1. It's odd.
When I lived in Greenbelt, MD, vaulting into the Sube and blasting into Washington, DC, whether to go to Union Station and the Mall, DC Brau, one of the other breweries, the National Aquatic Gardens, the National Arboretum, meet up with a friend from out of town, or to make a visit to a neighborhood I hadn't explored before, got to be routine. It was never boring to go into DC, but, in fact, even though I was in the suburbs, Washington, D. C. became my home town, albeit, a thrilling home town. I reached a point where it no longer felt like I was going some place else when I roamed around what people in the area call "The District". I was home.
Now, however, after living in Kellogg for nearly six years, it's a really big deal for me, in terms of excitement, to drive to CdA (unless it's strictly a medical visit).
As I was planning the family dinner I'll prepare on Monday, I concluded that a trip to Costco on Saturday would be a good idea and I started to get pumped up at the prospect of picking up some items we need and of walking the aisles, checking out products and enjoying fellow shoppers.
So, I hopped into the Camry, got my phone and the car's sound system in sync, and put on one of my favorite albums of the last fifty years: Spirit's Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.
This album came out in 1970, and, similar to Jethro Tull, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Chase, Tower of Power, Spirit fused jazz, classical, folk, psychedelia, and rock and, on this album, created a loosely constructed concept album -- I've always been so enamored by the album's music and its sound, I've never gotten around to thinking much about its concept or its connection to the 1961 horror film, Mr. Sardonicus.
No, as Spirit rocked the inside of the Camry, I enjoyed fantasies.
Sometimes I dreamed of Spirit playing out back at the Kingston HillTop last summer for our 50th high school reunion.
Other times I dreamed that the band, Dirty Betty, who did play at our reunion, performed a Spirit set, augmenting their band by inviting Kellogg graduates like Nick Thorpe, Tom Lyons, and others to join them on stage, turning Dirty Betty into a rock/jazz fusion group.
My favorite daydream on this drive was fantasizing that I was a member of either Spirit itself or of a Spirit tribute/cover band and that my skills were so awesome that I was a Jay Ferguson/Randy California hybrid, singing soaring vocals and playing a monster electric guitar.
That was a lot of tripping for a short trip of about 40 minutes from Kellogg to Costco!
2. When I lived in Eugene and near Washington, DC, by keeping an eye on Facebook posts from 16 Tons and Bier Stein in Eugene and on Quench, DC Brau, and other beer joints in DC, Virginia, and Maryland, I would see when these places would tap a keg of special beer, or, in the case of DC Brau, offer a new beer or a new collaboration.
I still follow these beer joints on Facebook and Twitter and sometimes it makes me ache.
For example, I've never had the pleasure of drinking what I think is the original East Coast Hazy IPA, the great Heady Topper brewed by Alchemist Brewing in Stowe, Vermont. When we lived in Maryland, in order to quaff a Heady Topper, one had to drive to Vermont and purchase Heady Topper on site.
Something, I guess, changed recently.
On at least two different occasions, 16 Tons in Eugene scored cans of Heady Topper and were I living in Eugene, I would have purchased some -- likewise, I haven't had the pleasure of drinking Russian River's superb DIPA, Pliny the Elder, since Debbie and I got together with Eugene friends two nights before we moved away back in June, 2014. Recently, in the last week or two, 16 Tons was pouring both Pliny the Elder and Russian River's Blind Pig, a very tasty IPA.
On Friday, however, Coeur d'Alene's relatively new bottle shop, Bottle Joy, posted on Facebook two things that arrested my attention:
1. Bottle Joy's proprietor is working his tail off, trying to persuade Russian River to distribute their beer to Bottle Joy. Oh, my! This would be an awesome development, should it work out, not only for the possibility of being close to the great Pliny the Elder and Blind Pig, but also Russian River's impeccable sours, among them, Beatification, Consecration, and Supplication.
2. Bottle Joy scored a keg of an IPA that is a collaboration between Russian River, Ninkasi (of Eugene), and Bale Breaker (of Seattle).
It's named after Bale Breaker's brewer, Kevin Smith, a longtime devotee of Ninkasi and Russian River. The brewers from Ninkasi and Russian River, out of the blue, told Kevin Smith they wanted to collaborate with him, brew a beer together.
And they did.
The result: Smitty's Surprise.
So, after I finished shopping at Costco, I buzzed straight down to Bottle Joy, fervently hoping the keg of Smitty's Surprise hadn't sold out.
It hadn't.
I took my golden pint of beer to a seat by the window looking out on Burt's Music and Sound and began slowly sipping away.
This IPA was West Coast all the way. No haze. A firm bitter bite. A variety of flavors. I couldn't identify those flavors the way beer experts can, but I do know that drinking this beer transported me back about 10-12 years when I first began trying out a host of IPAs, especially at 16 Tons. It brought back Ninkasi memories of when I first tried their great Total Domination IPA and I wasn't quite ready for it yet. Over time, though, I came to enjoy these hoppy, bitter West Coast IPAs, especially grapefruit-y ones like Deschute's Fresh Squeezed IPA and Hop Valley's Citrus Mistress.
Drinking that Smitty's Surprise today, I was never sure what I was enjoying more, the beer in my hand or my history of drinking beer. It was a toss up, I think: the present moment was euphoric, but the memories of tap houses, breweries, friends, and beers at home also had me stoked.
Smitty's Surprise weighed in at 7.0% Alcohol by Volume.
One pint was enough. I wanted a clear head for the drive back to Kellogg.
I left feeling happy that I'd dropped in for this beer. I wondered what the new tap house in Wallace, The Blue Raven, sells. (I wish they posted their tap list.) I was happy the other day when The Beanery had Boneyard IPA on tap. I can count on Bob to have Sierra Nevada Pale Ale by the bottle in the cooler at The Lounge.
By and large, though, I think to approximate the experience I had today sipping that Smitty's Surprise, I need to venture to Missoula, CdA, Post Falls, Spokane Valley, or Spokane.
Or up to Sandpoint.
So be it!
3. Back home, I eventually retired to the bedroom with my laptop and completed Saturday's NY Times crossword and then worked out the whole of Sunday's puzzle (it comes online early Saturday evening).
More important than the puzzles, though, was my time with Luna and Copper.
They both got close to me in their patented ways: Luna dug into my chest and purred and pushed her face into mine, telling me she trusts me. Copper trusts me, too, but he expressed his trust by curling up closer to my hip or thigh and is at peace in his own way.
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