expensive mistake - partridge in a pear tree.

Today I decided to sort through all of my bottles and make a list of what I had. While I was opening cabinets and clearing shelves, I organized everything by style and made a list. Everything was going well, and I felt good about the order I was putting to this part of my life.

Until I felt myself bump into something, and then I heard that something go "ting, TING" on the concrete floor. I looked at the floor and a 750ml bottle was spinning and bouncing around, glass intact, but cap leaking frothy beer foam all over.

I went into a panic as I thought about all the possible bottles it could be. I reached down and grasped the gusher, turned the label to the front, and realized the worst had happened: my only partridge in a pear tree had busted loose.

Now there are plenty of other beers in my collection that I was more excited about drinking, but after what I've witnessed with the ever growing hype over the Bruery's christmas series, this was a bottle I had hoped to make a couple of bucks on, either as a complete series, or as the single bottle that someone needed to complete theirs. I've babied it since it's acquisition, and this certainly wasn't how I pictured us parting ways.

For a brief moment, I thought about melting candles down to make a wax seal to preserve what was left, but too much had escaped, and I knew I had to face the facts. This bottle was done for.

So I did the only thing I could do. I grabbed a glass, pulled the cap the rest of the way off, and poured off the remainder of it's contents to quaff.

While I can still say that I thoroughly regret this bottle's early demise at the will of my clumsy hands - from a financial standpoint - as a drinker of craft beer, I was somewhat relieved at my first sip. Even after a year and half, this thing was thick, syrupy, sweet, and boozy in the most cloying way possible. Picture a hot, thick, poorly attenuated hard cider with an overwhelming dose of cinnamon and ground raisin, and you've got the general idea of what I'm talking about. Drinkability? Forget it. Now, I never thought this was a beer that was made for one person to have a 750 of, but I had a hard time finishing my first gulp, and there's really no amount of time I can see that would correct the errors in this brew.

It was only the second beer I felt compelled to review on Beer Advocate, and after going through their rating system, I still ended up at a "B"; but the prices this beer has already gone for, and the prices I'm sure it will eventually go for, will never be justified by it's contents.

Anyway, it was a bummer on multiple accounts. My chances of accumulating the vertical at normal retail price have evaporated, and beyond that, it just wasn't that good.