Born this way or learned behavior- the age-old debate.

I'm pretty sure I was born a beer drinker.  It wasn't simply a choice, It's in my blood. Many have tried to refine my taste by building a case for wine enthusiasts but it just never appealed to me. Not even my grandmother, who I brag is the Godfather of Napa, (due to her area knowledge & connections) nor living in Temecula (mini wine country) could get me to relinquish my beer drinker's card. I could feign interest in the belief that wine drinkers are simply superior beings, and pretend to be one of them, but I don't. I find beer drinkers much more worldly and interesting... I remember the look Trav gave me when I ordered Peroni with my Fettuccine Alfredo on one of our first dates at a nice Italian spot.. Is there a problem? Nice to meet you.

One could argue I am a product of my environment. I was born in Denver, Colorado so my Dad is a Coors Man. I remember him judging a camping spot by the size of the snow drift nearby which would soon be used to refrigerate his Coors for the duration of the trip. I could always tell my Dad's favorite t-shirts by the holes at the bottom where opening too many twist offs had taken their toll. We share the love of cooking and football but most importantly, we share the love of beer. 

But growing up, like most young people, I always knew there was something better out there for me. Of course everyone gets through college drinking whatever they can afford & not complaining about it. But following collegiate binge drinking is a blur of countless kegs, filled with boring domestics, where putting fruit in my Blue Moon was considered mixing it up. I couldn't be the only one hopping, I mean hoping, and dreaming of a better world, complete with better beers.

Enter craft brews..

Microbreweries have taken the world by storm becoming synonymous with innovation and uniqueness. While we continue to tread water while trying unsuccessfully to recover from The Great Recession, we now have plenty of options of which brew to drown our sorrows. Beer sales may have been down in 2010, but the wiser get drunker as craft brew sales were up 15% in the beginning of 2011. The President may not have a clue how to create new jobs but apparently knows a thing or two about beer. The White House brews their own suds with honey from the White House Garden. And in the most important political news, Sierra Nevada is shipping the White House hops from the West. Complete with their own personalized bottles and labels, this has to be the answer to World Peace. 

I discovered my own peace in this world upon moving to Long Beach at the dawn of fall. Discovering the only good thing about winter and Halloween: Pumpkin Ale. 

Call it love, call it obsessed, here's what I've discovered. 

Here are a couple of my favorite pumpkin brews. A tribute to the season and a reason to give thanks!

The best pumpkin ale should be served on tap in a chilled glass rimmed with cinnamon & sugar. The best ales pour a good head so you can lightly dust with cinnamon. The result is perfection!

A little about your judge’s impeccable taste. While living in San Diego, my brewery of choice was Karl Strauss and my beer of choice was Red Trolley. Whenever I couldn’t get my hands on this amazing local brew, I would settle for a New Castle aka Newky Brown. When I moved to Temecula, aka wine country, I found myself at Killarneys Irish Pub much more often then the popular wineries like Wilson Creek, home of the famous Almond Champagne. When I moved to Manhattan I drank whatever I could afford. A six-pack of New Castle was close to $15 at the bodega beneath my apartment. In the summer, I like to drink Stella, but only as a shandy. Upon moving to Long Beach, my first question for the realtor was how much LB locals paid for a six-pack of beer. He thought it was funny but I was dead serious. Some people work for food, I work for beer.

Now that you’re highly confused by my eclectic (or not so much) taste in beers, here’s my top Pumpkin Ales!

TOP CHOICE: Punkin Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. 

I don’t care what anyone says, Dogfish Head can quite simply pee in a bottle, label it,  and I would think it was the best thing on earth. This is my favorite brewery by far. So much so that my current read is Brewing Up A Business- Adventures in Beer by Sam Calagione, the founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, a very thoughtful gift from Trav. (Does he know me or what?)

Dogfish Head beers are the best thing to happen to New York (although they are located in Delaware). Everything they touch is gold. While I love the 90 and 60-minute IPA’s, they are my least favorite, though the 60-minute IPA accounts for 95% of Dogfish Head sales. My all-time favorite brews include Aprihop which is limited in Spring, Raison D’Etre- a Belgian-style brown ale with beet sugar and raisins, and Midas Touch brewed with papaya and saffron.. amazing. These are my special treat beers as a Midas Touch FOUR-pack costs $15 in Long Beach... ouch.

This very hard to find pumpkin ale is brewed with "pumpkin meat", organic brown sugar and spices. For $14 a four-pack, it better be brewed with gold but this beer is too good to pass up... if you can find it!

Named after the local & famous Punkin Chunkin event,  where it claimed First Prize in the 1994 Punkin Chunkin Recipe Contest.  If you can even possibly still grab one of these before Thanksgiving, consider yourself thankful!

#2) Bluepoint Pumpkin Ale

Bluepoint is the most served pumpkin ale on tap in Long Beach. Makes sense as it's Long Island's only microbrewery. The Brewing Up Business book by Dog Fish Head states that the average person lives within 14 miles of a microbrewery- I think if that were true, the world would be a much happier place...

Already a big fan of Bluepoint's Toasted Lager and Blueberry Ale, I fell hook, line, and sinker, for their pumpkin ale.

The crisp pumpkin flavor is refreshing, and is 6.0% alcohol by volume. Not bad for a flavored brew.

#3) Lakefront Brewery's Pumpkin Lager

Many could argue that Milwaukee is the beer capital of the world. Home to the Brewers and Laverne and Shirley. Before Lakefront,  I honestly didn't care much about Milwaukee.

Known for their gluten free beer (sounds not so awesome), this Pumpkin ale is light and pours with perfect head to hold the cinnamon on top. The flavors of nutmeg, cinnamon and clove give a nice finish to the beer that gives it a sweet and overall refreshing taste. You are left with a candy taste in your mouth due to the caramel and munich malts. A great after dinner beer.


#4) Small Patch Harvest Ale- Tommyknocker

Maybe the witty name or the fact it came from my home state of Colorado attracted me more to this beer than the taste. It doesn't overwhelm you with pumpkin flavors, although the smell might lead you to believe differently. I like that it resembles a basic nut brown ale. It goes well with everything which is refreshing when flavored beers can get a little out of control.

#5) Fire Island Pumpkin Barrel Ale

Fire Island is an island off Long Island that is only accessible by ferry and no cars are allowed. Sounds perfect. Their Red Wagon IPA is inspired by their car-less ways on the island.

This is only the third beer and the first seasonal beer for this brewery. Apparently in a quest to provide the utmost quality, this LI brewery joined forces with a sustainable New York farm to source local hops. In addition to copious amounts of pumpkin, this ale is brewed with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice.

This beer is actually better left in the bottle as the sweetness of the cinnamon and sugar on the rim seem to overpower the brew.

#6) Sam Adams- Harvest Pumpkin

I like Sam Adams contribution to the pumpkin ale fest mostly due to it's pumpkin pie spices. Who doesn't like pumpkin pie? Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Of course not everyone was successful at the pumpkin ale brew. Brews that should be left in the bottle, in the fridge or better yet at the store, are Smuttynose Pumpkin-a New York brew, Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat (although everything is decent when on tap), Sixpoint Autumnation, and of course Harvest Moon- which I was told was the largest selling Pumpkin beer in the nation. Give me a break America...

Tis the season and CHEERS to amazing pumpkin beers!

When the weather outside is frightful...

I’ve been coined the Grinch of Halloween for several years now- which might make the perfect costume. I don’t necessarily abhor the dark Holiday dedicated to things that are dead or scary or scary because they’re dead. I just find it annoying. I don’t always boycott the traditions and have even been known to wear a costume although it’s always a contender for least creative and may or may not still have the tags on it from being purchased the night before. So sue me if every year I put out an empty bowl for the trick-or-treaters that says “Please take one”. And go ahead and call me Un-American for not shoving my adult nooks and crannies into a child-size costume. Just because you can wear it, doesn’t mean you should ladies...

I finally discovered this year that it isn’t the Vamps and Tramps or the incessant door bell ringing and “trick or treat” being yelled in my face (wait, didn’t you see the bowl!?) that bother me about this holiday. It bothers me like back to school commercials in mid-August bother me. It represents what has become a miserable time of year.

Anytime I had visited New York, prior to moving here, it was winter time. I loved the Macy’s store windows decked out for Christmas, the giant Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center and the constant brisk chill in the air. It was that same chill that forced me to buy my first wool coat while visiting New York for the first time one November. I had arrived unknowingly dressed for Jersey Shore rather than Manhattan. I didn’t wear that coat again for years until I finally came to New York for good.

I even moved to NYC on January 1st- smack dab in the middle of winter. You could say I might have had a slight fascination with winter at that point. I think every San Diegan, having been raised at the beach, grows up longing for a Winter Wonderland-a so-called White Christmas or a reason to light a fire at Thanksgiving. I spent my last Christmas in San Diego at Disneyland in my usual shorts and flip flops. Winter and snow is synonymous with football weather, how could that be bad?!

It was in this honeymoon period with Frosty that I ran into some great friends at the mall last September. While catching up over food court munchies, the topic of the impending winter was also on the table. Our friends had come to the solid conclusion that they were not going to live through another New York winter. At the time, Winter and I were still fine acquaintances. I didn’t mind when the cold would slowly creep into our lives after a miserably hot NY summer. I actually got excited to dig out my winter clothes- it was like shopping, there was always a favorite sweater or pair of boots I had forgotten all about. At the time of seeing our friends so unhappy with the cold, I thought they were being a bit dramatic. But months later when they had picked up and moved to Nice France, living it up on the French Riviera and I was spending countless hours digging to China trying to make headway in the snow to find my car... I thought they were brilliant. My love affair with Jack Frost ended last year.

Twas the day after Christmas last year, and like Santa Claus, the snow tiptoed into the city overnight except no one was happy about the gift Mother Nature had in tow. It was soon to be known as the snow storm of the century, breaking records for the most consecutive days New York had snow on the ground. In one word, it was miserable.

In the months prior,  all of the usual signs of winter were present, just no snow itself. Tourists, fascinated with the city’s holiday attractions were wearing scarves months earlier than the locals. Ice cream shoppes were closed for the season and almost everyone had gotten rid of any evidence of outdoor seating. After having a beer with some out-of-town friends at an outdoor cafe in Central Park in mid-november, I thought we might actually be in the clear. I was wrong.

When the snow finally blanketed the tri-state area, it never left. Day after day, sometimes several times a day, I had to dig the car out of a snow bank. This is a science in itself in the city. Parked bumper to bumper on tight streets with narrow sidewalks, there is literally nowhere for shoveled snow to go... except onto the cars parked next to you when no one is looking.

The permanent layer of snow eventually turned black like the rest of the city, as it refused to melt. Parking became horrendous as shoveled snow took coveted parking spots. Abandoned Christmas trees piled up in the streets as trash collectors were at the mercy of the snow plows. People became angry and meaner than usual.

It finally became the end of February and the snow was only just starting to disappear. I remember walking by an old Church in Hoboken that yearly serves as a Christmas Tree stand. Evidence that we had all been taken by surprise by this storm came in the form of tightly wrapped unsold Christmas trees, piled high & only halfway revealed, still green from being completely preserved in the snow. Hoboken became a time capsule as the snow finally melted. After being covered for months, everyone’s Christmas trash was revealed and finally picked up. Shreds of Christmas wrapping paper flew down the streets and boxes that once housed new toys cluttered the sidewalks for pick up. It was a very eerie scene. Spring couldn’t have come fast enough.

Everyone thought this severe storm could only mean that we were in for a punishing summer. That thankfully wasn’t the case. Although I consider enduring a hurricane pretty punishing.

As if we didn’t have our fill of eternal winter, we were again caught by surprise. This time by EARLY snow. You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Sitting on my couch on Saturday of Halloween weekend, enjoying my coffee as usual,  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was that snow? At the beach? In October?! What?!

I was surprised and depressed. I hadn’t retrieved any of my winter clothes from storage as it seems I had just put them away. I haven’t bought a new snow shovel or windshield scraper either. I was again.. caught unprepared. Damn winter!

New York City received 2.9 inches of snow this past weekend, the most in October since records were first kept in 1869, according to the National Weather Service! Before Oct. 29, the city hadn't received as much as an inch during October since the 19th century. 300,000 people are still without power on this side of the world. Tree branches haven’t even lost their leaves yet, making the additional snow too much to bear and snapping them like twigs, causing chaos all over the place.

The scariest part of this Halloween is the realization that this is not the Winter Wonderland I had imagined...