Happy New Year? Yeah, Whatever...

My wife and I are not a romantic couple. We love each other dearly, and we look forward to spending the rest of our lives together, but we don't go for all the lovey-dovey hearts-and-flowers crap that many couples thrive upon. Valentine's Day is completely ignored in the Clow-Kirby household, and birthdays are generally celebrated with a small group of friends at a comfortable restaurant rather than with some elaborate, overpriced candlelit dinner-for-two at a pretentious, overrated bistro.

As for New Year's Eve - well, not only are we not romantic, but we're also somewhat misanthropic, so the idea of joining the teeming masses and wearing stupid party hats while drinking crappy sparkling wine at midnight just isn't that appealing to us. Since NYE is also our wedding anniversary, we have gone out for dinner a couple of times to mark both occasions (yeah, we're not completely cold-hearted), but we've always stuck with early seatings in order to be home well before the ball drops.

For the past couple of years, though, we haven't even bothered with a dinner out, and instead we just order in from one of our favourite Indian restaurants and spend the night in front of the tube - this year's selection included downloaded episodes of Little Britain Abroad, Kitchen Nightmares and No Reservations.

Our one nod towards the celebratory nature of the night was opening one of the bottles of Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock that I picked up at the brewery back in August. This was my first time trying this renowned elixir, and I was actually a bit disappointed by it, especially considering how much I paid for these li'l bad boys.

It poured a murky looking ruby-brown with a very still body and a faint wisp of a tan head - not that appealing looking, to be honest. The aroma was worrisome at first - some nice chocolate & caramel, but also seeming quite stale. Whatever it was cleared after a few moments, and it became much more pleasant, developing notes of raspberry and sweet alcohol. Body is soft and smooth, very nice. The flavour is pleasant, with nice notes of chocolate, toffee, raspberry, licorice, and some slightly woodiness, but it didn’t knock my socks off. It’s a very good beer, no doubt about that, but it simply didn’t live up to the hype for me.

Anyway, cynicism and slight disappointment aside, I really did enjoy my typically atypical New Year's Eve, and I hope that you also enjoyed yours, no matter how you chose to celebrate it (or not). While it started out a little rough, 2006 ended up being a pretty good year for me, and here's to 2007 being a good one as well, for all of us.