In the last few weeks, I’ve turned the Friday Brew Review into a child’s birthday party. The normal group of friends, at the behest of the hosting mother, have been accompanied by those random kids from the third grade class that no one usually talks to. There was the poor kid who makes goofy faces when he thinks nobody’s looking. There was that kid who always brags about how his uncle works for Nintendo and hooked him up with an Ultra 64. And then there was that sweet little girl who always kisses every boy in class. Whore.

Party’s over, motherfuckers. Time to get back to the mainstays of the posse, the crewmembers who’ve proven their worth time and again. This week, I’m sippin’ on a stout.

Island Creek Oyster Stout, to be exact.

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I did it! I finally found a fucking coffee-based beer! After grumbling for weeks, my friendly neighborhood poison-merchant totally fulfilled my wishes! Since I have wanted a coffee-brew for some time but have never taken the initiative to actually search for one, I’m going to take this latest acquisition that God exists and he wants me to be happy. Or, I suppose, that there’s no God at all and I’ve just managed to benefit from the indifferent bastard that is random chance. Either way, I’m drinkin’.

I walked into the store, took a lap, looked at the cooler with disdain, and then began to march out. For a matter of seconds, I was positively sure that I would have to go to *gasp* another store *gasp* for my brew of the week! But as I began my emigration, I could swear that I heard something…

“…over here. right here. yeah, away from the coolers full of labels that change color when cold and the supposed royalty of lagers…come to the shelf with specialty alcohol.”

I paused, second-guessing myself and beginning to finally understand what my friends mean when they say, “You’re fucking losing it.” But then I heard it again, only with a clarity and volume that had only been intimated before.

“RIGHT HERE! LOOK UP, YOU NUMBSKULL!”

As I shifted my line of sight, I finally saw the hyperactive bottle of depressant that had  been beckoning. To my absolute delight, I was gazing at a fat-ass bottle of Cappuccino Stout. “Come here, you little bugger,” I cried joyously. I resisted the urge to shoplift, trading the merchant some baseball cards with slave-owners on `em for the bottle and rushing home.

While my first instinct was to crack the bottle open and begin guzzling the week away, my sensibilities prevailed. I decided to approach the Lagunitas Brewing Company’s limited release as a nightcap, waiting until later in the evening to enjoy. Therefore, I passed the time by going out to eat with Mrs. Krueger. While I enjoyed myself, I knew that there was a mission at hand; the beer I drank with my steak and the coffee I drank with dessert were merely teases of the greater objective. And so I headed home again, this time fully prepared to experience a combination of my two favorite beverages.

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