At $10 a bottle, the 2009 vintage of Baronen Barley Wine Ale promised something special. I wish it had delivered.

The grilled peaches with prosciutto wrapped seared scallops presented a challenge to The Brooklyn Brewery.

More specifically, it was a challenge to Patrick Paulick and Garrett Oliver. Paulick is the New England regional manager for Brooklyn Brewery who happened to be guiding a cozy group of 20-or-so people through a beer dinner at The Perfect Pear Cafe in Bradford, Vt. And Oliver… well, you know who he is.

But just in case — Oliver is a kind of legend of gustation and grooming. He is the brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery and the author of The Brewmaster’s Table, an indispensable guide on pairing beer with food. He has been called “the Robert Parker of beer.” To that, I’d add “the pimp of primp.”

Anyway, Paulick confessed that the peach with scallops dish presented a conundrum. It’s just not a pairing they’d seen before. So what beer could accompany it? Which Brooklyn offering could complement the caramelized sweetness of the peach, the saltiness of the prosciutto and the fishy texture of the scallops?

Alaska — never been there, but now I want to go soooooo bad. No, not for its lovely winters, but to sample some of the state’s outstanding beers.

Reason No. 101 why gas stoves are better than electric: When the power goes out in the middle of a brew session, you don’t have to wait four hours before you can kick things up again.

New Year’s Day, a buddy of mine and I were brewing up a barleywine when, just as I started the boil….DOINK. Complete darkness. At first, we thought it was just us. (There was, after all, four burners, a crockpot and a Wii going.) But nope, just rural New England on a winter’s evening. Kind of …

It’s official, I’ve done it. I’ve graduated to another level. Mach 10.
I transferred the barleywine yesterday to a secondary and took a reading. The Safbrew T-58 came through for me and dropped it (so far) to 1.030, which officially makes it a 10% ABV beer.
Rich had warned me about the T-58, reporting mixed results from some fellow homebrewers. But its performance after two weeks appears to have been pretty outstanding, and only 15 minutes after I transferred, I noticed a little activity in the airlock. It’s still going. (As an …

Yesterday was a red letter date in brewing history — the day I took it to eleven.

For years, I’ve been trying to break the 10 percent ABV barrier. My equipment has some limitations — 7.5 brew kettle, 10-gallon mash tun — but I’d come close and knew I could do it. The problem had been my efficiency. But finally, while celebrating my favorite holiday (AHA’s Big Brew), I cracked 1.10 on the gravity scale on a barleywine I’d created and now have a brew that could easily end up 11 …

I had such high expectations. At least the dog seems to be working out.

I’d planned on making the biggest beer ever, in honor of our new guest, Rooney. I found a recipe in Zymurgy with which no judge could find anything wrong. It was a Belgian strong/barleywine, and it was complimented for its “amazing malt complexity” and depth. 27 pounds of malt for a 5.75 gallon batch. But I learned that just shoving a bunch of malt into your mash tun does not necessarily equal a big beer.
21 lbs. pale …