It’s not even 3PM and I’m drinking beer. Perhaps this is the work of some divine force, swiftly setting right the grave injustice that was the last week’s tardy review. I’m not here to speculate, so I’ll just chalk it up to the fact that sometimes Life tosses breaks. A bit of respite from the mundane, the high school at which I teach is using this week exclusively for Midyear Exams; with only one exam to proctor today, I made sure to finish my work early so I could slide into the weekend.

So here we go — it’s drinkin’ time!

Initially, the premise of the Friday Brew Review was that I would take the opportunity to consume an entirely new beverage every week — ideally, never even repeating breweries. However, part of the problem with this is that I have stumbled upon a couple of really, really good breweries. So when I go to the store and see a beer of theirs that I’ve yet to try, it breaks my heart to think that I’ll have to abstain.

There’s enough heartbreak (warfare) in the world without me adding to it. So this week, I’m going to review a beer brewed by a company for whom I’ve sang praises time and again.

Today, I present the Troegs Brewing Company’s Nugget Nectar.

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First and foremost, allow me to apologize for the tardiness of this post. Although the OL statistics-tracker tells me that most of you read the Friday Brew Review during your Saturday morning (hangover), I usually aim to get this son of a bitch posted by 9PM. I guess my thought process is that people will say, “Hey, what did Pepsibones use to kill brain cells this week?” before going out and choosing a consciousness-stunner of their own. So if a late post has left you clueless as to what to drink (or not drink), and you now find yourself sniffing Elmer’s Glue, using said glue to style your hair and fooling around with your uncle’s synthesizer, I apologize.

Ok, it’s late so let’s just get to this. Tonight I procured a six-pack of the Abita Brewing Company’s Purple Haze. The prospect of a “raspberry wheat brew” ticked my fancy; although I consider myself more of a dark beer/lager fellow, I have recently embarked on a quest to find a lighter beer to satisfy my palette. Inspecting the backside of a bottle, I was informed that the beer “is a crisp, American style wheat beer with a fresh raspberry puree added after filtration.” With such a description added to the obvious Hendrix connotations, I felt good to go.

Pouring the potion into a beer glass, I noticed that the stream of goodness (does that sound filthy?) was of a purple hue. Shit, the label wasn’t lying about the “subtle purple coloration and haze.” The hints of violet are present, but they are far from overpowering; Purple Haze’s light texture makes it translucent, looking more like water than cough syrup. But it’s all good — I don’t need my beer to look like Barney the Dinosaur’s peepee.

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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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It’s Friday! Wait…shit, Friday? Already? Damn. With time off from the teaching gig and a couple of holidays in the mix, I’ve been hanging out with my friends beer and relaxation whenever I damn well please. It’s been a good stretch, but on Monday I’ll have to return to The Man’s regularly scheduled programming.

So let’s try to enjoy ourselves for one final weekend. And what better way to start this off than a brew review? (Well, probably winning the lottery, hanging out with friends, watching a sick sporting event, et cetera).

Anyways, I went to the liquor store only to find they were closing in ten minutes — a solid four hours early in honor of New Year’s Day. I felt a bit rushed, not wanting to prevent the noble shopkeeper who helps me get lifted every week from getting home to her loving husband. So I threw caution to the wind and grabbed the first set of anti-inhibition potions that appeared even vaguely trustworthy.

The loot of the week — Allagash White.

Now to be honest, the reason I snatched up a four pack of this ale is because the label bragged about being born in Portland, Maine. “Hey, I take a ferry from Portland to Nova Scotia every summer…if they brew beer as well as they  transport folks to a foreign land, this should be great!”

But as I was driving home, I really started to think about it. “Hold on. Maine…Why is it that I only go there to catch a ferry somewhere else? Oh yeah…I forgot…They’re kind of like the hicks of the North!” But with the store closed, there was no going back to exchange the product of Maine’s finest for something more reliable.

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Merry fucking Christmas!

As it is the best day of the entire year, I’m going to keep this brew review short and sweet. Don’t begrudge me — fact of the matter is, most people probably won’t even read this until the 26^th. In fact, if it’s still Christmas and you’re reading OL, just stop. Go find a friend or family member and do something worthwhile.

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It’s a celebration, bitches!

The fact of the matter is that we are officially one week away from Christmas, which means it’s okay to celebrate. Unlike other holidays, Christmas cannot be a month-long extravaganza. Fuck Black Friday. Fuck making popcorn balls the second week of December. Fuck “Twelve Days of Christmas,” seven are perfect. The best way to rock Christmas is to save up all of the joy/cheer/goodwill/tolerance for our mediocre culture you have and then spend it throughout the course of seven glorious days; any fewer and you run out of time to do it all, any more and you run the risk of fatigue.

Knowing that today marks the first opportunity to celebrate Jesus’ birth friendship and good vibes, I wanted to sample a likeminded brew. The trip to the liquor store was brief and determined, walking from the cooler to the counter in one swift loop — after all, it isn’t that difficult to find a product marketed as liquid-festivity. Actually, it’s not difficult at all.

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I’ve been in the business of writing about the beers I drink for almost four months now. In truth, I’ve really enjoyed doing the Friday Brew Review as it gives me an excuse to  find new elixirs (and, of course, a justification for drinking at least once a week). Thus far, I feel as though my quest to avoid the big-name, low-quality beers of the average drinker has been successful. Unfortunately, in my attempt to steer clear of the kings of drunkenness and the swill they serve at their banquets, I have neglected to feature some of the more reputable local craft brews. This is a terrible habit, conducting a sort of total war on all the names I’ve heard of just to ensure that I sample something fresh.

It ends tonight.

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For the second week in a row I headed to the package store hoping to find a brew based in coffee or espresso. And for the second time in two weeks, my hopes were powerbombed. Am I asking for too much? Is it unreasonable to think that I deserve a beer that tastes of coffee? Hell, I’ve dreamed of drinking such a liquid since 1996 and I’ll be damned if this fight is over.

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Not only is it Friday, but it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving. As such, there are certain expectations to be fulfilled — specifically, the eating of leftovers and the continued consumption of alcohol. Starting with a hearty bowl of stuffing for breakfast, I’ve made sure to eat something at every opportunity, paying special attention to desserts. More than content with my gorging, I really wanted to find a good brew for the review.

Therefore, I made sure to not rush through the weekly process of beer-searching. I took my time at the store, actually reading labels and trying to figure just what type of beverage I’d want to drink. My first inclination was to find some sort of coffee/espresso based lager; however, the staff informed me that such a product was not stocked and I was therefore SOL. Resolved to find something tasty, I continued the quest.

I then remembered that today marks the first day of the Christmas Season: “A holiday-brew will do,” I bellowed in Seuss-mimicry, “but how to pick a drink that’s sick?” Again, I wanted to be levelheaded about this decision, not jumping at the first six-pack with clever packaging.

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Yet another Friday is upon us and therefore it is the duty of OL to present a beverage with which you can forget the work week. While I normally revel in my Friday night ritual of drankin’n’writin’, I don’t think I’d bring my A-Game tonight. Truth be told, I’ve felt like caca ever since I got home and although I’m going to guzzle some smile-potions, I don’t think I have the heart to give an earnest review.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself in front of a pack of third-graders, “who the fuck is going to handle the task of the Friday Brew Review?” Initially, I thought about outsourcing the job to one of my high school students, offering extra-credit for a minimum of five-hundred words. But something told me that administration may frown on that (apparently extra-credit is a Big No-No). I then considered asking for Caffeine Powered’s assistance, but since that guy shoulders most of the writing burden at OL, I didn’t want to add to his workload. I felt lost.

And then it hit me: Mrs. Krueger

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