That final score right there means USC is PAC-10 TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS! They beat Cal, fucla, and ASU on consecutive days and guaranteed themselves a place in the NCAA tournament. Today USC came back after trailing by 15 at the half. I'm celebrating with another barrel-aged cherry beer today, this time being Russian River Supplication.
The victory party continues. We headed down to Pacific Wine Merchants, a little bar/wine & beer store that I've done a review on, and had pints of Stone IRS (only $5.50- nice!) to pair with our Rocky Patel Decades. Great pairing I must say. The chocolate and spiciness of the Decade goes very well with the rich dark and slightly acidic malt of the Stone IRS. They also had Stone Pale Ale on tap (they only have 2 taps there and a nice bottle list- ie. Pliny, Pig, GFWCIPA, Dale's Pale Ale, Racer 5, etc etc), so it was a good night to go to PWM. Since the place closes around 9 on Saturdays we're now heading out for some more beers, chips, and we picked up a Rocky Patel "The Edge" to share at Lucky Baldwin's.
Timmins goes a little overboard with the wine sometimes. It's amazing how I was able to even get him into beer. If he's not chugging a Pliny the Younger (yes he did and it's f'd him up), he's chugging some Merlot ("I will not drink any fucking merlot!!!"). Did I mention USC IS PAC-10 TOURNAMENT CHAMPS???!!! What a great day. It'll still be a huge battle for us to win even our first game in the tourney, but at least we're in and are guaranteed at least some fun.
We made a quick stop at Lucky B's, and after looking at the tap list, which consisted mostly of leftovers from their Belgian Beer Fest, we decided to put the decision making into the hands of our favorite and trusty bartender Chris. I said "give us something fresh and hoppy" and he went to the fridge. I turned to Spencer and said I guarantee he comes back with a Hair of the Dog Blue Dot IPA. He indeed came with a Blue Dot IPA and it was the hoppiest and freshest tasting Blue Dot I've ever had. It's easily up in my top 5 favorite double IPA's at the moment. About 2 minutes later he asked what else we wanted, and we left the decision with him again and he came back with a Hair of the Dog Adam [old ale]. 
That beer was excellent. Dark fruit, the ever so light roastiness, a nice hop resin that stuck to the tongue but didn't overpower the other great malty flavors in it, and this beer just had an amazing balance to it. He had served us a bottle of Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws barleywine a few weeks ago which was also an awesome beer from this brewery, although it was much more fruity than Adam. Gotta say, Hair of the Dog makes some fantastic beers (as if beer geeks didn't know that). We're starting to see a little wider distribution from these guys, as most Whole Foods carry 4 or 5 of their beers. There are a couple more I need to try, such as Ruth or Fred. Can't wait to try these soon.
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7 comments:
You're stealing a bid from a more deserving team. LOL, who am I kidding? I went to Baylor and we almost did the same thing. At least we took KU and UT down in the process.
I can't believe how bad the Pac 10 is this year. I'll be shocked if any of them are playing past the first weekend.
Those beers though... ALWAYS play past the first weekend! Good luck.
Strange how often we are the same page. Split a Supplication on Thurs night. It seemed to have lost quite a bit of its cherry impression. Still there, but less obvious than at release. Love it.
Now, as for the Blue Dot, had one yesterday with the bro during my three year old's bday party. Old bottle, and it was terrible!
I believe Fred is the barleywine you had...Adam is an American strong ale.
Anonymous... I actually did have Adam, as you can see in the picture, but you're right, it's a "hearty old world Ale" per the bottle, and not really a barleywine I guess. Thanks for pointing that out.
J- we are usually on the same page. As for the cherry in the Supp, the thing did feel a little thinner and weaker in flavor, I definitely noticed that, as well as less acidic. Still a good drink though, but not as intense as usual. I've had 3 bottles of Blue Dot now though, 2 were very fresh, the 3rd was semi-fresh. I think I've been lucky with that beer.
Stag- I would feel bad about taking a more deserving spot if I were a team like Baylor, but USC is 22-12- not exactly a bunch of slouches. I think you will be surprised by the Pac10's showing the Tourney. I think they'll get 2 teams to the sweet 16 (which is obviously not as good as the Pac10's standard, but a bit better than you are predicting). I hope Ucla loses in the first round though. Your Baylor team had a hell of a showing the last few days.
How ghetto of Timmins downing the bottle of wine like that. I hope he doesn't do that at Rosemary's.
LOL, it was empty. You know he wouldn't do that at Rosemary's, but he might pull a Nuno and run across the street to gamble between courses. haha
We had an extremely disappointing season considering we were ranked for 8 weeks, coming off an NCAA appearance last year and with all starters returning. Got to 20 wins but only 5 came in conference. Still, being where we were 5 years ago, I'll take it. Have a nice class coming in next year too, which hopefully includes #1 John Wall.
I'll be watching the brackets, drinking my first Serpents Stout.
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