Friday open thread: Happy Valentine’s Beer!

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I’ve never been one of those typical dudes who scoff at the very concept of Valentine’s Day; it’s not something I’ve ever particularly celebrated, but if someone wants to, that’s fine too. I’ve been with the lovely mrs. pdb for 15 years now, which makes her both my ex-girlfriend and my wife. In that time, particularly early on, we liked to think we were being all romantical and stuff, and one year, we decided to go to one of our favorite Italian restaurants.

This place isn’t super swanky, but it’s pretty nice - definitely a special occasion type place. So I made a reservation for Valentine’s Day, and we sorta dressed up (well, like work dressed up, not like black tie dressed up) and went to enjoy a nice evening...only to find that they’d crammed twice as many tables in the place as it normally has in order to maximize their throughput and Valentine’s traffic. It was still a good meal, but it was pretty much the opposite of what we wanted.

So then we just started going to our favorite bar for Valentine’s, if we did anything, but a few years ago, we stumbled on an even better tradition. Every February, Fort George Brewing out in Astoria does “Stout Month”, a celebration of all things porter and stout. And every President’s Day weekend, they do the Festival of Dark Arts, a celebration of stouts from all over the US. So every year, we make that our Valentine’s Day tradition. we go out and spend the weekend in Astoria - a really cool spot on the Oregon coast - drink some good beer and hang out at a fantastic pub for the day. It’s not traditionally romantic, but it’s pretty much us in a nutshell.

Did/do you do anything special for Valentine’s Day? Do you care about it at all? What’s your opinion of dark beers? Any interesting beers you’re drinking these days? If you’re not a beer drinker, what’s your drink (either alcoholic or non) of choice?

Do you have a long weekend this weekend? Any plans?