Time to start reviewing beers so I don’t forget them. I plan on using the Ratebeer scale – 10 points for aroma, 5 for appearance, 10 for flavor, 5 for palate, 20 for overall impression, then summed and normalized to a scale of 0-5. I use the mid point as 50% percentile (i.e. 5/10 for aroma is, to me, an average-smelling beer).

Name: Norwegian Wood
Brewery: Haandbryggeriet
ABV: 6.5%
BJCP style: 21A – Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer
Country of origin: Norway
Serving temperature: ~7C (45F) warming to ~13C (55F)
Glass: Ordinary pint glass

Aroma: 8/10. Nose dominated by peat, smoldering alder, hot burning juniper wood. Intriguing medicinal overtone, perhaps juniper berries. Not much of the base malt aroma makes it through, however. Brings back fond memories of warming my bones around a brush-fueled campfire in the desolate wilderness of the eastern Cascades.

Appearance: 3/5. Dense, persistent brownish head with no lacing to speak of. Deep brownish ruby color with some chill haze.

Flavor: 7/10. One of the better smoked beers I’ve tried. Clean, moderate bitterness with no hop flavor; dominated by peat, black patent or other roasted malt. Smoke much more evident on the nose than on the tongue. Slight wooden overtone and an equally small amount of fruitiness. Dry, woody finish.

Palate: 3/5. Heavy on intake, heavy on the tongue, heavy going down. Not a whole lot of carbonation to speak of, generous head notwithstanding. Slight alcohol warming. I think the ABV of 6.5% is understated.

General impression: 14/20. A fine small batch artisan beer. I was hoping for something a bit wackier, but Haandbryggeriet instead delivers a smoked beer of unusual refinement (if there is such a thing). Drinkability as well as complexity increased with temperature, with some of the roasty edginess giving way to a well-rounded heartiness; recommend leaving it out for about 10 minutes before pouring to get its temperature into the 10C range. By no means a session beer, but certainly an interesting treat.

Overall: 3.5/5.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past six months, it’s that home is where the heart is.  My heart never left Seattle.

I was up north for one my regular visits this past weekend.  There wasn’t a special occasion, nor were there any unusual circumstances about the visit, but something was different about this trip from the start.  I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t concentrate for a week prior.  When I arrived, the usual elation of being home was supplanted by a quiet wistfulness.  After literally weeks of being alone, I incongruously wanted to be left alone even though I was surrounded by family and close friends.  The first time someone asked me how long I was staying, I stared at them blankly.  It all came to me at once … after six months of being away, I finally grasped what that question meant.

“Visitng home,” to me, is a contradiction in terms.  If one visits somewhere, it means they’re going away from home.  Furthermore, if one goes home, he can’t claim to be visiting it.  For the past seven years, I’ve considered Seattle my home.  For the past six months, I haven’t been there for more than a few days at a time, but I always felt like I was going home after a long trip.  But on Saturday, I learned that Seattle was no longer my home, but instead a place I desired to be home.  

That desire may very well go unfulfilled for at least a couple of years.  I recently applied to transfer schools in hopes that I’d be able to come back, and by all measures, I’m almost assured an offer at the NW schools to which I applied.  But in a baby-with-bathwater moment, I also applied to Georgetown just to see if I could get in.  I reasoned that there wasn’t much of a chance that I’d get in, but, I thought, it sure would be nice to go if I did.

After looking more closely at the statistics and finally coming to terms with how much I missed home, I now wish I hadn’t applied.  I stand a decent chance of being accepted, and it would be extremely hard for me to turn down a chance to go to one of the preeminent law schools in the country … but still, the very thought just kills me.  

Actually, it might not be the thought of the decision that’s bothering me.  At this stage, it’s more the uncertainty around whether that decision is one I’ll have to make.  As I wait for the the fates to drop more pieces into place, I’m stuck here in limbo – working a job in an industry I despise, living in a town that collectively marches to a different beat than my own, and wondering whether I have to always put myself on the hardest possible path to happiness and success.

Well, at least Bush isn’t our president anymore.  Cheers to that.