So, I ended up missing out on what appeared to be an awesome brewery crawl through Gowanus and Industry City on Saturday and found myself searching through my kitchen cabinets on Sunday afternoon for a suitable bottle of patent medicine.

It is a known fact, that when all else fails, a beer is the best cure for whatever ails you.

I am happy to report that I had some success and found four candidates hidden at the back of one of the top shelves, behind some half-emptied liquor bottles.

I decided to hold off on the two KCBC sours (perfect for a New Year’s Eve toast) that had been delivered to my doorstep in 2020 when we were all stuck behind locked doors and concluded that an equally aged Rum-barrel Imperial Stout, from MIA in Florida, would be a beer best shared.

That left me but one choice; I had been hanging on to a 1997 bottle of Gales Prize Old Ale for, I don’t know how long, but it was for a ‘special’ occasion.

It had sat there through numerous special occasions over the years, including many family birthdays and even its own 25^th (and possibly 26^th) birthday.

So, what could be more special than sitting miserably indoors by myself when I could be outside enjoying the glorious weather with my fellow New Yorkers?

Nothing, that’s what.

So, I cracked it.

I have had about a dozen of these over the years with vintages from 1969 through 2001, and ages from 9 to 21 years, and have gotten very lucky not to have come across any real duds so far; we don’t count the occasional soy sauce flavors, and we don’t count the disintegrating corks on the older ones, we just decant…

So how was this one?

It was absolutely incredible… the best yet:

• It took three different corkscrews to successfully remove the cork from the bottle, and by successfully, I mean adequately.
• The bottom third of the cork did come out in chunks, which required filtering through a fine kitchen strainer.
• The nose was a little sketchy while the cork was still partially in place; yes, there was this wonderful warming rich note of fine aged port, but also a hint of the stilton that usually accompanies it.
• It poured a very deep opaque amber with, as expected, absolutely no head.
• In the glass, with the errant corky bits removed, it lost the funky cheesy notes, replacing them with a distinct dried fruit aroma.
• The taste was exquisite; raisin and port again dominated up front, but no residual sweetness.
• There was a certain warming booziness to the entire glass, with some faint funky leather notes and a very dry oakiness.
• No soy sauce this time… yay!

Awesome stuff, why did I wait so long?

This is nominally a 9% beer but is reckoned to get up to around 12% by the time that the residual yeast has done its thing. I am pretty certain that this one got there.

It performed its task perfectly, I was grinning like an idiot from the first sip and had totally forgotten about my poor diseased body while consuming it, and for a couple of sleepy hours afterwards.

Did it cure me?

Well no, it is now holiday Monday, and I still feel kind of crappy, but I no longer consider this to be a totally lost weekend.

Mmmm, Lost Weekend.

Now somebody just has to persuade Bluejacket to drop off a cask or two here in NYC.