We finally reached our tenth beer, Brother Thelonious from North Coast Brewing Co.! Keith and I love Fort Bragg and go there whenever we are able. One of our favorite places to eat once we are there is the North Coast Brewery. The food is excellent and the beers are delicious and the atmosphere is classic Fort Bragg. I love the slow, easy pace there, it's like life slows down just a bit. We almost always get the beer sampler so that we don't have to choose which beer we want until we have tried them all.

The Brother Thelonious is a relatively new brew for North Coast. North Coast makes great beer, but unlike Sierra Nevada or Dogfish Head they don't experiment much. Brother Thelonious is the newest creation but has been available for a few years. The bottle says it's a "Belgian Style Abbey Ale" but the website says it's a "Belgian Dark Strong Ale" whatever it is, I like it. I was nervous about this one. A beer that comes in a wine-esque bottle and has a cork is usually too dark and malty for me. Brother Thelonious poured out a clear brown color reminiscent of Pepsi or Coke. It was just as bubbly as soda too. The taste was very mellow for a beer with a 9.3% AVB. It was very drinkable.

Most people don't know this, but I can't drink alcohol while eating. It's a very odd thing, but it's true. I will open a beer before dinner and then switch to water while eating, going back to my beer once the meal is finished. I may sip my beer, but I have to have something non-alcoholic while eating. Weird. The reason I bring this quirk of mine up is that I was able to drink the Brother Thelonious during dinner. Although I didn't drink much, I didn't feel like I had to get up and get water or a soda. I was rather amazed actually.

I most likely would not drink Brother Thelonious regularly, but I thought it was tasty. I also enjoy the benefit of my beer drinking doing something good for the world. A portion of the sales of Brother Thelonious are donated to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz is a nonprofit education organization. It was founded by the Monk family and Maria Fisher, an opera singer. Its mission is to offer the world's most promising young musicians college level training by America's jazz masters and to present public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the world. All of these programs are offered free of charge to the students and schools. So you should go and get a bottle, enjoy the beer and help some kids get the musical education they desire!