Life of the Party

On our various San Diego beer-tasting runs, Ballast Point was a regular destination. They were bought out last fall by Constellation---an alcohol brand holder---for a cool billion. Wow...good ob, folks.

Anyway, they brew solid beers, and have an entire line of both conventional beers, like IPAs, lagers, and stouts, but they also experiment and have an whole line of what they call "R&D Beers".

The new influx of cash has enabled them to open a tasting room/restaurant in our neck of the woods (mostly), down at the eastern side of town, at the marina that butts up to Seal Beach and Orange County. This past weekend was their grand opening. Which was also the 4th of July weekend. Yikes.

Anyway, Corrie and I were invited out for some fun and beer tasting at Ballast Point's new digs over here, and Sunday was the designated day.

Corrie and I were wrestling with the idea of taking the boy out to do things, and, well, we decided that it would be better to get out into some loudness earlier rather than later, when the sounds and stranger-danger might sully an otherwise exciting time out.

We packed the boy up in the car, got plenty of diapers and booby-juice bottles ready, and drove to the other side of town. Because of the impending fireworks, the area was a disaster for the stashing of cars, and we had to drive a few blocks into Seal Beach in the OC to park. Then we had to wait in line at the place even though we had friends and a table inside. That they were trying to "keep the kitchen from crashing" was the excuse. A noble cause even as it irritated me to no ends.

Once inside, though, Cassius was the star of our evening. Workers would come up and jokingly ask for his ID, and we'd tell them, "No worries, he's 23," and the Ballast Point folks would confusedly nod before we'd finish with, "--days old."

Even the president of the company came out and greeted tables, thanking folks for their patronage. Most everyone was very excited that our tiny baby was quietly enjoying himself. And he was. It was rather noisy, but Cass didn't care.

One of the brewers came over and talked with our table---and it was like Ryan was talking with us. After he congratulated us on the baby, he offered us a special R&D taster. He brought by six 4oz glasses of their experimental red-velvet cake stout. It was a nitro-carbonated beer, so the head was that stouty-leather/velvet you expect, but it was mostly red in color, like a fruity-hibiscus beer, but it was very clear, like it had been clarified like consomme.

A stout that you could see through like a lager or IPA, that was red-pink in color, that had the typical stout-head, and tasted like a red velvet cake cupcake. It was out of this world.

The hospitality was grand.

When the fireworks started out over the ocean, most people left their seats to get a look. I sat in place and gave Cass his own bottle. We're trying to avoid the bottle, in any case, but the doctors tell us to make sure we supplement with the bottle so he gets his full intake of calories (on account of the difficulties of a pre-term baby's feeding issues). So there we were, him at the bottle and me happy as a clam to be missing the fireworks.

When he finished I was making faces at him, and all the other goofy shit fathers do with their infants, and occasionally I could feel eyes on me. I'd look up and see some twenty-something girl staring doe-eyed at us with a goofy smile, who'd then get flustered being noticed and try to play it off.

We never really considered what we'd do with the baby when we wanted to go do social activities---like trips to beer-tastings. Cass came so early that our talks never got there. So...so apparently we just go and try to acclimate the boy to the outside world. One of our friends who were with us last night is a mother of three. She said that we were totally right in bringing him out this early. She said, "Oh, if you didn't take him out until later, and he wasn't used to the noises, you'd regret it so bad."

Word. I guess.

We just do what we do, and he'll learn. It helps that he's so tiny and quiet at this point, still before his due date.