My childhood friend (Fitz) recently turned the big 4-0. To celebrate the huge accomplishment of this crabby, over the hill, bitter Irishman,  I was invited to his party…in Irvine no less, at a place called OC Wine Mart. Yay. I’m familiar with the location as my work is walking distance from it, but I’ve never bothered to go in…because hey, a wine shop in Irvine across from a high-end business plaza reeks of overpriced bottles of wine and acute snobbery! Why waste my time?

Us 27 years ago at Farrels in San Berdoo. I’m sporting the red stripes, Fitz on the bottom left. Kid on the bottom right is a total jerk. Adam, the guy in the Mickey shirt was also at the big 4-0 party! Cheers to old friends!

“Don’t worry, they have beer” says Fitz. Yay. Blue Moon? Guinness? Maybe a Stone Pale Ale if I’m lucky? If the beer selection is bad, should I drink wine? (Funny that I make wine, yet I rarely drink it.) My wife was pretty excited as she’s a regular wino, ahem, wine “enthusiast”. As we arrive, the place is the size of the average mini-mart in a small Irvine-approved strip mall. Inside sits a classy modern decorated tasting area with a bar and a few chairs. Surrounding the tasting area is an adequate and well balanced selection of wines from all regions and styles. Coolers adorn the walls filled with delicious beer.

Fitz is the king of photobombing. Us 30 years later at Heroes in Claremont.

I was quick to say hello’s, smooch some cheeks and bump some fists before checking  into the beer selection. My first impression: Damn! Complete AWE. Solid lineups of Russian River, Stone Brewing, Anderson Valley, Great Divide, Unibroue, various Belgium, German, English, Irish, Scottish beers, as well as OC local beers from Left Coast Brewing, Bootleggers, and The Bruery. With this lineup it made my decision very hard…where to start? The owner, Julie Lim, tossed a bottle of Pliny the Elder at Fitz…Happy Birthday…on the house! Nice! I’m already falling in love with this place.

This is how Fitz looks all the time (me on the left). This was before two whole king crabs crawled out of his pants, landed on the floor, and chased me down the street. Damn you crab minions!

First thing I grab is Unibroue’s La Fin Du Monde (A+ on Beer Advocate) and split it with Crabby Old Man Fitz. A fitting beer for any forty year old’s birthday as it translates to “End of the World”.  As more guests arrive, better and better bottles of beer were sprung from their arctic slumber. Karla, good friend and Karate Instructor spotted the Liefman’s Cuvee Brut (A- on BA); a mildly sour cherry beer blended beer with an active carbonation similar to champagne. Sean Miner, nabbed an Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout from Great Divide (A on BA). “Is this like Guinness?” “No Sean, it’s like Guinness ran through a car engine for three years, soaked in oak with some extra roasted roastyness”. “Oh, is it good?”. “It’s finer than Jennifer Miner in a diner”. “haha you’re lame”. “I know, cheers” (Jen Miner is his wife). Fitz, perhaps feeling a bit old and cranky, cracked his complementary Pliny the Elder (A+ on BA) and I managed to steal a splash without him looking. After that I pulled the cork on Russian River’s Supplication (A on BA), a true revelation in sour beer with a smooth rosey leaded glass look and a smile-inducing balanced tartness. Other guests were ambitious after checking out our selections and chose beers they’ve never tried. My job here is done.

Quality beer corkage at the OC Wine Mart!

The wine selection in the enomatic kiosks were a huge hit among the winos in the group. The dispensers administer 1oz pours in your glass; prices ranging from $1-7. One of the $7 tasters was priced at $87 a bottle, which gives the guests a chance to sample some great wines. Simply buy a wine card, grab a glass, insert the card and press the button! Overall there is something for every palate and price range. We also grabbed a cheese plate that had several different French and Dutch Bleus, a soft Brie and an aged Gouda. Each paired well with wine and beer. Hard alcohol was also available for purchase if you wanted to really get the party going.

Enomatic Wine Dispenser; basically a robot of happiness.

I’m pretty excited about this place, mainly because it’s right by my work! I would highly recommend booking it for an event or stopping in to check out some stellar beer and wines. The location is on Michelson in Irvine, in between MacArthur and Jamboree by John Wayne Airport. If you’re ever stuck in traffic on the 405, it’s a 2 minute jaunt off either exit on Bixby/Michelson.

Gripes? My only gripe was the beer glassware. Pint glasses don’t suit a lot of the beer selection. Some tulip glasses would be a fine addition. I used a wine glass and was openly mocked.

www.ocwinemart.com / 2272 Michelson Dr. Irvine CA 92612 949-250-0033

The internet is full of beer reviews. Boring, boring, beer reviews. Beer Advocate and Ratebeer are informative for finding styles, serving temps, cellaring info…but the reviews rival the average repetative yelp crap.

Here at OC Beerblog, we review beers a little different. And when I say we, I mean me.

1. I will write a haiku for the beer.
2. If the beer were a person, it would be  _____________ and why.
3. Instead of a formal rating, I will award it X amount of manbabies. A manbaby is an edited image where a kid and adult’s head is swapped via Photoshop. The rating is a variable amount and has no scale at which to judge it by. Much like beer, some days it’s good. Some days it’s better. Some beer goes better with food. Pallets are different as well. What might be a good beer to me, might be horrible to you.

So here it is: My first review. Bootleggers Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Black Phoenix!

Haiku:

dark fruits aroma

black as Patricia B’s hair

whiskey, peppers, sex!

(note, Patricia B. is the Owner/brewer’s wife that often works pouring beer there. I could have easily put her sister but I don’t know her name…shame on me!)

If this beer were a person:

Princess Tiana from Disney’s “Princess and the Frog”. Yes folks, your blogger has officially lost it! Imperial = Princess. Dark skin = dark beer. Loves to add hot sauce = roasted chili heat in the beer. Bourbon barrel aged = I drink bourbon while my daughter watches that movie fucking 400 times. It’s a damn fine beverage! I always thought Knuckle Sandwich would be the pinnacle of beers at Bootleggers; this easily tops it in complexity alone.

"Wiggle your middle finger on my froggy balls". Do frogs even have balls? I need to google that.

Overall I give this beer 400 drooling manbabies! I hope this beer catches on and is produced at regular intervals and not a one-off. I’ll be back until it runs out.

400 of these manbabies okay

Cheers! See you at Bootleggers!

Damn. I’ve always pondered the viability of starting yet another blog, about beer of all things. Truth is, I feel that blogs shouldn’t be written by people, they should write themselves. Content should be oozing from all directions and it should magically post itself.

In Orange County, there are quality Breweries, Brew Pubs, HomeBrew Clubs, and Gastropubs that are all top notch. There are festivals, brewery anniversary parties, beer release events, private tastings, or some dude in Anaheim that just got done mowing his lawn and cracked a brew. This blog will encompass all of that. Bevmo got egged? I’ll cover it. Two teenage kids were seen sprinting out of a CVS carrying four 30 packs of Coors Light? Maybe not. But I saw it happen once (doing jail time for Coors light seems cruel and unusual, considering they already drink crap beer!) Food trucks that pair menu items around a brewery’s offerings? You bet I’ll cover that. An Italian restaurant that has over 240 beers? Yep. A Liquor store that has Bootleggers Brewery Knuckle Sandwich? Sure, why not. I’ll also cover food pairings and recipes that include beer as an ingredient. Why the hell not. I may even post a picture of my wife’s face as she tastes the beers I review just for giggles. The higher the IBU, the bigger the stink-face. It’s awesome.

The intended audience is anyone who enjoys drinking good beer. From Uber Beer Geek aficionados to a casual person trying to pick apart the local Vons beer section. I cuss though, a lot. I’m really fucking sorry about that.

This blog will not contain the word “digress”. I hate that word. Especially in blogs. Also, please don’t egg Bevmo just to get coverage here. That’s just silly. Egg a bird just to be ironic.

Since content around these parts doesn’t auto-populate, I’m here to do it for you. So welcome, beer budday! I look forward to writing about my local niche of the craft beer world. I hope you enjoy reading it! Cheers!