5-5-07 The Insanity of it all!!

The day steadily grew warmer and the sun shone a little brighter this Friday, with the days stretching ever so slightly longer over the din and dusk of DC. While high school students huddled around a guitar picker, Nirvana and post-grunge hard pop syncopations drifting across Ft. Reno, we reigned in a scattered hill gathering for the start of another spectacular Friday happy hour on Dog Hill.
We wanted to get into our cups but soon discovered we had none. So, the first two offerings were straight from the bottle, tipped back bravely and shared 'round like an old memory. Soon after, a dash to Safeway brought plastic relief for ease of sharing.
New-found friends who have moved here from up north contributed the starter bomber, a lightly roasted beer that quenched the last gasps of workaday worry and launched us into weekend welcome. The name of this brew is ancient history, like some of the potholes on Connecticut Ave.
The next toss was Rare Vos, belgian-inspired from Cooperstown's finest Brussels clone, Ommegang Brewing. While there are plenty of busts in Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame, this beer is not one of them. Though light, it is balanced and refreshing, with some depth, too; like the range of Willie Mays roaming center field. With baseball clearly on my mind, I happily fielded the next twenty-five ouncer.
Calamity! Discombobulation! One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest! Ah, Insanity, Weyerbacher's barrell-aged bounty, solid as all their beers. This one is velvet smooth in a bottle with a metal-stud mash of high-octane sewn at the hip. It's madness not to like this one, and we drank deep draughts of delight. Bravo again to Weyerbacher, whose Double Simcoe had us raving last week.
To put a cap on (er, take off one last?) the evening, out came the Ephemere, Unibrou's nod to lambic license, a sprightly splash of "Mon Ray all" moonshine from our Quebecois quaffers. The tinge of black cherries in this one melted into the warm spring evening, a field of flavor for a field of satisfied Dog Hill Drunkards!