Christmas With the Price's
Saturday was Christmas with the Prices at Mike's house in Denver, PA. Our family situation is a little complicated, as my mom and Tom (stepdad) live in southern Delaware and my dad still lives in Lancaster. Each year we have one Christmas party with my mom and stepdad's family, and one with my dad and stepmom's family. It's all a little weird and somewhat akward sometimes, but yesterday was fun.
My mom and Tom met up with Christina and myself, and Mike and Jill and the kids around 11:30. Grady and Michelle (Grady is Tom's son. Michelle is his wife) showed up a couple hours late due to a flat tire. Two years ago we shifted the party from a dinner to a lunch to make it easier on everyone, especially Jill. The 'lunch' is really just setting out a bunch of cheeses, breads, and tasty appetizers and allowing people to eat what they want when they want it.
Mike asked me to stop at Wegmans to pick up a variety of cheeses. I'm a sucker for french cow's milk cheeses, so I picked up some Morbier, a triple cream I forget the name of, and Chimay's wonderful semi-soft cheese soaked in it's highly overrated beer. The cheese was anything but overrated, however. It was pungeunt without a footy aftertaste. Kindy spicey but full of flavor. Everyone was very impressed, and Mike and I were sure that beer couldn't have had a lot of impact on the final flavor, as this didn't taste at all like the middle-of-the-line-should-be-ashamed-to-call-themselves-trappists pisswater of a beer the monastary brews.
Enough negative editorializing. Beer was abundant, as the day started out (before noon) with Mike and I sharing a 750ml bottle of Gouden Carolus Noel. We then moved on to Mike's newly bottled Belgian Dubbel homebrew. It's very interesting to taste newly bottled beer, experiencing its lower than normal carbonation and esterly sweetness. Four months from now this will be a nice Dubbel.
We then moved on to Dogfish Head's Fort. Neither of us had this before so it came as quite a surprise that this beer carries 19% ABV. Large amounts of pureed raspberries are added to the initial boil to give the batch a high amount of fermtable sugar. It carries a sweet framboise appeal. Some people hate extreme brews and some love them. Count us in the love them camp. Damn the 74 rating on ratebeer! Fort is a quality extreme beer that packs a high-alcohol punch without the syrupy medicinal aftertaste. Lovely.
The final offering the day came around 5pm. We decided to try Southampton's Imperial Porter. Someone on ratebeer summed it up best - Smell is of some chocolate and coffee with something else in the background, maybe raisin. Taste is interesting, a little coffee, a little chocolate. It’s a good brew, but not great. We both enjoy the Okocim Porter more.
The kids got great gifts this year including a highly entertaining limbo game. We discovered one of Christina's skills yesterday - she can limbo better than kids half her size. It was sight to behold. Christina and I decided that limbo will definitely be part of the New Year's party.
My mom got me a four-pack of Midas Touch, and my brother gave me a four-pack of Duchesse de Bourgogne along with two each of his Belgian Dubbel and Barleywine homebrew. He was generous enough to let go of one Maximator, three of Jonathan's amazing Imperial Stout homebrew (better than Storm King), and three Southern Tier brews.
We drove home. Christina had another party to go to, so I decided to take some time and finish shopping for her. Unfortunately, I had to return some shoes Christina bought from Nordstrom Rack. She wore them a couple of times so the bottoms were a little beat up. The customer service person I initially approached wasn't competent enough to determine if the shoes were returnable, so she called in a second equally incompetent service person who finally called in the store manager. The store manager inspected the shoes like Jean-François Champollion inspecting the Rosetta Stone. After 5 minutes of painstakingly reviewing the shoes' condition she finally accepted the return, but not without a stern warning. Way to go.
The night continued and I finished my shopping, returned home, ate some pizza, and watched the last half of The Return of the King on HD.
My mom and Tom met up with Christina and myself, and Mike and Jill and the kids around 11:30. Grady and Michelle (Grady is Tom's son. Michelle is his wife) showed up a couple hours late due to a flat tire. Two years ago we shifted the party from a dinner to a lunch to make it easier on everyone, especially Jill. The 'lunch' is really just setting out a bunch of cheeses, breads, and tasty appetizers and allowing people to eat what they want when they want it.
Mike asked me to stop at Wegmans to pick up a variety of cheeses. I'm a sucker for french cow's milk cheeses, so I picked up some Morbier, a triple cream I forget the name of, and Chimay's wonderful semi-soft cheese soaked in it's highly overrated beer. The cheese was anything but overrated, however. It was pungeunt without a footy aftertaste. Kindy spicey but full of flavor. Everyone was very impressed, and Mike and I were sure that beer couldn't have had a lot of impact on the final flavor, as this didn't taste at all like the middle-of-the-line-should-be-ashamed-to-call-themselves-trappists pisswater of a beer the monastary brews.
Enough negative editorializing. Beer was abundant, as the day started out (before noon) with Mike and I sharing a 750ml bottle of Gouden Carolus Noel. We then moved on to Mike's newly bottled Belgian Dubbel homebrew. It's very interesting to taste newly bottled beer, experiencing its lower than normal carbonation and esterly sweetness. Four months from now this will be a nice Dubbel.
We then moved on to Dogfish Head's Fort. Neither of us had this before so it came as quite a surprise that this beer carries 19% ABV. Large amounts of pureed raspberries are added to the initial boil to give the batch a high amount of fermtable sugar. It carries a sweet framboise appeal. Some people hate extreme brews and some love them. Count us in the love them camp. Damn the 74 rating on ratebeer! Fort is a quality extreme beer that packs a high-alcohol punch without the syrupy medicinal aftertaste. Lovely.
The final offering the day came around 5pm. We decided to try Southampton's Imperial Porter. Someone on ratebeer summed it up best - Smell is of some chocolate and coffee with something else in the background, maybe raisin. Taste is interesting, a little coffee, a little chocolate. It’s a good brew, but not great. We both enjoy the Okocim Porter more.
The kids got great gifts this year including a highly entertaining limbo game. We discovered one of Christina's skills yesterday - she can limbo better than kids half her size. It was sight to behold. Christina and I decided that limbo will definitely be part of the New Year's party.
My mom got me a four-pack of Midas Touch, and my brother gave me a four-pack of Duchesse de Bourgogne along with two each of his Belgian Dubbel and Barleywine homebrew. He was generous enough to let go of one Maximator, three of Jonathan's amazing Imperial Stout homebrew (better than Storm King), and three Southern Tier brews.
We drove home. Christina had another party to go to, so I decided to take some time and finish shopping for her. Unfortunately, I had to return some shoes Christina bought from Nordstrom Rack. She wore them a couple of times so the bottoms were a little beat up. The customer service person I initially approached wasn't competent enough to determine if the shoes were returnable, so she called in a second equally incompetent service person who finally called in the store manager. The store manager inspected the shoes like Jean-François Champollion inspecting the Rosetta Stone. After 5 minutes of painstakingly reviewing the shoes' condition she finally accepted the return, but not without a stern warning. Way to go.
The night continued and I finished my shopping, returned home, ate some pizza, and watched the last half of The Return of the King on HD.
posted by JP at 8:29 AM
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