Last night was the weekly cyclocross race in town. Cyclocross, for those unfamiliar, is sort of a mutant love child of road and mountain biking. A simplified description would be that you put knobby tires on a road bike, then race around a mixture of pavement, grass, dirt, sand, and mud. All in all, a very good time.
The local race here is also in the evening, meaning you need a head lamp, and there's beer. Who wouldn't like that. The picture here is in between the fist and second races of the night (yes, there's only one gear). Most people, myself included, do both. You can check out the series here: Fifth Street Cross.
While I was fortunate enough to have a few good beers that night. The best by far was Sierra Nevada's 2007 edition of their Harvest Ale. A harvest ale, is a pale ale on steroids. Brewer's get hops shipped directly from the vines for a harvest ale, so that there's only a few hours is between picking and brewing. This creates an intense hops flavor that's hard to match with normal dried hops. I also happened to have Sierra Nevada's 2007 Celebration Ale, normally an top-tier IPA. I found this year's to have too much bite and not enough flavor. Alas. The harvest ale on the other hand had a wonderfully complex hops flavor of citrus fruits, rinds, and pine. Now lots of beers can have that, but the harvest ale, also had a near perfect mouthfeel that made it wonderfully balanced and oh-so drinkable.
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