Goodbye Winter, Hello...Summer?

Disclaimer: I wrote this exactly six weeks ago, on March 15, and forgot to click "Publish." D'oh!

Two weeks ago I was wearing double layers of external winter wear. And I was enjoying my seasonally appropriate stouts and porters, unable to whet my appetite for what has traditionally been my favorite style: the hoppy, pale variety. Today, and for the last two weeks or so, daytime temperatures have hovered in the 60s, 70s, and occasionally breaking 80.

Bacon, mushroom, and onion omelet, with a baby greens salad and
homemade balsamic vinaigrette. But that's not just any old bacon. That's
lamb bacon from Indianapolis' Smoking Goose, a "meatery" that specializes
in artisanal meat products that come from from heritage animals, properly
pasture-raised on local family farms.

A few days ago, intent on taking full advantage of our premature summer, I was enjoying a day off at home doing the usual "day off at home" things that I enjoy doing: cooking meals (like my omelets that, thanks to Jacques Pépin, are better than any I've ever had in a restaurant), drinking beer, listening to music, and doing chores with every door and window in the apartment wide open. The inherent warm-weather ability to do such things provides the possibility of chance encounters with neighbors - otherwise highly unlikely. (Two nights ago the smell of hotdogs and hamburgers sizzling over burning charcoal lured me out onto my deck to find my downstairs neighbor intent on taking full advantage of our impromptu June as well.) While cleaning dishes after cooking a delicious breakfast, I overheard voices outside spouting off names of very familiar-sounding beers. Turns out some upstairs neighbors of mine, while on their way out, spotted the ad-hoc collection of bottles that had accumulated on my back porch over the winter. Ommegang Adoration...My Antonia, that's Dogfish Head's Imperial Pilsener...hey these are some good beers! I quietly thought to myself, indeed they are. Hey wait a second...they - whoever they are - are looking at my beers! As I was poking my head out to see who these kindred spirits were, they were doing just the same; walking up to my back door to see just who, once upon a time, had enjoyed all these good beers. "Looks like you've had some good stuff here," they said. "Hey, if you're interested, City Provisions has a couple bottles of Founders KBS left. Are you familiar with that one?" "Yeah sure," I said, being unfamiliar with it. "Get over there soon if you want one. The owner is also pouring a collaboration brew he did with New Holland." "Oh you mean, Cleetus?," I replied. "Yeah! So you know..." Kindred spirits indeed.

Cleetus Friedman, a "politically-incorrect-white-jewish-ambisexual-hip-hop-artist"-comedian-chef-conceptual brewmaster, owns City Provisions, a deli-cafe-catering company that focuses on local, seasonal, sustainable, expertly prepared, awesome food. No surprise that Cleetus also has a thing for such beer. Each month, he collaborates with a different local brewery to produce a small batch of beer, often inspired by the season, something he's cooking, or his whim. By his own admission, he doesn't know much about brewing, but he knows the character he's going for, and what he wants his beers to taste like. He's recently worked with such breweries as Metropolitan, Finch's, Greenbush, Dark Horse, Two Brothers, and right now he's pouring a beer titled "Marsha Mallow's Malted Milk Stout" that he made with the powerhouse craft-brewery in Holland, Michigan: New Holland. Apparently - according to ZombiesAteMyDog, the lone reviewer of the beer on Beer Advocate - the beer was "Named after the infamous Marsha Mallow, of the NHB [New Holland Brewing] staff holiday party, 2012." I don't know if it's true or not, or whatever Ms. Mallow may have done to gain infamy, but who cares. Marshmallows, chocolate malts, milkshakes - this beer evokes them all.

But that wasn't even what I went over there for. I went for the Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (which I had just figured out was what the "KBS" stood for). What my neighbors didn't tell me was the price of admission. About an hour after their admonition to make haste, I called up City Provisions to ask if they had any KBS left. "We do," the guy on the phone said, "but do you know the deal?" No, I did not know the deal. "The manager wants you to drop an old-school rap line in order to get one." Ok. No problem. I'm not a rap aficionado or anything, but I'm sure I can come up with a single line from a Dr. Dre, Snoop, Gangstarr, Ice Cube, someone's song. When I got there, I panicked. I asked "who I was supposed to tell that we've been spendin' all this time livin' in a gangster's paradise." Ugh. Coolio?! And it had to be the song in which he shamefully ripped off a great Stevie Wonder tune? Shame on me. I could see that Cleetus was not impressed either. He is a hip-hop artist himself, after all. But hell, it got me some KBS. And hey offered me a glass of the milk stout too. Not a taste, mind you, but a whole glass. For free. Of course I went back later that night with a friend to purchase two more, because that's what you do when you have a guy like Cleetus and a place like City Provisions in your neighborhood. You go there.

-Br. Thelonious