Confession Time

So, I have a confession to make.  I love porters and stouts.  This may not seem like a confession or even news to you, but for me to hear myself say this is big.  My appreciation for craft beer is rather new and constantly growing.  Even since my first 90 minute years ago that started the love affair, I have been expanding my horizons.  This past year I have begun to love porters and stouts.

For years I stayed away.  When I turned 21 and began (legally) going to bars, my friends and I thought it was the thing to do and order a Guinness.  And order a Guinness we did, over and over and over.  When you are in your binge drinking phase of your drinking career, you do not want to do it with a creamy generic stout like Guinness.  Nor do you want to top off a night of 10 or 11 pints of Guinness with something called 'Rum Runners' that your buddy Wally the bartender concocted for you.  Needless to say those nights ended in lots of pizza topped in penne vodka or buffalo chicken, and violent puking.   Since those days I have had bad connection with drinking Guinness, and eating at certain late night pizza places in Nyack, NY.  I have had a Guinness or 2 every know and then since then, but honestly, they aren't that good.  My preconceived notions aside, it's not a great beer.

Now this causes a problem as a craft beer drinker.  My negative feelings towards that dark stout led me to completely ignore any stout or porter selection at any bar or beer store.  For years I passed on trying many great beers simply because of my feelings toward Guinness.  This was until recently.  Sean loves porters and stouts.  He swears by them.  His love intrigued me enough to bring me back for another go around.  Over the summer I went to see Modest Mouse and Frightened Rabbit preform at the Brooklyn Waterfront.  Before the concert I stopped in to a new Brooklyn hangout, Breukelen Bier Merchants.  The place is sweet.  It's part beer store, part beer lounge.  It's the Starbucks of beer spots.  You can come in and buy your own six pack to go or grab one of their rotating taps of beer in growler.  You can even grab a pint and hang out on your laptop and write that novel you think people want to read (they don't).  I was only there for one beer before the show so I decided to go for it and get a stout.  I chose the 2009 Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and it was delicious.  Delicious to the point that I craved it days later and found that not only was it a seasonal offering and we were out of season but that aged 2009 keg Breukelen had was not very common at all.  This was discouraging but it caused me to turn a corner.  I was now on a mission to find more and better stouts.  Porters too.  Since then, I have tried plenty but I have so much more to experience and look forward to doing so...minus the bad pizza and need for bleaching the bathroom in the morning.