster BimBim said upon reading the bottle, "Only his 100th homebrew huh, I hate that fucking guy already". We poured a round and all agreed, this was one damn fine beer, smooth, rich and extremely tasty. Next up was Old Ben Ale (9.0%), brewed by Mike Robinson of the granite state, New Hampshire. Fred said, "why the hell is it called old Ben Ale, shouldn't it be named Old Mike Ale?". This poured a nice rich head and received a solid good, but not as good our first longshotter. This beer had a robust amount of sweetness to it, not overpoweringly sweet like shotgunning a bottle of Aunt Jemima's maple syrup would be, but it was sweet nonetheless. Finally, the last of the 3 Longshots was opened, the Lemon Pepper Saison (6.4%) which was made by Sam Adams employee Jeremy White. When we (i.e. most sane people) think of lemon pepper, the first thought is probably a grilled chicken recipe, or maybe even fish. But oh no, Jeremy said, lets put that shit in a beer. If I was Jim Koch, the founder of Sam Adams, I would first fire Jeremy for making "grilled tilapia in a bottle", and second I would fire the numbskull who actually tasted this "Long John Silvers drive-thu special" and said, we have a winner. Whoever drinks this shit and says it is good either, doesn't drink beer, or has had his or her tongue removed. Fred took one gulp and poured his out, while the other two members drank their "chicken of the sea" and said this stuff SUCKS. Too cleanse our palates of this awful concoction, we drank another bottle of Flying Dog Horn Dog (10.2%) which is a Barleywine style Ale. We first drank this in the mountains of N.C. and loved it, but we had to have another taste. This is what a good beer tastes like Jeremy, and although not quite an RFG, it was very good. Since it was a school night ( we all had to work the next morning), we adjourned and reveled in the fact that we got to sneak in a meeting on a non-regularly scheduled night. Be afraid dear readers, you might be drinking our beer next year when we win the 2011 Longshot contest. Until then, Prost!