The Full Bar - all my pages

Monday, August 13, 2012

I WANTED an IPA...so I had one. A BIG STONE ONE!

The kids were away -- ha! KIDS, Thomas is 20 and Nora's 18, they went to see The Bourne Legacy (after we had a marathon of DVDs last night: Iron Man I and II, and 9) so I met Cathy for dinner at Char Koon, a little overlooked gem of a Chinese/Thai/sushi place right here in Langhorne, and I can't recommend it enough. We split an order of shrimp dumplings (tasted like the great ones I had at Ruby Rouge in Montreal (dump the "I eat dim sum in NYC..." douche-reviews and you'll see what it's like)), then Cathy had the house noodles and I had the Singapore noodles (smoky curry, delicious!).

It's BYOB at Char Koon, and I was packing a cooler. We opened with the Stone 16th Anniversary IPA, which was perfect with the dumplings. The 16IPA is spiked with lemon oil and lemon verbena, an herb I'm very familiar with (have a bottle of the dried stuff in my spice cabinet, too). It was plain in the nose, a lemony, herbal wash that really perked up the olfactory pleasure centers. There was a hint of the rye crack in there, too, a minty splash around the edges. In the mouth? A blast, but not a slam: this was a nicely balanced beer indeed. I'll be looking for more of it, and so should you!

(Followed it up with a bottle of Upright Brewing's 5, an IPA malt/hops recipe with saison yeast, and it was quite refreshing, tasty...but a bit overwhelmed by the curry. My fault, not the beer's, and I'll be looking for another bottle for sure.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I enjoy your writing but you are using too many parentheses. It is a bit fatiguing to the reader. I've noticed other bloggers doing the same. If you want to say it, say it, and leave the parentheses to situations that warrant it.

plumbing supplies said...

Try beers with more hops in a pilsner glass. The inverted cone shape of the glass gives you maximum aroma.