My dudes from Great South Bay Brewery invited me to their The Lark Pub & Grub beer dinner last night as their “Super Neat Birthday Guest,” helping me celebrate my 26th year on Earth with a five-course pairing that included the first appearance of their new warming winter seasonal, Sleigh Ryed.

More on Sleigh later today.

Following the Herb-Crusted Lamb Chop with Spinach Pastry and Baby Potatoes-and-Snaggletooth Stout course, the boys surprised me with a cannoli-topped birthday cake and Happy Birthday sing-a-long. As evidenced by the above video footage, the cake was inhaled by this binge-eating blogger in mere seconds. It wasn’t pretty.

Birthday cake before:

Birthday cake after:

Cheers to good friends and cake.