Beer 293: Dock Street Collaboration and Cross-Eyed Editing

I am blind from editing things today. Reports, agendas, tables of content, annual reports, donor profiles.  I've also been typing with such fervor that my finger joints ache.  If you find a typo in what I'm about to write, forgive me. I'm currently cross-eyed and exhausted.  It also seems that I forgot that I'm 37 and went to a concert on a school night last night.  What was I thinking???

Will I ever take a photo in public
that doesn't suck?

Les Biere des Amis is a collaborations between Dock Street Brewing Company and Daniel Thiriez.  Thiriez is the owner and brewer at Brasserie Thiriez in France and is renowned for his Saisons and biere de gardes.  Two beer styles that I thorougly enjoy.  Supposedly -- if one were to believe the internetz - this collaboration is the first between a U.S. and French brewery in America. 

This "beer of friends" has an ABV of 4.5%. It pours a slightly hazy golden ale with a minimal white head.  It didn't have a noticable aroma for me.  First sip made me think crisp and refreshing.  Further sampling revealed wheat, good balance of malts and hops with just enough hop to make it interesting, and grass.  I could have also sworn that there was a hint of salinity to it. It almost reminded me of this gose or perhaps this one. Not in style but with that faint taste of salt the lends an interesting twist to a beer. 

This is a good beer.  Cheers!

Let's Be Friends

Beer #290 Les Biere des Amis / Dock Street Brewing Company,  Philadelphia, PA

Creeping up on 80% of the 365 challenge completed, so I decided to celebrate by waking up today with a cold.  Hey, can't win them all, right?  Thankfully, I am able to work from home today, thus avoiding dirty looks from everyone in the office when I coughed on them repeatedly.

For our beer today, I'll take one off the shelf and review Les Biere des Amis, a saison which I had on draft at TJ's last evening.  For those of you who aren't fluent in French like me, that translates to 'The Beer of Friends', and I'm really not fluent in French, but like to pretend I am.  Regardless, this is a collaboration between Dock Street and Brasserie Thiriez in France.  As it was brewed in Philly, I'm giving Dock Street the credit for our list.  This beer has a pale yellow hue with a thin white head.  The aroma is tart lemon, and the taste is slightly tart, with some earthy grain notes and a bit of citrus before you hit a clean, dry finish.  Eminently drinkable at 4.5% ABV, I highly encourage you to seek out this limited release beer.

Why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends.....

Per Dock Street's website, this is the first collaboration with a French brewery on American soil.  Not sure who exactly is keeping track of that, but if they say so, I'll believe them.

Thing to Think About Today:
If we're discussing beer of friends, it probably makes sense to take a moment and think about Friends, one of the funniest sitcoms of the twenty years.  Running from 1994 to 2004 (or to think of it another way, almost all of my twenties), the show explored the intertwined relationships of six people living in New York.  In the process, it became one of the most popular sitcoms ever, earning award after award.  The cast was older than we were, yet we could completely relate to the love stories, the madcap antics, and the continually clever writing.

Below is a clip of highlights, and there are some good ones in there.  But just watching this made me realize there are so many other great episodes out there that aren't included: the prom video scene, Ross and Monica's dance routine, Joey on $25,000 Pyramid, Chandler dating Janice..... the list goes on and on and on.  Might be time to get the season disks on Netflix and hunker down for a Friends marathon this weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aGRV1lMdeU