Check it out: it’s a winter beer. In July. You can see the reflection of the table of patrons on my right in the glass. That’s dark, kids.
Geoff tells me that it’s a theme for the month: Christmas in July. Says it’s being done to get everyone ready for the 2nd anniversary party on August 1st.
Excellent, because this beer is friggin’ liquid awesome. Like drinking brown sugar touched with bourbon and a hint of pine. I realize that doesn’t sound appealing, but it’s practically the heart of winter beers as I think of them. Or add nutmeg, and you’ve got it. Along with neon peach light from the street illuminating Bailey’s, black as sin nights and the city shiny as a Ridley Scott vision from the rain, winter is now here. I even put my jacket on from the chill.
The bar reflects winter tonight; large groups crowding around tables, getting louder and more amused as though they were hiding out just a little longer, to avoid the chill outside. They’re waiting for the night to come, and if it won’t then they’ll just flip the sun off and pretend it isn’t there.
I think I’ll be drinking these winter beers for the next four weeks. I know, the sacrifices I have to make.
I don’t miss winter. It’s the only time of year I give myself permission to complain about the weather. I chill easily, and my hands ache when that happens. I wear gloves in October in the mornings (the only person on the bus with such accessories) just to avoid the pain. Winter seems to be a long, long season in Portland, coming from Spokane where the winters are colder but they don’t last as long. Here they stretch out like a bad sock.
At the same time, I love winter. Friends come to visit, or I visit them. There is a communal huddling that happens which brings everything good and bad out. In my case, the good often outweighs the bad, which I attribute to awesome people around me. It’s dark. The trees are stark and beautiful, or evergreen and defiant. I can go walking at night with thoughts that should only be called my own, and the night wraps them up, delivers them to the moon who says, ‘It’s ok. I understand.’
As it’s still daylight, I’ll take the darkness of my pint.
