I'm a regular at Urban Burger Bar, much to my wife's chagrin. Great food, great beer selection, great people serving both, nice atmosphere, and, well you could say proximity to my workplace, all come together nicely to make it a no-brainer.
I walked in the other day for lunch just as they were opening to find a completely empty place and two beer flights artfully on display at the end of the bar. "We're just taking some new press shots," says Emily, one of the regular bartenders. Before I could ask what "press" they were for, she slid one of the flights in front of me and smiled.
"Edmund, Sprecher, Rasputin, and Allagash White," she says. I checked out the aroma of the first one, and it smelled a lot bigger than Great Lakes' Edmund Fitzgerald. I tasted it, and it tasted a lot bigger than Great Lakes' Edmund Fitzgerald. "I don't remember Edmund being this powerful," I tell Emily. "It can stand up on its own," she says, "it's a good solid porter." Out of curiosity, I tried the third one, North Coast's Old Rasputin, and it smelled and tasted an awful lot like a nice mild, roasty, coffee-like porter...at least I proved to myself that I can tell the difference.
(Cask Conditioned Summit India Pale Ale)
I went back to the first one and enjoyed the rest of the big, powerful Russian Imperial Stout Old Rasputin, followed by the third one, the nice balanced, mild, roasty Edmund Fitzgerald porter. And finally I drank the second one, Sprecher's Abbey Tripel. I left the Allagash White alone for the most part, except for a little taste after the other three. Against the others, the Allagash is practically a palate cleanser, and not lacking at all for that, but perhaps a bit out of place on that flight. Although maybe that's exactly the point.
But what's my point? No point, really. Just that it's nice to be a regular at a place.
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