The Belhaven Scottish Ale paired perfectly with the vegetarian version. The caramel maltiness tempered the heat from the spicy Italian Beyond sausage as well as highlighted the Maillard flavors from the deep frying. The herbal and earthy hop flavors highlighted the beer horseradish mustard I paired with the Scotch eggs.

I enjoyed Newcastle the best because it accented the earthiness of the tofu and basmati rice while highlighting the umami and acidity of the tomato-based sauce. The sweetness of the malt cut the spiciness from the chiles and spices to let the flavor really shine through and tamed the heat just enough that I was ready for another bite.

Like most people, I rarely rely on my own knowledge to recall anything and I almost exclusively rely on various software, apps, and algorithms to determine how I move through my daily life. This reliance naturally extends to my homebrewing.

The virtue of whatever dish I'm making is that the individual ingredients taste good when you cook them into one dish - I'm not making toothpaste and orange juice casserole.

As an adult, some nights I spend my time looking over open enrollment paperwork, trying to decide which plan really feels like "me." Other nights I tell my husband not to fill up on dinner because we have seven different kinds of candy to pair with beer while we watch Stranger Things 2.

Let's get bananimated about esters! Why does some beer taste and smell like banana? That banana flavor and smell are caused by isoamyl acetate, an ester, which is the largest group of flavor compounds in alcoholic beverages. Esters are formed by the reaction of organic acids and alcohols created during fermentation.

"To-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

As I predicted, I did not pass. I missed it by a total of 9 points.

Thanksgiving is a weird holiday – it’s basically like a dress rehearsal for how everyone is going to get along at Christmas. This year, why not shake things up a little by pairing beer with your Thanksgiving dinner?

In a little over six months, I’ll go to the Cicerone Certification Program offices in Chicago, where I’ll sit for the day-long exam. The Advanced Cicerone exam will cover a subset of the information within the Master Cicerone exam and will have the same sections tested on each Cicerone level exam: keeping and serving beer; beer styles; beer flavor and evaluation; beer ingredients and brewing processes; and pairing beer with food.