Back in Japan and already missing the beer

I am back in Japan and this is my first post in a long, long while. We have the dial up at my house in Kentucky so I would rather wait for Japan than wait 20 minutes for a page to load. I haven't had time to drink much beer yet but I do have a something to tell you.

For a long time, Flying Dog has been my favorite American beer. What they produce is just good. When I buy a Flying Dog mix pack I look forward to drinking all the beers in it. Doggie Stlye Pale Ale, Snake Dog IPA, Old Scratch Amber Lager, Tire Bite Golden Lager, In Heat Wheat, and Road Dog Porter are all outstanding beers. I love all of them. When I bought my third sampler pack of the break, the two Road Dogs had been replaced with two Woody Creek White Ales. Was I excited about this Flying Dog seasonal? Yes. Was I pissed that they had taken BOTH my beloved Road Dogs? Hell Yes! Flying Dog Beer is like hearing Lick It Up by Kiss on the radio, it just gets me goin'!

And why shouldn't it? It's delicious. They make a Steam Beer and disguise it as an Amber Lager (America's native beer styles also get me going). And Ralph Steadman does all the artwork. If you don't know about Ralph Steadman, you should. Like I said, Flying Dog is my favorite American beer and has been since college.

During the winter break, I strayed from the nest. It happens when you are a beer drinker. You go into Liquor Barn and there are all these choices. Before you know it you are walking up to the register with a Breckinridge sampler, or a Sam Adams Winter Pack (Fuck Sam Adams Winter Pack! I'll explain in a sec.). You drink this beer but there is always a moment when you think your favorite beer is better than this beer. Apparently this is not the case with Great Lakes. I picked up one of their samplers after my brother Evan masturbated in my ear about their Dortmunder Gold.

Damn. Great Lakes is good. From what I read on the labels, they enter all their beers in National and International competitions and only brew repeat gold medal winners. There beer is so consistently good that it makes all other beer worse. When I was drinking there pale ale, porter, lagers, etc., I felt that beer envelope was being pushed in my mouth.

Flying Dog is still my favorite beer. We have a history together and I am not a fickle person. I'm just saying that in an non objective blind taste test, I would pick the Great Lakes every time.

Oh, about Sam Adams Winter Pack. Sam Adams Boston Lager is a standard. It is always good. Old Fezziwig is a nice coriander and orange peel holiday brewed treat. The Cranberry Lambic is lie. That beer is as lambic as I am Japanese. It's a wheat beer with some flavor syrup. The Holiday Porter tastes like burnt. Just burnt. The Winter Lager is ok but my friend JR said something about how it being on tap at Galvin's made him depressed. And the one shining star that made the sampler worth buying, the Black Lager, was replaced with the sub-sub-par Cream Stout. Bad form, Sam Adams, bad form. And seriously, the only thing that Holiday Porter is worthy of is the sink drain.