Many moons ago, I promised a story in regards to how I proposed to my very beautiful wife, Kelli Khaos. Little did I know that I would go all “How I Met Your Mother” on all of you and never really get to the point. Actually, now that I’m thinking about the story I’m about to tell, I’m still not going to get to the point. Wait, let’s do this how they would on HIMYM.
“Ok, kids. The story of how I proposed to your mother is a good one. But before we get to that story, I have to first tell you this story…” If you’ve never seen the show, that is essentially how it goes. So, like I said, I have to first tell you this story that starts in February and comes full circle this past Saturday. The story begins, or ends rather, with me picking up beer number 42, Brother Thelonious from North Coast Brewing Company.
But before we get to that story (did I really just do that again?), let’s talk about this beer first. I know a lot of you are here for the beer reviews, so I’ll do you a favor and not bury the lede. But you really should stick around for the rest of the story, it’s pretty funny!
As for Brother Thelonious, I’ve had my eye on this beer for quite some time but for some reason never fully committed to it. I’m glad I finally did because it is a very good beer. It’s described as a Belgian-style abbey ale and it packs a 9.4% abv punch.
Brother Thelonious pours a dark amber color and features a fruity aroma one would expect from a belgian style ale. The thing that stuck out to me the most was its effervescence. The bubbles gave it a little bit of a bite at first that subsided through the life of the beer.
Moving on to the taste, the fruit smell transitions into the taste with hints of spice. There really wasn’t anything that stood out in particular but it was very smooth with little to no aftertaste on the tongue. This seems like a pretty sessionable beer. Well, as sessionable as a 9.4% beer can be.
All in all, I give Brother Thelonious a “Thumb’s Up” without going any further. Like I said, nothing really stood out to me. It was just a good beer. Which should be taken as a compliment because it is meant as one.
Ok, now we can get to the actual beginning. This story goes back to February when I started putting into motion my plan to propose to Khaos. One of the things that was most important to me was getting her father’s blessing. Call me old fashioned I guess. The only problem, he lives in a different state. Thankfully, a state that you could get there and back in a matter of hours and no one would be the wiser.
Well, in theory that is. A lot can go wrong when you’re trying to sneak out of the state for a day and I’m about to share some of the highlights with you now. First, I had to come up with a good back story. So, I went with “Brandon and I are going to head down to San Diego and hit up a brewery or two while grabbing lunch at our favorite spot down there.” Even better, we were coming up on a holiday that I got off of work, but she did not.
With the plan set, and some help from my amazing sister-in-law, I booked my flight out there. While Khaos was in the kitchen cooking. Imagine “Honey, I need your help in here” while you are trying to book the last flight home. Which is now three hours later than planned because you didn’t book the flight in time. Yeah, fun.
But we’re getting into too many details. So, I make the flight out there, surprise my now father-in-law and get the blessing that I had hoped for. Only problem is, I now have a few hours to kill before I have to get back to the airport for my flight. During said time, Khaos starts to miss me and wants to talk to me on the phone. While I’m sitting in her families living room. Did I mention how much fun this was?
One of the first questions she asks, “So where are you guys right now?” I’ve been to, and know of, several breweries in the greater San Diego area. But for some reason the following comes out of my mouth; “We’re checking out North Coast Brewing right now. You know, the place that makes Old Rasputin.”
Now let’s flash forward to later in the night when I’m waiting for my flight, which is now delayed an hour. I decide to pull up the North Coast website so that I can reference more beers than just Old Rasputin. All of a sudden I’m reading how “the brewery has resurrected the old Acme label with a heritage dating back to the San Francisco of the 1860’s.”
Wait, what? San Francisco? Are you kidding me? Did I really reference a brewery from Northern California? Brandon’s response, “Really dude? The name North Coast didn’t give it away?” I’m now dumbfounded. I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe that me, the guy who runs his own beer blog, might have just blown his own cover over something so sloppy.
Now I’m panicked. Not only was I worried about being on a plane for over an hour and, subsequently, out of cell phone service. But I now might have to explain my whereabouts due to some faulty information. Even worse, I have about a week and a half before I’m planning on proposing. If this backfires on me now, the jig is up!
Even more worse than that, there was a slight medical emergency in the family that day (don’t worry, every one was ok). An emergency that I was witness to, because I was in a different state. So now I’m home, before Khaos somehow, and she walks in the door while talking on the phone. She was getting the rundown of the aformentioned medical emergency and I now have to act surprised. We’re talking “Oh no! What happened? (turn away to hide smile) That’s awful, I hope she’s ok. (fight back the giggle)”
This ended up being a lot more difficult than I ever could have expected. Which, in hindsight, seems crazy to me. How could I have ever thought it was going to be easy? Really, think about it. I thought that flying out of the state without the girl that I live with finding out would be easy.
Needless to say, everything went off without a hitch. The proposal went perfectly (but that’s a story for another time) and before you knew it, we were married. My favorite part came right after the proposal when I could finally say “Remember that day that I ‘went to SD with Brandon?’ Well, I was actually in Arizona! You’re whole family knows!!” It really was an amazing experience despite the self-inflicted shenanigans.
