Heh, I read that this morning and thought, man, no one ever invites ME to parties in St. Andrews! (that's where Tom's mom lives, and I could use some Scandinavian distraction on our visits there I tell you what). But, I'm willing to concede that Bill Murray is probably cooler than me.

I do wonder what bar they were in though.

ION, Bill Murray is kind of a freak. But in a cool way.

OK, that's really funny. And cool.

I like the taste of good beer, and if one could make it without alcohol and it tasted as good as your craft brews, I'd drink it. Alas, the nature of the brewing process means that non-alcholic beer= Teh Nast.

A perfect day to me is drinking beer all damn day long. Not to say that I don't enjoy the relaxation and social lubrications the alcohol in a couple of beers brings, but I like the fact that it comes on slower than wine or booze.

Nora is me in regard to both of these. Which makes sense, because I'm sometimes Cindy. And sorry for dropping the ball Saturday and not being able to make the local F2F. My plans with my brother fell through, but I wasn't feeling great either.

mmm, beer.

One of the disadvantages of Italy was the lack of good beer. OTOH, there was more than enough great wine to make up for it. I drank more than my fair share.

Hello, I'm back, if anyone missed me. Shrift, there were cheers for you in Florence when Dana announced you had a new job. Yay!

Smithwicks is available in the US in bottles; I know they have it in MA and CT. I don't know what the midwest distribution is though.

Yay! I'll have to see if they have it at the local alcohol emporium.

I started drinking de-caf coffee (in the afternoons, and only once in a while), because all of a sudden, tea (any kind) started giving me the worst heartburn, and I need a warm drink, sometimes.

De-caf coffee is not the same beast at all as real coffee, but if I put enough cream in (whereas I'm happy to drink my hi-test black, with no sugar), it seems to satisfy.

OMG stout weather is coming up!

Just for your edification, The Alchemist now has Holy Cow! IPA and Bolton Brown back on tap....

I'll drink a decaf latte in the afternoon because it's like a creamy, sweet (after I put in splenda), vauguely coffee flavored treat. Straight up decaf coffee, NSM. Sometimes when I want something when we go out to dinner to end the meal and dessert or whiskey/port isn't really an option or doing it for me. Even then, I'd prefer a decaf cappicino type thing.

Otherwise, I just stick to water.

Just for your edification, The Alchemist now has Holy Cow! IPA and Bolton Brown back on tap....

Oh, damn. Why is Vermont so far away? However, I had an awesome stout at the Willimantic Brewery this weekend:

Dead Letter Drye Stout – An unfiltered Dark ale brewed with seven malts and some flaked Rye enhanced with Perle hops. 5.9%abv

There's also an excellent looking Rye Ale going up just before we are headed CT-wards for my grandmother's 90th birthday party...

This is a problem with decaf coffee too -- the decaffeination process removes flavor as well as caffeine.

There are new coffee varieties with the caffeine gene knocked-out. Once those get established we can have uncaf coffee instead of decaf.

There are new coffee varieties with the caffeine gene knocked-out.

But how do they taste?