Prelude to Advent

Cleaning out the hoarded craft beers only to make room for more. Twenty-four (plus) days of good craft beer.

Lynn and Vanessa put up their Christmas trees this week and most of the house/yard decorating is over.

a view of the fireplace with stockings hung with care and Lynn’s tree reflected in a front yard window.

Lynn’s Christmas tree reflected in the kitchen window, overlooking her colection of Santas

The pre-dawn sky seen from my library/office with Christmas lights shining no the oak, cedar and hackberry trees

Advent for 2024 starts this Sunday, December 1, 2024. I enjoy following an Advent calendar. Last year I enjoyed a curated not by me German craft beer Advent calendar, 24 days of good to excellent German craft beer along with a shortbread Advent calendar. Louise the wild pup helped me with the shortbread.

This year my Advent focus will be on my hoarding of craft beers. Yeah, hoard - I buy craft beer faster than I drink it and the end result is at least twice a year I must aggressively drink down the hoard or risk further annoying my lovely wife Lynn. This year the refrigerator is over crowded with craft brews and Lynn's annoyance is slowly growing as she pushes the cans and bottles around in a failing attempt to find food. I feel I am up to the challenge.

On Thanksgiving Day, in a prelude to Advent, I enjoyed a nicely aged 2019 Buffalo Bayou Brewing Smoke on the Bayou ale. Buffalo Bayou Brewing is no more, having closed its doors at the end of January 2024. They had some interesting ales and this was my last bottle. Sort of a Scotch Ale, this was very smooth, nicely effervescent. The spices and flavors (caramel, toffee, bacon, dried plums and apricots) were subtle and didn’t slap one in the face. Sometimes I think people get a little crazy with the brewing process and there have been a few ales I’ve had that were akin to drinking liquid potpourri, but I don’t waste my time writing about the failed experiences. Smoke on the Bayou was not a failure. This made for a very nice pre-Thanksgiving dinner warm up.

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Coming up later today: a visit to Fitzhugh Brewing located on the eastern edge of Dripping Springs (and correspondingly the western edge of Austin) for Day 0 of my 2024 Advent craft beer experience. I’ve been to Fitzhugh Brewing a couple of times before and am looking forward to going there this afternoon.