UFO Easter Gifts
I meant to write about this the other day, but like so much else in my daily life, I spaced out. Anyways, my parents sent me probably one of the most exciting Easter gifts of my adult life last week, that being a beautiful Harpoon UFO bottle-opener and hefeweizen glass. Very excited. One, now I have bottle-openers on both of my keychains so I never am without one (I guess it is kind of silly that I have two key chains in the first place, but I have my reasons). Two, I’ve never owned a nice hefeweizen glass. In truth I don’t drink too many hefeweizen beers, not because I don’t like them (UFO and Magic Hat’s Circus Boy are both quite tasty in my opinion as well as a number of others I’ve tried), I just generally prefer IPAs or Stouts/Porters.* So great gifts. Thanks parents!

There are few things more lovely than a full glass of beer. I admit that this is neither a UFO nor a hefeweizen in the glass (it is some of my home brewed copper ale)
* So here is the question (solely because it came up last night and I got no definite answer): What is the difference, if any, between a Stout and a Porter? I fully assume that the difference exists, I am just not aware what it is. If you know, please enlighten me. The fact is that I have had some beers referred to as Porters and then had another, very comparable beer called a Stout (and vice versa). Just curious really, kind of hoping it isn’t just a case of semantic preference.
I don’t have the patience to explain it here, but go to this link and download the pdf (http://beertown.org/education/styles.html) of the 2009 Brewer’s Association beer style guidelines and they explain about every single style of beer…fantastic Web site.