I finally got home from work last night around 6:30, which wasn’t too bad, I was the first one to leave in my department because my boss told me I had done enough and sent me home. After being there for over 10 hours I wasn’t going to argue.
Michael was finishing up some work when I got home, so I sat down and solved a puzzle my grandmother had sent me. I love puzzles, and solving them after a long day of paperwork is so relaxing. I like jigsaw puzzles too, but I worry that if I start one Caligula will steal the pieces, chew on them and hide them all over the house.
Around 7:30 we went out to Sly Fox. To our delight, they had just tapped a couple new beers:
Simcoe IPA
Black Raspberry Reserve
Oh My Gosh. THESE ARE AMAZING!
We didn’t notice the Simcoe IPA on the menu until later in the evening, but after a sampling of it we brought it home in a growler. I’d never heard of Simcoe Hops, apparently they’re the hot hybrid hop in brewing right now. There is a good article on Philly.com about them, and according to the article “Dogfish Head Brewing’s Sam Calagione said his brewers were using Simcoe before it even had a name, when it was known only as “Experimental Hop No. 555.” That’s great.
I had two glasses of the Black Raspberry Reserve with dinner, and I’m still shocked that it is over 7% alcohol. I’m going to need to do some research into the difference between raspberry wheats and raspberry lambics – based on taste alone, I’d call this a lambic, but they called it a wheat ale, and the label says fruit ale. The smell is very sweet and full of raspberry, but the taste is much more bitter, which is what I love in raspberry beers. It finishes cleanly and doesn’t have any weird tastes to it. I brought two bottles home, and cursed myself for not bringing along the second growler so we could get that filled up instead (would have been cheaper, but I do love these raspberry reserve bottles so I’ll survive ;))