Mark's POV - St. Patty's Beer Picks

It’s St. Paddy’s Day! And what are we celebrating? The correct answer is, we’re celebrating beer.

Now, I’m not the first one to proclaim beer’s greatness. We see evidence of human kind’s long obsession with the frothy beverage as early as Homer’s (as in Homer J. Simpson, of Springfield) proclamation that beer was his “mother, brother, sister, lover,” to my new new favorite saying learned 5 minutes ago: “In Dog Beers, I’ve only had one. “ [Thanks goes to the awesome custom T-shirt making duo at Dirty Tease…who offer a full line of St. Paddy’s day shirts and slogans] 

So what to drink? Finally, I get to the point. Of course there’s the obvious beers:
Guinness, Harp, O’Doul’s . . . with or without a flaming sidecar of Jameson. But I want
to discuss 3 off the beaten path choices.

1. Thanks to our dear friends Nikki and Dennis, I tried Schlafly Extra Stout for the first time a week ago. This Irish Style stout is quite delicious. And, for a bonus, it has twice the alcohol content of Budweiser. Thank you new “dog beer” saying. It’s brewed in St. Louis, and I have no idea how widely it’s distributed. {Editor's Note: distributed mainly within 300 miles of St. Louis.}

2. BBC Bourbon Barrel Stout. BBC is a local brewery whose initials stand for Bluegrass Brewing Company. Bluegrass = Kentucky for those readers from places with better educational systems. This beer is somehow formulated at some point in its process in old bourbon barrels (don’t ask me, I’m not a Beernotologist). {Editor's note: aged in 2005 Bourbon barrels for approximately 60 days.}


What I like about this beer is that is has a slightly sweet bourbon-y taste without tasting like some idiot poured all the empty soldiers into a glass and dared his friend to drink it. Strangely enough, there is a stronger bourbon tasting beer out there, but in my opinion it tastes like bourbon with a dash of beer. And if the beer can catch on fire, you should steer clear (unless it’s from Belgium, but more about that on the 7th of Belgium day). 

3. Black & Brown. Now most of you have heard of Black & Tan, the mixture of Guinness and Bass. I like this concoction but never understood it. Why would the proud makers of Guinness let their beer be mixed with an English beer? Why not mix it with Harp? That’s for political scientists to figure out.

Black & Brown is Guinness and Newcastle Brown Ale. It’s yummy. But I think one of my friends made it up. I say this because I recently ordered it and had to clarify: “No, not a Black & Tan…it’s with Newcastle.” This did not set off the light bulb of understanding, but rather elicited Dramatic Eye Rolling from the world-weary bar keep. Now, said bar keep had a mullet. And was a woman…Femi-mullet? So I still felt okay ordering a second one. Especially since my brother-in-law was paying.

What have we learned? Not much. Have fun on St. Paddy’s Day. Be safe. Have a
drink. Or don’t. Sláinte!


-MARK