The game: Titans at Patriots
The beer: Josephsbrau Winter Brew Dark Double Bock Lager
The result: Win, 33–16
The commentary: No clickbait this week! I’m still waiting to see the Akiem Hicks touchdown anyway, since the L-team behind Eye-Anne Eagle and Dan “You Might Learn the Rules, Dan, Since You Used to Play the Position” Fouts (he earned the nickname after questioning a non-call for grounding against a clearly outside-the-tackle Brady) were busy showing us the ball-less half of the field. CBS must have poached a Fox cameraman since that network has never captured the first snap coming out of commercial. You have one job! Regardless, by 24–3 I was tweaking my Survivor analysis from Sunday. Tasha deserved better.

The bock was a pleasant surprise. Five bucks for a six-pack at namesake Trader Joe’s. Boatswain (I lied), Josephbrau, Trader José… they hold up alright on Beer Advocate. And who is harder to please than a group of half-drunk commenters who submit reviews to Beer Advocate? We’re all better for the precision of two decimal places when rating something from one to five.

Their wine though? Trader Jérôme’s? A five-dollar bottle will get you to the destination but not taste very good along the way. That’s just science. But if you pay, say, twelve, and apply a Trader Joe’s deflation adjustment of twenty-five percent (compared to Stop & Shop, etc.), you feel pretty good about a “fifteen-dollar” cabernet, right? Especially after trying and liking a sample in the store? Until one of three things happens before you open the bottle later that evening and your wife makes a face after her first sip:

The wine paired well with the cheese you also sampled, to the point that it was overwhelmed. Smothered, even. Disguised.

Up until the tasting, the bottle you took home was stored for months under a mound of spoiled teriyaki tofu and then wiped down with raspberry sorbet and potato pancakes.

The motherfuckers pulled a bait-and-switch, shunning a contract forged over the years by people who offer free sips of wine out of little medicine cups. A. thinks I might have something here.

Fifty-seven degrees in Boston today? Must be Christmas!

Trader Jérôme’s $5 Wine
1. Freeways – Another Holiday
Boston reverb from the first Polk Records holiday compilation and available here for free. We wish you a shoegaze Christmas.

2. Solomon Burke – A Christmas Prayer
I’m a big fan of these spoken-word pieces, more the impassioned telling than any message. “Demonistic drugs!” Solomon Burke, Johnny Cash and Rudy Ray Moore are a kind of holy trinity in some universe.

3. Tia Blake & Her Folk-Group – Children, Go Where I Send Thee
Also known as “The Holy Babe” (and “Jane, Jane,” for some reason, thanks to Peter, Paul & Mary), this has become a favorite carol of mine. John Fahey played us his “barely recognizable” interpretation back in 2012. Again with the links.

4. Can – Little Star of Bethlehem
An outtake of an outtake, recorded (with Malcolm Mooney) in 1969 and compiled on the “unofficial” Radio Waves. “Correction: going up!”

5. Charles Bradley – Mary’s Baby
A cuckolded Joseph proclaims “I’m standing right here!”

Up next: A Patriots win ensures home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. A Jets win increases the chances of the moderately frightening Steelers missing out. Hmmm. Merry Christmas!