New Floor, New Beer (Beer Review 7)

Last weekend we installed laminate flooring in Henry's new "big-boy" bedroom. We wanted to help keep his allergies down and also make the floor more "playable". Try rolling your toy cars on carpet! :-)

carpet goes bye-bye

I'll get to the beer in just a sec, but I just had to show you this. Yep, that's the pile of dirt and crap that was living under the carpet in this relatively small and little-used bedroom of ours. Dirt, dust, dust mites, skin flakes, cat hair, pet dander, toe cheese... yep, it's all in there. Yuck.

big pile of dirt

The place where we bought the laminate flooring was located close to downtown Houston. So on our way there, we made the pilgrimage to the Specs warehouse on Smith Street. Let's just say that when my stomach and taste buds die and go to heaven, it will be the Specs warehouse :-)

I got two beers that I've never tried. Tanya bought them for me as sort of payment for installing the floor. (She's 6-months pregnant, so she's very limited in the work she can do; she also got some funny looks at Specs, but I won't go into that.) I also picked up some very nice coffee beans, dark chocolate, and the best pastrami sandwich I've ever had.

beer & LEGO break

Allagash triple reserve Belgian style ale (Portland, Maine). Tanya picked this out for me. Perhaps my deer-in-headlights look suggested I needed help as I stared at the massive beer selection in Specs. It is massive. Did I mention their selection is quite large? :-)

The Allagash was excellent! It had a classic heavy liquid-bread type taste, characterisitc of quality triples. It was fresh tasting too. I think it was just as good as the Maredsous 10 or the St. Bernardus triple. I wouldn't hesitate getting it again.

laying boards

The work spanned most of my long 3-day weekend. Laying this stuff was fairly easy. I didn't have any serious problems, except for once mistaking my finger for the hammer-block thingy and smashing it pretty good with a sound blow. You know it's bad when you don't feel anything outright except numbness. Thankfully Henry wasn't with me, or he would have learned a few new words.

beer break 2

St. Feuillien triple Belgian ale (from Belgium!). This was my pick. It was damn good. It carries all the full flavor of a triple but it has a subtlety... an extra smoothness. When I read the back of the label, I found the term "mellow" used to describe it. That's exactly it - mellow. It's slightly different from what I'm used to with these heavy Belgian ales (doubles, triples, etc.), but it's very, very good. And it's a bit sweeter than the others too. The mellowness and little extra sweetness make it all too easy to drink :-)

I'd say that my two new beers this past weekend were both top-notch. I'd place them up there on that imaginary top shelf of best beers.

done deal

If you look closely at the above photo, you'll notice something on the window sill :-) That was the last of my Sunshine wheat beer (New Belgium Brewing Co.). I had a couple left over from the 4th of July weekend. It's still damn good. Best wheat beer EVER!