Okay folks and folk-dancers, I know I am a little bit late to the raving about the Espresso Yeti train, but it is a big and delicious train, so I am going to jump into the boxcar with the rest of the bums.
This review begins with a bit of the nostalgia that washed through my mind while I savored my first sip of this outstanding beer. A few years ago, before I decided to stop trying to drown myself, I went up to the kayak park in Lyons, CO. We stopped at a malt shop in the little downtown area after an exhausting day of rescuing boats after I bailed out of them, and I got a raspberry chocolate milkshake. This thing was serious. It had the type of chocolate foam on top that takes four kids blowing into a glass of chocolate milk to make. The first sip wasn't even cold, because the bubble crown cushioned my tongue against the onslaught of the chill with gently settling layers of chocolate, milk, and a hint of raspberry. The dear little cherubs just kept landing on my tongue, and then giggling as they popped and disappeared into a rich and playful netherworld. This is how I describe the aftertaste of the Espresso Yeti.
Drink this beer slowly. Not only does it have a high alcohol content, the lingering and changing tastes are worth every bit as much attention as the initial sip. I've found that most coffee or espresso infused beers tend to taste more like a cold, watery coffee than a beer, but this one bucked the trend. The stout carried the coffee so that it never tasted bitter, but felt more like a piece of silk running along my tongue. Most of the taste settled right in the middle third of my mouth, with very little front-of-tongue and the back of my mouth remembering little of the flavor but a lot of the texture.
To tell the truth, I don't often look at the beer enough to take any kind of exhausive look at the head, the lacing, the color, and all that crap. With a beer that I enjoy, I'm usually too busy having a Harry Met Sally moment over in the corner to even be able to remember anything more than "it was dark" "it was foamy", "it was orangey", or something similar. It was dark, with a decent frothy head on it. That's about all I got. The whole beer reminded me of froth. It was like getting slowly consumed by a delicious bubble bath.
I know that I'm not the first one to recommend that anyone who has the means goes out and tries some of this, and I have no problem adding to the chorus of its supporters. Get some. Do it. Before it's gone. Because I will be drinking more.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Great Divide Saison/Dunkel Weiss Release Party
I went to the Great Divide release party for their new 2009 Saison and Dunkel Weiss, and these are the things that I would like to say regarding that lovely event.
First, I was very impressed at the turnout, considering the horrific weather. I was the only one of up to eight people I knew who managed to make it, and that was after an hour-and-a-half commute from Boulder. Cars were sliding all over the road, and my boots got wet up to the calf because every time all day I got out of my car to do something, two inches of slush had ganged up on my windshield, preventing my wipers from doing their dang job. It seemed that a lot of the people who ended up attending the party lived within walking distance of the brewery, which was awesome. The less cars on the road, and the less drinking and slush and cars and drinking and cars on the road, the better. This is what I say.
The second thing I would like to say, although the first (or possibly second) thing in importance, was that I really enjoyed the party. A spread of pretzels, bread, and cheeses chosen to match the two beer styles (and labeled clearly as such), was put out for those who came within the first hour or so. The brewery, being essentially a warehouse, was cold but everyone came prepared with jackets and after about an hour the place was packed to the point that it was plenty warm with laughter and body heat and that little pilot light of alcohol glow. A little bit of cross-dressing and some Authentic German Costuming added to the general festivity. An accordion would have been favorite, but if I got everything I wanted, well… Oh wait! Beer! Yes, there was beer there, and it was delicious. The Saison was, amongst the folks I spoke with, the clear star of the evening, with the Dunkel Weiss feeling relatively bland in comparison.
I felt that both of the beers were served very cold, which with the chill in the warehouse made for a bit of a sodden-girl-scout singalong-in-October feel that I don’t feel did either beer justice. Both being traditionally spring/summer styles, they are supposed to be cold, but given how cold it already was, the Saison felt thin and the Dunkel Weiss tasted like almost nothing at all until I let it warm up a bit.
The Saison hit the front part of my tongue immediately, and I think that the feeling of effervescence was augmented by the jumpy, bright, kiwis-with-honey feel that the beer left on the insides of my cheeks. I wouldn’t say it tasted like kiwis with honey, but it left the same illusion of tart fruit flash bulbs, spread across my mouth like a momentary Munch painting. It lingered with a taste like a sharp apple pie, especially when paired immediately with the cheese provided (no, I don’t remember what each cheese was, so anyone please feel free to refresh my memory). Despite the unfortunate chill, the taste that this beer offered was pretty astounding overall, and I would definitely come back on a hot day for a short Saison session.
As I said before, I noticed that I couldn’t taste much out of the Dunkel Weiss. I don’t know if it was just too cold, or if the Saison’s piccolo solo was just too much for me to focus on the other woodwinds in the band. When paired with its chosen cheese the beer did begin to let out a bit of its character, but I can’t honestly make an opinion one way or the other. My unfamiliarity with the style may have contributed to my inability to identify any particular traits, as I was running without a track. Despite this, I do look forward to a taste of the Dunkel Weiss at the Denver Tweetup this Friday. Given the fantastic track record of Great Divide with turning pretty much everything they brew into liquid gold, I am sure I will be impressed.
First, I was very impressed at the turnout, considering the horrific weather. I was the only one of up to eight people I knew who managed to make it, and that was after an hour-and-a-half commute from Boulder. Cars were sliding all over the road, and my boots got wet up to the calf because every time all day I got out of my car to do something, two inches of slush had ganged up on my windshield, preventing my wipers from doing their dang job. It seemed that a lot of the people who ended up attending the party lived within walking distance of the brewery, which was awesome. The less cars on the road, and the less drinking and slush and cars and drinking and cars on the road, the better. This is what I say.
The second thing I would like to say, although the first (or possibly second) thing in importance, was that I really enjoyed the party. A spread of pretzels, bread, and cheeses chosen to match the two beer styles (and labeled clearly as such), was put out for those who came within the first hour or so. The brewery, being essentially a warehouse, was cold but everyone came prepared with jackets and after about an hour the place was packed to the point that it was plenty warm with laughter and body heat and that little pilot light of alcohol glow. A little bit of cross-dressing and some Authentic German Costuming added to the general festivity. An accordion would have been favorite, but if I got everything I wanted, well… Oh wait! Beer! Yes, there was beer there, and it was delicious. The Saison was, amongst the folks I spoke with, the clear star of the evening, with the Dunkel Weiss feeling relatively bland in comparison.
I felt that both of the beers were served very cold, which with the chill in the warehouse made for a bit of a sodden-girl-scout singalong-in-October feel that I don’t feel did either beer justice. Both being traditionally spring/summer styles, they are supposed to be cold, but given how cold it already was, the Saison felt thin and the Dunkel Weiss tasted like almost nothing at all until I let it warm up a bit.
The Saison hit the front part of my tongue immediately, and I think that the feeling of effervescence was augmented by the jumpy, bright, kiwis-with-honey feel that the beer left on the insides of my cheeks. I wouldn’t say it tasted like kiwis with honey, but it left the same illusion of tart fruit flash bulbs, spread across my mouth like a momentary Munch painting. It lingered with a taste like a sharp apple pie, especially when paired immediately with the cheese provided (no, I don’t remember what each cheese was, so anyone please feel free to refresh my memory). Despite the unfortunate chill, the taste that this beer offered was pretty astounding overall, and I would definitely come back on a hot day for a short Saison session.
As I said before, I noticed that I couldn’t taste much out of the Dunkel Weiss. I don’t know if it was just too cold, or if the Saison’s piccolo solo was just too much for me to focus on the other woodwinds in the band. When paired with its chosen cheese the beer did begin to let out a bit of its character, but I can’t honestly make an opinion one way or the other. My unfamiliarity with the style may have contributed to my inability to identify any particular traits, as I was running without a track. Despite this, I do look forward to a taste of the Dunkel Weiss at the Denver Tweetup this Friday. Given the fantastic track record of Great Divide with turning pretty much everything they brew into liquid gold, I am sure I will be impressed.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Beer Wars!
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (or so it felt, because I always imagine that I'm making the jump to hyperspace when I'm driving through snow)...
BEER WARS!
Yes, I'm sure that plenty of people have used the Star Wars intro cliche, but I've been burning bio-oil for three hours now and the furfural fumes are putting the kibosh on my creativity right now. As such, I thought it would be a perfect time to do a film review!
I went to watch this movie in Golden, Colorado. Anyone who doesn't know what Golden is famous for, just walk into your local liquor store, go to the beer aisle and look at that monolithic, silver block of Coors cases. That Rocky Mountain water comes from an aquifer that lies partly beneath my house. The theater was about half full, which seems like a pretty good turnout from anywhere other than the sold out place in Boston. Everyone knew the answer to every brewing trivia question showed before the film. Everyone knew everyone else. Everyone was a Coors employee. I think there were a few isolated craft brewing fans up in the top of the theater, where the cool kids used to sit and drink their smuggled in cans of Keystone Light and make out during middle school. I could tell because they were the lonely cheering voices during the frequent microbrew coups set up in the film. I was hunched up in the front with my feet on the back of the seat in front of me. You could describe it as the fetal position, I guess.
Everyone was very respectful, there was no "booing" or anything like that (which frankly impressed me, after some of the big bad wolf images that Anat created relative to the monolithic multinationals), but if Golden is anything besides Coorstown, it is also a notorious haven of capitalists. I go to a school that often feels like it's owned by the oil companies. People cheered every time it was asserted that the point of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. I think that perhaps these people missed the point that for the primarily employee-owned microbreweries, the point of the brewery is to do what they want to do. And they want to follow a vision of artistic expression through beer. They are the primary stakeholders in those businesses, and that's what they want to do. That's how businesses work.
It's obvious that Beer Wars was not meant to be a balanced documentary. Anat masterfully told a story of a struggle of art against advertising, of craft against commercialism. She tapped a different type of American dream. In the end, her own words gave the most succinct explanation of her vision: we, the consumers, vote with our wallets. We are choosing craft beer not because it's a gimmick that we're buying into, and not because, like Starbucks, it has become a part of a lifestyle that we identify with. We drink craft beer because it's an art form that we can appreciate and support. Most people that I know can't afford to do much to support passion and skill, especially these days, but we can choose to give our time and our money to an industry that promotes individualism, artistic vision, and a social, open existence. This is the new American dream. There is no more land to take and settle, industry has built up and crashed down and built back up again, but we will always be behind the concept of Manifest Destiny. Our destiny, now, is another type of fulfillment. There is no point in a dreary existence, and for many, the "finer things" in life are out of reach. Craft beer is available, low key, and delicious, and it gives poor college students and rich foodies alike the ability to bring something fine and something real into their lives.
I understand Maureen Ogle's contention, at the end, that the bigger, growing craft brewers will eventually try to get bigger. She is a historian. That's human nature, and that's what history is all about. History chronicles big things: big successes and big failures. The smaller things, and the things that are less easy to write down, don't get written down, and that is the case with labors of love. Perhaps Stone or Dogfish Head or New Belgium or any of the other regional microbreweries may indeed continue to grow and become a multinational company. Things change. The point remains, though, that the reason consumers put their wallets and their words forward to support craft brewing is not because those breweries are big, or because they have successful gimmicks or advertising campaigns. They like good beer that is made by people who get excited about good beer. History may be about money, but history doesn't take into account the entire human experience. If it did, history books would read like James Joyce's Ulysses, which took even me three years to finish, and it was fiction.
Craft brewers may never make it into the larger scope of history, of economic gain, because they love what they do, and because when artists are doing everything right, they are often overlooked except by those who really appreciate their work. And there are enough of us who do that this group of artists has been able to expand and provide us with better and better products made by an increasingly diverse group of hearts and minds.
BEER WARS!
Yes, I'm sure that plenty of people have used the Star Wars intro cliche, but I've been burning bio-oil for three hours now and the furfural fumes are putting the kibosh on my creativity right now. As such, I thought it would be a perfect time to do a film review!
I went to watch this movie in Golden, Colorado. Anyone who doesn't know what Golden is famous for, just walk into your local liquor store, go to the beer aisle and look at that monolithic, silver block of Coors cases. That Rocky Mountain water comes from an aquifer that lies partly beneath my house. The theater was about half full, which seems like a pretty good turnout from anywhere other than the sold out place in Boston. Everyone knew the answer to every brewing trivia question showed before the film. Everyone knew everyone else. Everyone was a Coors employee. I think there were a few isolated craft brewing fans up in the top of the theater, where the cool kids used to sit and drink their smuggled in cans of Keystone Light and make out during middle school. I could tell because they were the lonely cheering voices during the frequent microbrew coups set up in the film. I was hunched up in the front with my feet on the back of the seat in front of me. You could describe it as the fetal position, I guess.
Everyone was very respectful, there was no "booing" or anything like that (which frankly impressed me, after some of the big bad wolf images that Anat created relative to the monolithic multinationals), but if Golden is anything besides Coorstown, it is also a notorious haven of capitalists. I go to a school that often feels like it's owned by the oil companies. People cheered every time it was asserted that the point of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. I think that perhaps these people missed the point that for the primarily employee-owned microbreweries, the point of the brewery is to do what they want to do. And they want to follow a vision of artistic expression through beer. They are the primary stakeholders in those businesses, and that's what they want to do. That's how businesses work.
It's obvious that Beer Wars was not meant to be a balanced documentary. Anat masterfully told a story of a struggle of art against advertising, of craft against commercialism. She tapped a different type of American dream. In the end, her own words gave the most succinct explanation of her vision: we, the consumers, vote with our wallets. We are choosing craft beer not because it's a gimmick that we're buying into, and not because, like Starbucks, it has become a part of a lifestyle that we identify with. We drink craft beer because it's an art form that we can appreciate and support. Most people that I know can't afford to do much to support passion and skill, especially these days, but we can choose to give our time and our money to an industry that promotes individualism, artistic vision, and a social, open existence. This is the new American dream. There is no more land to take and settle, industry has built up and crashed down and built back up again, but we will always be behind the concept of Manifest Destiny. Our destiny, now, is another type of fulfillment. There is no point in a dreary existence, and for many, the "finer things" in life are out of reach. Craft beer is available, low key, and delicious, and it gives poor college students and rich foodies alike the ability to bring something fine and something real into their lives.
I understand Maureen Ogle's contention, at the end, that the bigger, growing craft brewers will eventually try to get bigger. She is a historian. That's human nature, and that's what history is all about. History chronicles big things: big successes and big failures. The smaller things, and the things that are less easy to write down, don't get written down, and that is the case with labors of love. Perhaps Stone or Dogfish Head or New Belgium or any of the other regional microbreweries may indeed continue to grow and become a multinational company. Things change. The point remains, though, that the reason consumers put their wallets and their words forward to support craft brewing is not because those breweries are big, or because they have successful gimmicks or advertising campaigns. They like good beer that is made by people who get excited about good beer. History may be about money, but history doesn't take into account the entire human experience. If it did, history books would read like James Joyce's Ulysses, which took even me three years to finish, and it was fiction.
Craft brewers may never make it into the larger scope of history, of economic gain, because they love what they do, and because when artists are doing everything right, they are often overlooked except by those who really appreciate their work. And there are enough of us who do that this group of artists has been able to expand and provide us with better and better products made by an increasingly diverse group of hearts and minds.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Russian River Consecration Review
Tradition and propriety insist that in the event I visit Aunt Lois and Uncle Gene's house, I bring a bottle of wine. This particular gift is especially appropriate on Easter Sunday. I am a great fan of wine, of course, but I wanted to bring something a little bit different, something that I felt would be more a part of myself than a representation of the materialized blood of Christ. I brought Russian River Consecration.
I first tried this beer at the Big Beers, Belgians, and Barleywines Festival in Vail a few months ago, and my dad and I both agreed that it was one of the best we tried there. The fact that I remembered drinking it, having been the last person to get a sample before they ran out, was quite recommendation enough. As soon as it went on sale in Colorado, I bought a bottle and have been keeping it in the Beer Closet ever since, awaiting an appropriate occasion. Given my sense of humor and the need to bring something of approximately 750 mL volume and greater than or equal to 10.0% ABV to Gene and Lo's, I chose this particular jewel.
Backstory end.
We broke this baby out about two Old Fashioneds, a bloody mary, and two strawberry-filled mimosas into the day, which was (on a slightly more easily understood timescale) about an hour after dinner. Appropriately sized and shaped tasting vessels could not be procured, so wide shotglasses were used for the weak of heart. I used a tumbler. The assembled crowd was one that does not drink much more than Busch Light (which I don't personally really consider beer) or Guinness on a special day. It's always interesting to note the reactions of people who aren't ready for what they're about to be saluted for, so I will record those reactions first, and then my own personal review:
Everyone described it as "different". Nothing about this beer matched the majority expectation of beer, even though I told them that they would not know what to expect. It is similar in character to many other cask-aged beers I have tried, with that sour lactobacillus edge and the slight sharp alcohol blade.
Uncle Gene, the Busch Light man, actually came back for another taste, saying that he wasn't sure if he liked it or if he hated it. I think that the shock and the forwardness of the beer was too overwhelming for him to actually be able to judge any of the unique characteristics of the brew. It is not for the faint of heart.
Mom and Aunt Lois, the box-wine drinkers, did not like it. Each took a sip and made a face. Given the description of the beer as reminiscent of a pinot noir, I thought that it may be an avenue into the world of delicious brews for them, but I had forgotten the immediacy of cheeky effervescence that the tongue feels with this type of beer, as opposed to a wine. They will be converted, but possibly with something slightly less bold. Again, they couldn't describe anything of the taste or the mouthfeel. They were shellshocked.
Miles and his friend whose name I can't remember but who is friends with the founders of Huebert Brewing Company in Oklahoma (for which the website seems to have become defunct), each took two generous tastes, and looked pensive. This is a thought-provoking, very complex beer with a number of different dimensions. It gives a diversified sensory experience.
My dad and I, having always had similar tastes, discussed our experiences with Consecration and came to a general consensus.
The beer was probably poured at a temperature slightly colder than ideal, as it was allowed to warm at room temperature for only fifteen minutes after being taken out of the fridge. Because the proper glasses weren't used, it was hard to judge the head. All I can say is that the first two sampling glasses were mostly foam, but after a good pour got going, there was only a very thin head of foam, and sometimes hardly any at all.
The sour sharpness hits your tongue and the bottom parts of your cheeks (where you imagine squirrels hiding their nuts or, as a more human definition, where you might keep your chew if you don't have a big lip). This particular sourness is more embracing than the standard sour beer, though. It leaves almost immediately, and washes the tongue with a smooth, indeed wine-like flavor that stays on the back on the tongue and the uvula while the tip of the tongue still remembers the carbonation. The aftertaste changes over time, so I found that I wanted to wait at least a few minutes before taking an additional sip. When I was finished, I could continue to taste and breathe the changing profile for an hour. I felt the way that a high schooler feels when her crush brushes against her in the hallway and she vows never to wash that shirt again so she will always be able to smell him on it. I wanted to put this stuff under my pillow at night, hang pictures above my bed. As I mentioned before, the tastes were relatively difficult to describe (and I have a very, very limited taste vocabulary), but the ear-rushing, ultimately empowering feeling was definite and clear.
I first tried this beer at the Big Beers, Belgians, and Barleywines Festival in Vail a few months ago, and my dad and I both agreed that it was one of the best we tried there. The fact that I remembered drinking it, having been the last person to get a sample before they ran out, was quite recommendation enough. As soon as it went on sale in Colorado, I bought a bottle and have been keeping it in the Beer Closet ever since, awaiting an appropriate occasion. Given my sense of humor and the need to bring something of approximately 750 mL volume and greater than or equal to 10.0% ABV to Gene and Lo's, I chose this particular jewel.
Backstory end.
We broke this baby out about two Old Fashioneds, a bloody mary, and two strawberry-filled mimosas into the day, which was (on a slightly more easily understood timescale) about an hour after dinner. Appropriately sized and shaped tasting vessels could not be procured, so wide shotglasses were used for the weak of heart. I used a tumbler. The assembled crowd was one that does not drink much more than Busch Light (which I don't personally really consider beer) or Guinness on a special day. It's always interesting to note the reactions of people who aren't ready for what they're about to be saluted for, so I will record those reactions first, and then my own personal review:
Everyone described it as "different". Nothing about this beer matched the majority expectation of beer, even though I told them that they would not know what to expect. It is similar in character to many other cask-aged beers I have tried, with that sour lactobacillus edge and the slight sharp alcohol blade.
Uncle Gene, the Busch Light man, actually came back for another taste, saying that he wasn't sure if he liked it or if he hated it. I think that the shock and the forwardness of the beer was too overwhelming for him to actually be able to judge any of the unique characteristics of the brew. It is not for the faint of heart.
Mom and Aunt Lois, the box-wine drinkers, did not like it. Each took a sip and made a face. Given the description of the beer as reminiscent of a pinot noir, I thought that it may be an avenue into the world of delicious brews for them, but I had forgotten the immediacy of cheeky effervescence that the tongue feels with this type of beer, as opposed to a wine. They will be converted, but possibly with something slightly less bold. Again, they couldn't describe anything of the taste or the mouthfeel. They were shellshocked.
Miles and his friend whose name I can't remember but who is friends with the founders of Huebert Brewing Company in Oklahoma (for which the website seems to have become defunct), each took two generous tastes, and looked pensive. This is a thought-provoking, very complex beer with a number of different dimensions. It gives a diversified sensory experience.
My dad and I, having always had similar tastes, discussed our experiences with Consecration and came to a general consensus.
The beer was probably poured at a temperature slightly colder than ideal, as it was allowed to warm at room temperature for only fifteen minutes after being taken out of the fridge. Because the proper glasses weren't used, it was hard to judge the head. All I can say is that the first two sampling glasses were mostly foam, but after a good pour got going, there was only a very thin head of foam, and sometimes hardly any at all.
The sour sharpness hits your tongue and the bottom parts of your cheeks (where you imagine squirrels hiding their nuts or, as a more human definition, where you might keep your chew if you don't have a big lip). This particular sourness is more embracing than the standard sour beer, though. It leaves almost immediately, and washes the tongue with a smooth, indeed wine-like flavor that stays on the back on the tongue and the uvula while the tip of the tongue still remembers the carbonation. The aftertaste changes over time, so I found that I wanted to wait at least a few minutes before taking an additional sip. When I was finished, I could continue to taste and breathe the changing profile for an hour. I felt the way that a high schooler feels when her crush brushes against her in the hallway and she vows never to wash that shirt again so she will always be able to smell him on it. I wanted to put this stuff under my pillow at night, hang pictures above my bed. As I mentioned before, the tastes were relatively difficult to describe (and I have a very, very limited taste vocabulary), but the ear-rushing, ultimately empowering feeling was definite and clear.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Holiday Boozing and the Social Contract
I started writing this blog on Good Friday.
I know what Good Friday is...it's the day that Jesus died on the cross...right? Now I never went to Sunday school, but I do watch the History Channel. The other day they had a special on Bigfoot.
Enough flirting with my good-lookin' colleague Blasphemy and his friend I Am An Atheist (his parents wanted him to grow up strong). The point is that I have been struggling with the American Alcoholic's approach to the celebration of holidays, especially religious-themed holidays. By this I mean of course the normal person's tendency to celebrate with or without alcohol. In my experience it either goes very far in one direction or the other but then again, like Billy Joel, I go to extremes.
I grew up in a family that celebrates with alcohol. We celebrate the sunset with Tuaca and thunderstorms with Guinness. We do a champagne brunch on St. Swigglesworth day and a bloody mary lunch the day after St. Patrick's Day, and we always set out a glass of Bailey's for St. Nick. I grew up with this, and when I started drinking, I naturally transitioned into the culture. It's not about getting hammered in order to tolerate your relatives, it's about celebrating life by cliff diving with your all of your senses in slow motion, holding hands with your mom.
Alcohol, in my opinion, it at its best when it is helping people be at their best, in a type of communal ritual. For much of history it was reserved for this purpose (well, and for preparing for battle, but that is a communal ritual in sense). As large-scale production replaced the need for local, homebrewed alcohol, the nature of alcohol also expanded to encompass both a familial, celebratory atmosphere and a lonely, trudging existance. Despite what I may say when I sing my favorite karaoke song, I never drink alone. I know some people that do, and given that I live in Golden, Colorado, I know very few people that don't drink at all. For the purposes of this discussion those people have all been exiled to Utah, across which a high speed monorail ferry has been built on stilts.
Many people do use alcohol for celebration and most of these people tend to be moderate, social drinkers who know when to say "when", or "no, fuck that, I have to work tomorrow, seriously guys." It seems that those who drink in appropriate celebratory atmospheres are often the healthiest and most agreeable drinkers. They don't get too rowdy, and they drink well, savoring good quality spirits and creating an air of good spirit.
I have been exposed to a contrary opinion which holds that alcohol promotes drunkenness and is inappropriate for celebration. Beyond the fact that some people choose, as individuals, to abstain for their own valid and respected reasons, my best guess is that according to this opinion, intoxication is disrespectful to the person or event being celebrated and as such alcohol should not even be considered as any part of the situation. This is a valid point, especially because there's always that one cousin who parks their truck in the yard and hauls in a case of Bud Light, all of which end up getting put on the fencepost and shot at. Different versions of this person exist, but everybody has one. Sometimes he brings a bottle of gin, or she insists on a round of Amaretto Sours (for herself). By prohibiting alcohol, all behavior is more easily controlled, creating a benign and vaguely pleasant atmosphere.
People will always behave erratically, especially on holidays when they are forced to upset their own routines to play family politics with the in-laws. An appropriate atmosphere can allow the enjoyment of one of the greatest, most powerful, and most delicious triumphs of civilization, that of alcohol, without creating a situation that quickly becomes uncomfortable. Holiday drinking requires a social contract in which the enjoyment of all increased by ensuring that no one individual takes advantage of the situation. This is nearly the same social contract used by those who would ban alcohol in full. The primary difference is that in the former, there is a sense of mutual responsibility as well as heightened sensory and bodily experience, while in the latter, everything is scrubbed sterile in order to absolve those who wish not to engage in the spirit of the social gathering. It is an issue of shared responsibility versus the abolition of social responsibility, and it seems pretty clear to me which one is the more civilized.
I know what Good Friday is...it's the day that Jesus died on the cross...right? Now I never went to Sunday school, but I do watch the History Channel. The other day they had a special on Bigfoot.
Enough flirting with my good-lookin' colleague Blasphemy and his friend I Am An Atheist (his parents wanted him to grow up strong). The point is that I have been struggling with the American Alcoholic's approach to the celebration of holidays, especially religious-themed holidays. By this I mean of course the normal person's tendency to celebrate with or without alcohol. In my experience it either goes very far in one direction or the other but then again, like Billy Joel, I go to extremes.
I grew up in a family that celebrates with alcohol. We celebrate the sunset with Tuaca and thunderstorms with Guinness. We do a champagne brunch on St. Swigglesworth day and a bloody mary lunch the day after St. Patrick's Day, and we always set out a glass of Bailey's for St. Nick. I grew up with this, and when I started drinking, I naturally transitioned into the culture. It's not about getting hammered in order to tolerate your relatives, it's about celebrating life by cliff diving with your all of your senses in slow motion, holding hands with your mom.
Alcohol, in my opinion, it at its best when it is helping people be at their best, in a type of communal ritual. For much of history it was reserved for this purpose (well, and for preparing for battle, but that is a communal ritual in sense). As large-scale production replaced the need for local, homebrewed alcohol, the nature of alcohol also expanded to encompass both a familial, celebratory atmosphere and a lonely, trudging existance. Despite what I may say when I sing my favorite karaoke song, I never drink alone. I know some people that do, and given that I live in Golden, Colorado, I know very few people that don't drink at all. For the purposes of this discussion those people have all been exiled to Utah, across which a high speed monorail ferry has been built on stilts.
Many people do use alcohol for celebration and most of these people tend to be moderate, social drinkers who know when to say "when", or "no, fuck that, I have to work tomorrow, seriously guys." It seems that those who drink in appropriate celebratory atmospheres are often the healthiest and most agreeable drinkers. They don't get too rowdy, and they drink well, savoring good quality spirits and creating an air of good spirit.
I have been exposed to a contrary opinion which holds that alcohol promotes drunkenness and is inappropriate for celebration. Beyond the fact that some people choose, as individuals, to abstain for their own valid and respected reasons, my best guess is that according to this opinion, intoxication is disrespectful to the person or event being celebrated and as such alcohol should not even be considered as any part of the situation. This is a valid point, especially because there's always that one cousin who parks their truck in the yard and hauls in a case of Bud Light, all of which end up getting put on the fencepost and shot at. Different versions of this person exist, but everybody has one. Sometimes he brings a bottle of gin, or she insists on a round of Amaretto Sours (for herself). By prohibiting alcohol, all behavior is more easily controlled, creating a benign and vaguely pleasant atmosphere.
People will always behave erratically, especially on holidays when they are forced to upset their own routines to play family politics with the in-laws. An appropriate atmosphere can allow the enjoyment of one of the greatest, most powerful, and most delicious triumphs of civilization, that of alcohol, without creating a situation that quickly becomes uncomfortable. Holiday drinking requires a social contract in which the enjoyment of all increased by ensuring that no one individual takes advantage of the situation. This is nearly the same social contract used by those who would ban alcohol in full. The primary difference is that in the former, there is a sense of mutual responsibility as well as heightened sensory and bodily experience, while in the latter, everything is scrubbed sterile in order to absolve those who wish not to engage in the spirit of the social gathering. It is an issue of shared responsibility versus the abolition of social responsibility, and it seems pretty clear to me which one is the more civilized.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
I Am Going To Reformat My Blog
Okay, I know that it's ugly as shit, really, with corn pieces. There are no pictures, no side columns, and big long blocks of text. The background color is Rabo Karabekian's particular shade of baby shit brown. I am working on making it nice, but it's E-Days, guys. It's E-Days, and I have a keg race to win.
The Humble Beginnings of Shannon’s Poverty Bar (better name possibly forthcoming)
I love that giddy, empty feeling that I feel when I’ve been on a juice fast for two weeks, or when I am up on a rock face and I feel something slither onto the last two fingers connected to the rock. When I’m on a knife edge ridge and I can hear the scream of the wind coming up from two thousand sheer feet down. This feeling is also common to those who have a penchant for making possibly unadvised purchases, utilizing the dregs of their bank account, of items that they haven’t seen. I feel that this is probably one of those internet-related phenomena, like the dissolution of society and the downfall of the British pub (which are basically the same thing).
This feeling rose in me at about 5 pm last Tuesday, while I was at work, trolling Craigslist for homebrewing equipment. My difficulties in finding an empty 15.5 gallon keg shell for conversion into a brewing kettle have been well documented, of course, and the frustrations that this fruitless quest gave me were only augmented by the fact that use of the keywords “keg” “beer” “homebrew” and any number of related terms give results of about 70% kegerators. None of the kegerators come with full-sized keg shells, and they’re all giant, smelly, crappy old refrigerators that somebody took from their mom’s house and drilled a hole through.
Well, well. Well! Imagine my surprise when I find a brand new, beautiful, black, bar quality and four foot tall kegerator complete with full CO2 tank, regulator, valves and tubes, and a tower with two taps. And a keg shell. Up until this moment, I was going to use what I had in an effort to eat more than ramen noodles for the next two months. That is, I was going to do my primary fermentations in my glass carboys and then bottle condition. Bottles can always be found in a college town, I figured. Even if it’s a small college, in a small town. Then I had a vision.
I was standing outside my house, at my outdoor bar, complete with Thai monkey head on a stick sculpture. I had four different homebrews in Cornelius-style five gallon kegs on tap in the kegerator, and nubile young men were feeding me beer and little pieces of cheese on sticks and bread with olives in it. My brewing sculpture was in the corner, gleaming in silver and black. It hummed and smiled at me, and I realized that to make this dream come true, I had to buy this kegerator and convert it into this draft system.
Three hours and some Benjamins later I brought it into my house, and now it sits in my living room, glimmering and grinning, and waiting to make my dreams come true. I am now recruiting both nubile young men and different hard and soft cheeses, and after E-Days, I will be holding personal interviews with both. Simultaneously. I’ll take care of the beer.
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