The first Friday of each month brings together beer bloggers around a common topic under the banner of The Session. This month Kaedrin Beer Blog hosts, giving us the topic “Double Feature”:

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to drink two beers, compare and contrast. No need for slavish tasting notes, but if you want to, that’s fine too. The important part is to highlight how the two beers interact with one another during your session (pun intended!) For extra credit, pair your beers with two films to make your own Double Feature. Now, I’m a big tent kinda guy, so feel free to stretch this premise to its breaking point. The possibilities are endless!

A tale of two beers

Well, one beer. Twice. Sierra Nevada’s Tumbler, the brown ale that opened my eyes to brown ales. I used to be a Belgian person, and I do still like them, but first Tumbler, then The Whale (I’m not too proud to admit I love my own beer), and then Left Hand’s Milk Stout. I like my beer like I like my romantic partners of a socially acceptable gender: dark, bitter and impenetrable.

I’m going to drink two bottles of it, at two different times, and then… I dunno. Write about it. As I do.

Corn because it’s fall and whatnot

Beer the first

I drank this during dinner, splitting half each of a turkey and a chicken finger sub. I paired it with The Legend of Korra, because we have been far too exhausted and run down by daily life to have anything close to a limit on screen time for the kids.

I drank the beer a little too cold, but it’s still fantastic. Bitterness of coffee liqueur, with a little bit of sweetness. Malty without being saccharine. Maybe a little sour. I love this beer.

The subs are equally tasty, both slightly spicy thanks to the hot sauce we ordered on the turkey. They complement each other, one rich and salty and the other slightly lighter and… a little less salty. Both taste like the sort of junk/comfort food I want, unlike the “I’ll eat crap but enjoy it” that ends in disappointment, like nearly every time I order fast food.

Korra? I think it’s good, but I’ve been too busy writing to pay much attention to the intrigue. Time to close the laptop.

Beer the second

I had planned to drink this one while watching some TV after the kids were in bed, probably Empire or How To Get Away With Murder or something similarly engaging, but then a metaphorical fire popped up that kept me on my laptop all night. So this went from an artistic endeavor to a reward for having to put up with life for yet another night. …When I put it that way it sounds remarkably dark, but I assure you I’m not (currently) in any state of depression. Just melodramatic, as always.

I set it out on the counter maybe half an hour ago, though, so at least the beer will have come closer to something approximating the proper temperature.

I actually liked it better colder, I think. It had a little more bite, whereas now the edges have softened and it’s muddied somewhat, maybe a little sulphuric. Whatever: I’ll still drink it and like it.

I’m scrounging a bit of leftover sub that the kids didn’t eat, because when you’re a parent that’s what happens, but the only sound is the clacking of my keys and the white noise of the heat being pushed through our vents. I’d like to be listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, because after the entire internet would not shut up about it for weeks I finally gave in and bought it and it is incredible, but, alas: my headphones are about two feet away and I just can’t be bothered.

What I learned

Probably not too much? But I had fun, and in the end isn’t that what matters? The temperature differential was interesting: I knew it would have an effect, but I didn’t expect to like the colder.

Anyway: drink a beer! Drink it again. Science.