one of the weirdest beers I’ve tried…

This may not be saying a lot, but I tried something new this weekend. Dan and Dave and I went out Chubbys, then a fat little bird suggested we go to Orange Leaf for froyo. And you can’t say no once that little bird sits on your shoulder. That heavy bird will just sit there, barely whispering between gasps for air “You love frozen yogurt… “It’s healthy because it has yogurt in the title… “I like it when your butt gets bigger…” Stupid bird.

Right. My point.

Orange Leaf is next to Bottle Revolution, which I’ve been wanting to check out for a while.

I went in search of a smokey stout for my chili. I saw a Ballast Point limited edition beer, with a pretty white label, and what looked to be an octopus.

I like Ballast Point’s stuff. It’s an-indian styled stout. Perfect! Indian-style means hoppy.

And I walked my butt up to the register. The check-out employee (tatted hipster type girl) wanted to tell me all about the beer…

tatted beer girl: “Oh my god. Have you tried this before?”
me: “no… but I like their stuff”
tatted beer girl: “Well, do you like curry?”
me: (that’s an unrelated question, but I’m game) “yeah, I like curry. It’s good”
tbg: “oh. well, then you’ll love this beer! (I begin wondering WTF?) It’s got curry, and lime, and coconut (Dan and Dave began shaking their heads in revulsion in a nearby aisle). It’s one of my favorites… I just love showing up with it, and people are like what is that?”

I don’t know why, but I don’t want people to think I’m square or uninteresting, or like normal, or something, so whenever something like this happens, I do exactly what I did to this girl–

me: “Oh, that’s great! sooooo interesting. Yeah, I definitely want it now!”

So I spent $11 on a big bottle of this beer. Not because I’m stupid, but because I wanted her to think I was adventurous, not just some typical girly girl who walks in giggling and twirling my hair. Which I guess is stupid. But, if I didn’t do stuff like this, I’d have like 10% of my life… 😉

That’ll teach me not to read labels before purchasing…

On Sunday, when Dan and I had basically finished all the other beer (there were only a couple bottles), he suggested we pop it open.

It’s blurry because he’s shaking his head in disbelief that I convinced him to try it

Indra Kunindra (Ballast Point, San Diego)

errrgh! Mean octopus= cool beer… right?

Okay, so my review–

It is a well-executed beer. It has great complexity. When you lift the beer to your nose, the cayenne and cumin smell is overwhelming. Like you brace yourself for how crazy it is about to get, as you take a sip.
But, then, it’s not that bad. You can taste the kick of curry, and cayenne, with a limey-coconut finish. But Ballast Point knows how to do a stout heavy enough to handle all those flavors.

That being said, I couldn’t finish my pint glass full. Dan and I agreed we would have split a normal sized bottle, and enjoyed it. But more than a 1/2 glass is just too much at one time. Again, a good beer. And one to add to your “adventure beer” list, but I wouldn’t suggest ordering it while you are out. A taste is probably enough of it.

Besides every relationship needs a little adventure right?

Okay, fine. I hated it. Why do I want you guys to think I liked it? I barely got through like 10 teeny sips. Every time I brought it up to my mouth, the smell overwhelmed my senses… Just not for me. Or most people. Though I stand behind Ballast Point, and think they did a good job on a curry beer; it’s just who the heck wants a curry-inspired beer?!

Anyway, we plan to bring a 22oz to Christmas festivities in Ohio, to make his brother, sister, sister’s fiance all do a shot glass amount- part of their Christmas Decathalon… There’s not a lot to do in Ohio apparently.

 

Push it (Salt N Peppa flashback)

This week ended up being more about speed for me. Dan and I went snowboarding last weekend, and it was great! Beautiful, fun, etc. etc. But, it left me missing running a little; and feeling like I didn’t do enough (The slopes were super busy, so we only went a few runs).

So… Monday, I decided to run intervals again. Of course, I got off work a little late, and it was raining and dark, so I decided *treadmill style*! No one was in my little apartment gym, so it was perfect. 400m is about 0.25 miles. I know my 400m interval is generally 1:40-2:10; so I was aiming for sub-2:00s. And I wanted to do at least 4 repeats. And somehow I knocked that our of the park with:

1:54/ 1:55/ 1:44/ 1:27/ 1:32

I don’t track my intervals too much, but I don’t remember ever hitting a sub-1:45 on a 400m interval. So I was so ecstatic with my 1:27, I wanted to see if I could do it again- almost!

I then had a mentoring (easy) training run Tuesday with my 10-11’s group at Fleet Feet. We ran the hilly Wade Ave. On this run, you are literally going uphill or downhill, no real recovery/rest of a flat stretch. I pushed my ladies up the last few hills at respectable 10:10 pace. I could tell they were really pushing as hard as they could. And then, I turned around to catch the stragglers at the bottom of the last hill, and push them up it as much as possible. It was a good run, and afterward, I was nice and loose and just wanted to run another 3-4 miles. But, I had to get to Dan’s for dinner…

So then, Wednesday, I wanted to run a easy mid-distance, but was exhausted and it was dark, so I cut it shorter- 5.5 miles. I sprinted it in as I was finishing up. I kept glancing down to see how fast I was going- 9:15… okay. 8:36, that’s better. 7:25 (for a good 2-3 minutes)- Woo! I glanced down as I was losing steam and at the end- 6:45. Hell yeah! I was super excited. And soon after dropped to a 11:00 pace to cool-down.

So, yeah. Speed. it’s good. Also, I always envision Salt N Pepa at the end of speedy workout, telling me to Push It…

Oh, and beer review- Because it’s been a while.

I grabbed a Southern Belle (from Olde Hickory). The guy at Triangle Wine even said it was one of his favorites. So last night, Dan and I popped it open (and watched Macklemore’s Thrift Shop waaaay too many times).

I poured the 22 oz. into two separate pint glasses. And smelled it. It smelled fruity and floral. I couldn’t really decipher much more than that from smelling it. Upon tasting it, I didn’t know what to think. There were a lot of flavors. Honestly, too many. It was confusing. Hoppy, grapefruit, honey, malts; it was all too much to concentrate on one flavor. However, the more I drank it, the more I liked it. And I was intrigued by trying to figure it out.

It was like a ADHD bisexual with magnetic powers. Something that made me keep drinking, and the dysfunction even made me want another sip as soon as it was gone. Dan, however, said he wouldn’t kick it out of bed; but wouldn’t be able to drink more than one in a row. Go local NC beers!