I went on vacation recently. I drink a lot of beer on vacation.
This wasn’t an intense vacation or anything, it was meant to be relaxing. We ended up at Lake George, NY, mostly just to chill. Our room was by the lake, and somehow I had acquired some beer from Treehouse Brewing in Saratoga Springs, and Wayward Path Brewing in Schoharie along the way. How’d I end up at a few breweries on vacation? That doesn’t seem like me…
Vacations like this are meant to be enjoyed with beer, and cocktails, and everything else. I enjoyed a beer in the afternoon after kayaking. I enjoyed a beer with dinner. I enjoyed a Lucky Duck cocktail by the pool that came with a little plastic duck in it, as well as a Shark Bite cocktail by the beachside that came with a gummy shark…and I asked for a little plastic duck for that one too, because the shark needed to eat. I drank an ESB while I did an Escape The Crate box with my family.
Another thing I do on vacation that I should also do more at home, is read. I make a point to NOT scroll as much, to NOT get frustrated by the Mets, to NOT dither away time just meandering across websites. I get my Kindle out, pre-loaded with new books, and I sit at the pool, outside the room, at the beach, and just read and drink, drink and read. I started, and finished, Platform Decay, the 8th book of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, and then continued on to get about halfway through The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard.
Reinvigorated in both my reading during the day habit, and my beer habit, I went outside last night to fight the mosquitos and just relax with a book and a beer. I finished The Hands of the Emperor, and I finished a Double Nectaron Daydream by Other Half.
The orange cloud label of the beer describes it as an 8.5% Double Dry Hopped Imperial Oat Cream India Pale Ale. If you’ve had any Other Half, you probably have a good idea what this one tasted like, and that it didn’t disappoint. Neither did the book btw, which was a bit long and very character-heavy with less action, but I really enjoyed it. This, however, is a beer blog not a book blog, so let’s talk about the Nectaron hop.
That’s what is highlighted by this beer. Nectaron is a New Zealand hop and pretty new. It makes this beer pop with tropical flavors, passion fruit, peach, pineapple, etc. Lots of light orangey type aromas and then similar flavors that sink into that pillow cloud Other Half is so good at. Dryer than others, but with that full-bodied Oat/cream mouthfeel that gives you that sweet sticky mouthfeel like biting into a juicy peach. It goes down real easy too, keeping pace with my reading as I was finishing the book on my patio, the sun setting, the lights coming on, the sounds of the August night filling the air.
If I hadn’t finished the book I might’ve gone back inside to get a second.
Ceetar may still write up his trips to those two breweries, both of which are worth a visit. Feel free to follow and/or ask on BlueSky, or Untappd.
