This evening's beer (a surprise! I was saving the for later but the sudden chill in the area bumped it up) was a gift from my dad. He and my mom came down to visit last month so they could spend some time with their favorite (i.e. only) grandkid. 

While doing so, we all swung by a local bottleshop. I somehow (that's sarcastic, by the way. It doesn't come through great over text) convinced Dad to grab a couple of beers for himself. One of those was Hi-Wire's Pumpkin Spicewalla Latte 10W-40 (Pumpkin Spicewalla henceforth). Before he left, he broke the four-pack in half, taking two cans with him and leaving two with me. Thanks, Dad! Let's see how this stout drinks.

This post marks the halfway point of the blog's Oktoberfest season. It's the Wednesday of the whole thing, if you will. So, what better day of the week to do this write-up than, well, Wednesday?


Is it obvious that I'm struggling to think of a good introduction? I hope so, because everything here was founded upon transparency. Today's post, by the way, is Hi-Wire's entry into the Oktoberfest canon: Zirkusfest. I'm pretty excited for this because, until I found this can at my local bottleshop, I had no idea that Hi-Wire had thrown their hat into this specific style ring. Let's see how it drinks.

There's nothing quite a like a breakfast beer to start your holiday weekend off right. What's that? The holiday weekend started yesterday, on Saturday? Maybe for you, if you're lucky enough to have every Saturday and Sunday off work. I'm pretty locked into a rotation: one week I have Friday and Sunday off, the next I have Saturday and Sunday. This otherwise three-day weekend happened to, unfortunately, fall on my Friday and Sunday week. It's fine though. I'm still making the best of my time.


Over the last year of so, I've been talking stouts with some of my friends, specifically the view of the style as a seasonal beer. Don't mistake me, I do think that stouts are a seasonally appropriate beer for those awful, colder months. But, I think they decidedly have a place in the spring and summer: breakfast, especially if you were to find a stout that includes maple syrup. Which, wouldn't you know, is what I have right now. So, without further ado, I present to you, on this 75° morning, Salted Maple 10W-40, from Hi-Wire Brewing.