Surviving Thanksgiving

Everyone always says they need to survive the holidays.  Um..  how are they so bad?!  Thanksgiving = family, football, food and booze.  Christmas = family, food and gifts.. and booze.  So what!?  Then again, my family's celebrations have always been small.. and this year Thanksgiving was just me and the folks, the sis didn't even venture down.

That being said.. why not beer to help cope? And by help cope, I mean chill with pops.

Lazy Magnolia - Southern Pecan.  I picked this up on the Georgia trip I took two months ago..  the name alone intrigued me.  A Nut Brown Ale at 4.39% ABV and 19 IBUs, not actually from Georgia, but Mississippi, which is the South.. and not available in MA.  I'm a sucker for pecans, though.  Hazelnut brown pour, medium tan head..  a slightly nutty nose, faintly malty..  slightly and faintly are key here, there isn't much to the nose at all.  On first taste..  instantly not impressed.  It's mild, weak.. almost watery.  There's the malty sweetness, slick.. but it's faint and, again, watered-down.  Only the slightest hint of nuttiness comes through and it's barely recognizable as pecan.  Touches of caramel and almost nonexistent hops..  Could have been the travel, but others I brought back have help up fine..  Not impressed.

- - 3 Hops 

Stone - TBA - collab brew with Fat Head's and Bear Republic - a 'Texas Brown Ale' at 7.1%  Brief history is, homebrewers in CA were doing hoppy browns, no festival would judge these as there was no category for it, except for on in TX, where it was called a 'California Dark'.  Then the Homebrewer's Association changed the name to Texas Brown Ale - maybe because it was named and judged first in Texas?  (paraphrasing via blog.stonebrew.com)  Either way, it's a hoppy Brown ale.  Chestnut brown pour, slightly off-white head, big and fluffy.  Malty nose - brown sugar, molasses, some brown bread and graham crackers with a nice piney kick and some dark fruits.  Rather crisp for a bigger brown, this goes down very easily..  but, unlike the nose, the malt body is sort of lacking.  This is more like a big, west coast IPA, piney and citrusy, heavily bitter,  with a touch of heartier malt as in a Boston Lager.  Granted, this was bottled 10 months ago, but hoppiness almost always fades earlier than the malts..  I feel like Stone is cranking out these collab brews too quickly lately..  Not much else to note about this..

- - 6 Hops