My "cellar"

Sometimes when I come home from work I get warnings. Today, my wife picked me up from work and her Brother was in the back seat. Now, this could mean a couple things which of course, I fear the worst.

The first thing, which isn't bad, is that we've got dinner plans. I love to eat. I love going out to eat. When he's with us it usually means we go out for sushi. Again, I love sushi. But alas, this wasn't why he was in the car, which ultimately leads me to the worse of the scenarios.

The second thing usually involves a lot of moving of furniture. I've come home from work before and literally had everything in the place completely moved, on opposite ends of the apartment, to the point where I have to walk outside and walk back in because I think I've just randomly walked into someone else's home.

Luckily, today didn't involve anything really moving. It did however, involve a pretty big mess where my kitchen table sits and next to where I store my "cellared" beers. Now mind you, I don't have too many beers I'm holding on to, but still, I've got some. I've wanted to keep these in better condition than just a cabinet with no temperature control.

See, being in an apartment, bringing in a new piece of furniture isn't always easy. Obviously, you're crunched for space as it is. We've got a bar cabinet next to the dining table which I've started using. Anyway, my wife and her brother went over to Lowe's and picked up a sheet of insulation and cut it down to size. Below are a few pictures. It's nothing crazy or overly elaborate, but it's pretty damn awesome none the less. Hopefully this helps keep my beer in decent shape for when I eventually decide to crack some of them open.

Here's the beginning. Just a small cabinet with a shelf and the beers I'm currently holding on to. Here's what I've got in there so far:

Firestone Walker - Parabola

Firestone Walker - Sucaba

Sierra Nevada -  Bigfoot (3)

The Bruery -  Autumn Maple

The Bruery - Melange 3

Rip Current - Vanilla Rescue Buoy 

New Belgium  - Cascara Quad (Lips of Faith)

Iron Fist - Dark Days

Deschutes - Black Butte XXV

Stone - Stone Farking Wheaton W00tstout (2)

My BiL measuring pieces out. He's good at math. My wife, not so much. 

Work in progress. The books are to keep the sheets down helping the glue dry. I'm only planning on using the top shelf for now. Bottom shelf maybe if I get carried away. 

So yeah, came home to a nice surprise. I don't like to spend a ton of money on beer even though I spend too much as it is. This will at least make it easier for me to make a few extra purchases here and there to add to the stash. I've got a few in mind already. Specifically, an AleSmith Old Ale and a couple more w00tstouts. 

Iron Fist Brewing Co - Dark Days

Oh blog, how I've missed you so much! It's not my fault I woke up on Saturday with an absolutely dreadful cold. One that I'm still slightly being bothered by. I don't know what happened. Honest!

So my wife is doing this beer of the month thing for me as I've mentioned a few times anyway. So since I was really miserable at the end of March, I couldn't really get into my March beer. I was really bummed about it. Not because it was time to drink beer, but because I could FINALLY get into a bottle of a beer I've been waiting to open for the last couple of months.

The March beer of the month is by a local (and by local I mean it's 2 blocks from my home) Vista brewery, Iron Fist Brewing Co. Tonight I'm drinking their Dark Days which is a 11.9% abv stout aged in bourbon barrels. So yeah, as you can tell just by the description, being bummed was warranted. But enough blabbering. I want to get to the point where I get to drink, so let's get this beast poured!

Dark Days pours out a completely pitch black. The name really fits the beer for sure. There was almost zero head on this thing. Maybe the absolute slightest dark brown head, but it was more of some bubbles than anything else. This thing looks like motor oil. Just absolutely viscus. I think it's safe to say that your average beer drinker is going to be terrified of this beer. And really, they should be.

The nose on the Dark Days is fantastic. HUGE bourbon right away. Several kinds of chocolate here too. Big dark chocolate, some sweeter milk chocolate, just more chocolate than I can really describe. There's a really nice raisin character too, I'd even say chocolate covered raisins. I'm picking up some more dark fruits but they're more subtle than the raisin. I'm getting a good bit of the barrel in the nose as well. I'm definitely getting a little alcohol on the nose here. It's blended in fairly nicely with the bourbon and chocolate characters, but it's definitely there. So enough smelling, let's embrace Dark Days!

Wow. This is a very good BBL stout. Right away there's big chocolate. Definitely more on the sweet side. There's the slightest hint of alcohol up front but it's quickly washed away by the chocolate. There is a HUGE, absolutely fucking MASSIVE amount of chocolate covered raisin in this beer. And you know what?It's delicious! The chocolate covered raisin coats the mouth. This is a thick beer. One thing I will say about Dark Days, it's incredibly smooth. Back end there's a nice sweetness, vanilla, oak, bourbon. It's really good BBL stout.

Overall, this is a very good BBL stout. Big chocolate, big raisin, big barrel characters.

Raiting: A-

I'd have liked to see a little carbonation in this beer. This bottle is entirely flat. It doesn't take away from the beer but I like just a slight bit of carbonation in my stouts. Reading a few things online it sounds like some have a little carbonation and others are in the same boat as me. I have another bottle that I plan on opening sometime in the future. Maybe next year. Maybe this year. Not sure.