'Twas a Surreal Weekend

Well, Kris and I had a pretty interesting weekend...and a weird one. Friday night we attended a zombie-themed Halloween costume party at Gene & Jeff's. They put on a very impressive show for Halloween that draws in hundreds of people. The last I heard, they'd had 212 trick-or-treaters. We usually spend the first couple of hours out front, scaring kids and acting like dorks. Following that, we sit around inside drinking beer and...acting like dorks. Much of the crowd in attendance is a beer-saavy crowd, you so can ususally find something good to drink. Kris and I brought growlers of Barley John's Oktoberfest and Great Waters St. Peters Pale. I didn't care much for the Oktoberfest, but the Pale was as good as usual. And I had my first taste of this year's Darkness from Surly. As I was a one-armed zombie with an exposed brain, I had a helluva time getting my beers open, getting through doorways holding my beer, and...uh, relieving myself. All in all, a good time was had by all.

On Saturday the Blue Nile held Ale Saints Day, a porter/stout party schemed up by Al. Lots of friends showed up, and that made for a very good time. The turn-out was great and the beers were phenomenal. Between Kris and I we had the Bell's Porter cask, 2007 Bell's Expedition Stout, North Coast Old Rasputin, Leinenkugel's Big Eddy, Moylan's Imperial Stout (Ryan O'Sullivans), Southern Tier Oatmeal Stout, and some others we can't recall. There were a few we wanted to try but never got around to. Of course, we could have bought $2 samplers and tried more beer, but we both decided we needed pints.

Anyway, at some point I was struck by what an unusual amalgam of themes were being presented. Here we were, at an Ethiopian restaurant with many folks dressed up in Halloween costumes, drinking beer with a hard-core beer crowd while bag-pipers honked to their heart's content. Totally weird...certainly fun. I've actually never eaten at Blue Nile, for some unknown reason, despite their reputation for good chow. Kris and I talked about grabbing some dinner there, but those plans were derailed when there was a somewhat drunken rally cry raised for fried egg sammiches at The Herkimer. Now, I'd previously had the fried egg sammich at The Herkimer and I'd proclaimed it the best fried egg sammich I'd ever had (I was sober, btw). But last night they disappointed me. The yolk had been cooked all the way through, so there was no goooshy factor to the sammich (over-hard vs. over-easy?).

Anyway, candy, beer and fried egg sandwiches generally make for a good weekend. And a good weekend it was indeed.