Tag craft beers

Parisian Phoenix Girls’ Night Out at Boser Geist

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Last week I got a message from fine artist and art book maker Maryann Riker of Justarip Press. She and I have known each other at least 20 years through my newspaper days in Phillpsburg, N.J. I heard about her art books and asked if I could do a piece of them for the paper and before long, I was in her home watching her unfold handmade books over her dryer and kitchen table.

Maryann was also a friend and creative partner of Nancy Scott. I originally met Nancy through the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group. Maryann and Nancy are the art-and-words combo similar to what Gayle and I have.

Maryann invited me, The Teenager and photographer Joan Zachary to meet for a celebratory end-of-year-drink at Bosergeist Brewing at the Easton Silk Mill. (Where we also included Nancy by pranking her. The Teenager can send announcements through Nan’s Alexa. So we sat in BoserGeist, Maryann stealing my beer, making Nan’s Alexa tell her things.)

Maryann thanked me for including her in the Parisian Phoenix crew. Joan and Maryann got to discuss artistic achievements through the year. Everyone celebrated the Teenager’s successful first semester at Lafayette College (A in photography, which made the artists happy, and B+ in her other classes).

We ate appetizers. We tasted craft beers. We laughed. Thank you, all three of you, for such a delightful mix of energies.

Maryann and I drank the last of the vicious peppermint beer that they make every holiday season. Then, I ordered a flight where we enjoyed the chocolate stout, the cranberry cheesecake beer (that had a burst of sweetness reminiscent of a smartie candy), the prickly pear and the “walking in the winter wonderland” which when cold did not appropriately show its flavors, but as it warmed tasted more and more like gingerbread.

Review: Atwater and Sierra Nevada craft beers

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

As my followers may know, I have been working mandatory overtime in the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy warehouse. I’ve been working 3:30 pm to 2 am— primarily in QC folding fixes but also in women’s inbound processing.

I have had two observations in QC by the supervisor that hired me. Both of them were 102% even though over the course of an entire shift I still haven’t achieved more than 93%.

The observations state that I take great pride in my work and I worked very hard to make my fixes aesthetically pleasing for the client.

Your folds are very neat and fit perfectly in the paper They are very visually pleasing and almost too perfect. You can tell you take pride in the presentation of your fixes and keep the client in mind while preparing the fix.

Anyway, my birthday was Thursday and my friend Joan brought me a carefully and randomly selected craft six pack of beer from Wegmans.

Atwater Brewery Java Vanilla Porter: This was the first beer I tried. I’m a big fan of chocolate beers— Samuel Smith Organic Chocolate Stout is my all time favorite. So since I am also a huge van of most things vanilla. Well, maybe not everything. But a coffee vanilla beer sounded like a fun birthday beer.

It was too heavy. I couldn’t separate the flavor notes. It just felt “in my face.”

Tonight, with a slice of my new favorite coconut custard pie from Tic Toc Diner that one of teenager #1’s work colleague bought me in honor of my birthday, I opened the Sierra Nevada Wanderland Nectarine Ale.

As soon as I sipped it my tastebuds danced in perplexed wonder. It’s light and fruity but not nectarine-like, in my opinion. The teens helped me label the flavors as floral, and maybe they were right. Now I feel like I am floating in a rose bush.

I really like this one.

The pie was also amazing.