I Just Spent $187 on Ten N.E. IPAs (Sort of)

You have to suffer for your passions, right? Well, this morning, after delivering what must certainly have been an erudite and engrossing speech on the future of beer at a conference of the National Beer Wholesalers Association here in Boston, I drove over to Craft Beer Cellar for a stash of New England IPAs. The plan was proceed to Trillium to complete the set. (Several gentle agitators, following Monday's post, suggested breweries I should try; they tried not to make it sound like my failure to taste them would entirely undermine my credibility on the style, but I understood the subtext.) That part of the mission went swimmingly:

The next part, not so much. Upon reemerging from the stooe 10-15 minutes later, we found an empty space where our car had been. I will not bore you with the details except to say that an incredibly ambitious employee of East Coast Towing managed to spy our Virginia-plated rental and remove it within the very short aperture of time we allowed him. Based on the signage, which we read and reread, it was an illegal tow, but both the folks at the impound lot and we knew our situation, and so we ponied up the blackmail money. In conclusion, the price of those beers ($35), which seemed like a deal at the time, have increased substantially when you add in the impound fee ($152). On the upside, I got to see part of Southie.

Sally pays delivers the sack of money. (They only took cash, which is totally respectable and not at all shady.)

All I'm saying is: Boston, they better be damned good beers.