Three Beautiful Things 12/07/12: December in Eugene, Brails Fun, The Best of Beers

1.  One reliable and uplifting thing about this often silly town I live in is that the climate is mild and a killer freeze often doesn't come until December or January and some times not at all.  It's December 7th and we haven't had any kind of a killer freeze and so I can walk the neighborhoods near where I live on cold, dark, gray days, with the clouds nearly on my shoulders, and find many flowers in bloom, berries alive, and fall colored leaves:   much color all around.  I took pictures of flowers and berries and leaves today on my walk to Brails and back, as a defense against the shrinking hours of daylight and the general early December gloom:

2.  Breakfast at Brails was fun.  Yes, the bacon and eggs with hash browns, English muffins and Boyd's Ambiance blend coffee tasty, but shooting the breeze with the Troxes and the witty service of Ian made the meal.

3.  The Troxstar and I decided to go Belgian at the Bier Stein late in the afternoon.  What a great variety of Belgian and Belgian style beer we drank.  Get a load of this:  a glass of Dupont's Avec Les Bons Voeux, and then we split bottles of Onibroue's La Fin du Monde, Logsdon's Oak Aged Bretta, and Logsdon's Seizoen.  We were on foot and put no one in danger as we staggered several blocks to the Rogue Public House and each drank a pint of splendid Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout on nitro while enjoying an order of onion rings.  It was a high quality bierfest.  And a great time for me and the Troxstar to air out our wit, tell tall tales, and plan a future Oregon beer pilgrimage to Oakridge, Bend, Hood River, Portland, Corvallis, and back home again.