Thursday, May 27, 2004
Via Realbeer.com: Germany's oldest man, 111, drinks a beer every day.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
I keep forgetting to mention that I found my new favorite LA microbrewery last week (not that there's incredibly stiff competition, unfortunately): Weiland Brewery in Little Tokyo, on the edge of downtown -- amazingly, this is also a few blocks of downtown LA that has a nightlife/streetlife NOT consisting of depressing hordes of homeless.
I found this place by looking for a beer hangout to meet with new acquaintance/old email correspondent Dan, who grew up in Portland and thus knows his beer. We only had one brew each, but my pale ale tasted like a pale ale, and his amber tasted like an amber. And the garlic fries were good, too. Score!
Dan reports that the place is stupid crowded on Thursdays, though, so perhaps this is only an early-week hangout. Monday is becoming my new Saturday, anyway (Don't ask -- this happens when you work weekends)
I found this place by looking for a beer hangout to meet with new acquaintance/old email correspondent Dan, who grew up in Portland and thus knows his beer. We only had one brew each, but my pale ale tasted like a pale ale, and his amber tasted like an amber. And the garlic fries were good, too. Score!
Dan reports that the place is stupid crowded on Thursdays, though, so perhaps this is only an early-week hangout. Monday is becoming my new Saturday, anyway (Don't ask -- this happens when you work weekends)
Sunday, May 09, 2004
I finally made it the Y*rd H**se in P*sad*na last night. (Don't really want the search engines picking this up, for paranoid reasons I can't quite put my finger on. I think I'm afraid of the Corporate Thought Police coming to get me.)
For the first time in my drinking life, I had to send a beer back. I expected to have to put up a fight: what if they thought I just didn't like the beer? I told the bartender it was "off" and he immediately took it back, asked what it was, and asked what I'd like instead. Good customer service, though I was irked that I got a bad beer in the first place. My palate isn't refined enough to know exactly what was wrong, but I suspect a dirty tap line.
Rick notes that even the excellent Sunset Bar and Grill in Boston served an off beer every once in a while -- it's just a hazard of maintaining a shitload of taps. Yes, but Y*rd H**se rubbed me the wrong way when I first called them as a beer journalist. They clearly had no idea about the beer they served, and answered all my questions with marketing schlock straight out of a brochure somewhere. Ick.
Non-beer urban planning rant: Plus, Old Town P*sad*na is a gentrified suckhole. I try to like it, I really do. And I geniunely do like certain aspects of it: the walkability, the places to sit, in short, the community space. But it's just another mall. I know that neighborhood used to be the ghetto, but I always wonder if there's a way to clean up a neighborhood without removing every last trace of character from it. Sigh.End urban planning rant.
As such, the clientele at Y*rd H**se gave off a distinct fratboy/clubgirl vibe, and were not, shall we say, there to savor microbrew. I shall never understand why anyone would dress for clubbing in order to drink at a beer bar. Except when it's not really a beer bar; it's TGI Franchise with a whole lot of taps. SIGH. You know, chains don't have to suck: Rock Bottom has wowed me in four different locations.
Not a terrible experience, but I can do better. Even in LA.
For the first time in my drinking life, I had to send a beer back. I expected to have to put up a fight: what if they thought I just didn't like the beer? I told the bartender it was "off" and he immediately took it back, asked what it was, and asked what I'd like instead. Good customer service, though I was irked that I got a bad beer in the first place. My palate isn't refined enough to know exactly what was wrong, but I suspect a dirty tap line.
Rick notes that even the excellent Sunset Bar and Grill in Boston served an off beer every once in a while -- it's just a hazard of maintaining a shitload of taps. Yes, but Y*rd H**se rubbed me the wrong way when I first called them as a beer journalist. They clearly had no idea about the beer they served, and answered all my questions with marketing schlock straight out of a brochure somewhere. Ick.
Non-beer urban planning rant: Plus, Old Town P*sad*na is a gentrified suckhole. I try to like it, I really do. And I geniunely do like certain aspects of it: the walkability, the places to sit, in short, the community space. But it's just another mall. I know that neighborhood used to be the ghetto, but I always wonder if there's a way to clean up a neighborhood without removing every last trace of character from it. Sigh.End urban planning rant.
As such, the clientele at Y*rd H**se gave off a distinct fratboy/clubgirl vibe, and were not, shall we say, there to savor microbrew. I shall never understand why anyone would dress for clubbing in order to drink at a beer bar. Except when it's not really a beer bar; it's TGI Franchise with a whole lot of taps. SIGH. You know, chains don't have to suck: Rock Bottom has wowed me in four different locations.
Not a terrible experience, but I can do better. Even in LA.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
I find it amusing that this beer bar's website plays the opening cords to "Last Dance with Mary Jane" by Tom Petty. They know Mary Jane is pot, not beer, right?
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
What she said. Though I like getting pissy drunk sometimes, and so do most Europeans I've ever known, general attitudes certainly do differ.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Oh sweet Jesus, Temecula.
Non-beer traffic rant: Never forget that rush hour in LA starts at 2pm, and leaving for a two-hour trip at 2:15 guarantees you won't get there before 7pm. It doesn't help that for a stretch of one of the "free"ways, there was a $6.something toll lane -- actually, TWO lanes -- that went express while the rest of us peasants crawled along at, no shit, 4 mph. The toll is collected one of those FastTrack transponder things, so we couldn't have paid if we wanted to. End non-beer traffic rant.
We arrived at the campsite eventually to find appetizers (spam musubi!) and a keg waiting for us. The group had created a crowded tent city to allow more communal party space in the shade of an RV. They had a canopy up and it was a pretty sweet setup. Friday night was spent drinking and bullshitting -- recovering from the drive, really. Some brewers from other campsites came trick or treating, but we didn't have anything to spare. We kicked our keg and then some of the more generous souls brought out bottles of good commercial stuff (Duvel, Chimay, Ommegang, Stone, Anderson Valley, etc...) Someone from the club who I'd met but not talked with much before commented (as I rattled on and on about Ommegang) that I seemed to be as into beer as my husband, as opposed to tolerating it and coming along for the ride (or not doing either). I keep forgetting how weird that is in the homebrewing community -- beer in general is male-dominated, but beermaking even more so.
I awoke at some ungodly hour before 8am the next day. The group had rigged up coffee and a few folks were set about cooking omelets -- complete with an optional topping of the awesome spicy chili from Friday night's dinner. This was all the most seriously gourmet camping food I'd ever had. I'll admit to a dash of coffee liquor in my coffee, but did not start the morning with as much consumption as some, and I'll leave it at that ;)
It was already damned hot, so hot that I put on shorts at 10am (I hate shorts). The festival gates opened at 11 and we were almost on time. The guy who checked me in --perhaps recognizing my name as one of the registrations that had come in as a couple or maybe just seeing a wedding ring -- asked "Where's your hubby?" I replied that he was in line behind me, as he'd had to use the bathroom on the way. (Yeah, I was in a hurry to get to the beer!) Check-In Guy said wistfully, "He's a lucky guy..." then hurriedly added, "He's got someone to drink with." Though I'm young and thin by the standards of homebrew wives, I think this really was reverence for the female beer enthusiast rather than base lust. But who knows.
Then: beer beer beer beer beer. Homebrew clubs from all over Southern California offering all sorts of suds. Not much point in noting standouts, since I can't get them again unless I befriend the brewer. I poured out a few but not too too many.
Rick went off to his volunteer shift at 1pm. (You get in free for volunteering, so we did.) I proceeded to the food stands and picked up a tostada. I attempted to drunk-dial a friend from Boston who's always calling me from festivals, but found his number not in service. Bummer. Had another beer sample or two, then decided I was way too tipsy for 1:30pm, and decided to take a break until at least 2. I took my break in the beer education section, listening to a lecture on brewing sugar. At 2pm sharp, I was back in the fray, getting dragged over to a booth to try a Tripel.
Story I'll interject now because I'm not sure when it happened: One of the booths had a beer called "Belgian Pucker" that they were billing as the most sour beer in the world. When the guy who brewed it went home, they changed its name to "Belgian Fucker." They were taking pictures of the reactions of everyone who tried it, Rick told me, and I really can't resist a dare like that. (Especially as a female beer nerd with something to prove). I went, I tasted it, made a "hmm..." face for the camera, and then asked the guys behind the bar whether the beer had a theme song yet. They said no. "You know, like the song from the South Park movie," I continued, singing, "'Fuck your fucking beer, Belgian fucker...'" I don't think they knew what I was talking about.
At 4pm, it was time for my shift behind my club's bar. I hadn't tried everything of ours yet but I did the best I could to field questions. When in doubt, offer a small taste; they can always pour it out if they don't like it.
At 5pm, it was time for my other volunteer shift, the official one that got me in for free. I went to the front desk and got instructions on how to check people in. Yes, people did arrive with three hours left in the fest, but not many. Mostly I replaced broken glasses. It was so slow I didn't feel bad that Rick kept bringing me new beers to try and I was fairly tipsy for the whole shift. Fortunately for me, I'd remembered to match beer with water throughout the day.
7-8, last call for alcohol, I tried a couplefew more beers and then...well, then I got to talking to one of LA's beer celebrities, and then Rick got into an argument with him, but it was fairly good-natured and philosophical rather than the "yeah, well you're a Belgian fucker!" sort of argument. Regardless, this took up about the next 40 minutes :) By then, the club had packed up (oops...I meant to help...) and we stumbled back to the camp area.
I didn't last too much longer after that. Back at the campsite, we had dinner and water and water and water and water. Rick got into another philosophical argument (this time with one of the club's token Republicans) and I almost bit someone's head off who was trick or treating from another club -- they were talking about high-octane beers like Sam Adams Millennium and Utopias and I ventured my long-held opinion that they hardly qualified as beer anymore, they were more like cognac. This stranger gave me a condescending spiel about how they're more beer than Coors is, and I thought, screw you, buddy, I may have boobs but I don't drink Coors, or what would I be doing here? What I did say was that it wasn't about being better than Coors (of course they fucking are) but about the pissing contest between Sam Adams and Dogfish Head for who can have the most powerful beer. He then implied that I didn't necessarily know anything about Dogfish Head, either, and I gave him my opinion on all their major brews and some not-so-major ones (like India Brown) and then exited the conversation as gracefully as I could.
Anyway. I made sure to get to bed before more beers emerged to tempt me. 12 hours of drinking is enough for me, no matter how special the occasion. My early turn-in did mean I missed the nude bicyclist that circled camp a few times.
Homebrewers sure can snore, by the way.
Non-beer traffic rant: Never forget that rush hour in LA starts at 2pm, and leaving for a two-hour trip at 2:15 guarantees you won't get there before 7pm. It doesn't help that for a stretch of one of the "free"ways, there was a $6.something toll lane -- actually, TWO lanes -- that went express while the rest of us peasants crawled along at, no shit, 4 mph. The toll is collected one of those FastTrack transponder things, so we couldn't have paid if we wanted to. End non-beer traffic rant.
We arrived at the campsite eventually to find appetizers (spam musubi!) and a keg waiting for us. The group had created a crowded tent city to allow more communal party space in the shade of an RV. They had a canopy up and it was a pretty sweet setup. Friday night was spent drinking and bullshitting -- recovering from the drive, really. Some brewers from other campsites came trick or treating, but we didn't have anything to spare. We kicked our keg and then some of the more generous souls brought out bottles of good commercial stuff (Duvel, Chimay, Ommegang, Stone, Anderson Valley, etc...) Someone from the club who I'd met but not talked with much before commented (as I rattled on and on about Ommegang) that I seemed to be as into beer as my husband, as opposed to tolerating it and coming along for the ride (or not doing either). I keep forgetting how weird that is in the homebrewing community -- beer in general is male-dominated, but beermaking even more so.
I awoke at some ungodly hour before 8am the next day. The group had rigged up coffee and a few folks were set about cooking omelets -- complete with an optional topping of the awesome spicy chili from Friday night's dinner. This was all the most seriously gourmet camping food I'd ever had. I'll admit to a dash of coffee liquor in my coffee, but did not start the morning with as much consumption as some, and I'll leave it at that ;)
It was already damned hot, so hot that I put on shorts at 10am (I hate shorts). The festival gates opened at 11 and we were almost on time. The guy who checked me in --perhaps recognizing my name as one of the registrations that had come in as a couple or maybe just seeing a wedding ring -- asked "Where's your hubby?" I replied that he was in line behind me, as he'd had to use the bathroom on the way. (Yeah, I was in a hurry to get to the beer!) Check-In Guy said wistfully, "He's a lucky guy..." then hurriedly added, "He's got someone to drink with." Though I'm young and thin by the standards of homebrew wives, I think this really was reverence for the female beer enthusiast rather than base lust. But who knows.
Then: beer beer beer beer beer. Homebrew clubs from all over Southern California offering all sorts of suds. Not much point in noting standouts, since I can't get them again unless I befriend the brewer. I poured out a few but not too too many.
Rick went off to his volunteer shift at 1pm. (You get in free for volunteering, so we did.) I proceeded to the food stands and picked up a tostada. I attempted to drunk-dial a friend from Boston who's always calling me from festivals, but found his number not in service. Bummer. Had another beer sample or two, then decided I was way too tipsy for 1:30pm, and decided to take a break until at least 2. I took my break in the beer education section, listening to a lecture on brewing sugar. At 2pm sharp, I was back in the fray, getting dragged over to a booth to try a Tripel.
Story I'll interject now because I'm not sure when it happened: One of the booths had a beer called "Belgian Pucker" that they were billing as the most sour beer in the world. When the guy who brewed it went home, they changed its name to "Belgian Fucker." They were taking pictures of the reactions of everyone who tried it, Rick told me, and I really can't resist a dare like that. (Especially as a female beer nerd with something to prove). I went, I tasted it, made a "hmm..." face for the camera, and then asked the guys behind the bar whether the beer had a theme song yet. They said no. "You know, like the song from the South Park movie," I continued, singing, "'Fuck your fucking beer, Belgian fucker...'" I don't think they knew what I was talking about.
At 4pm, it was time for my shift behind my club's bar. I hadn't tried everything of ours yet but I did the best I could to field questions. When in doubt, offer a small taste; they can always pour it out if they don't like it.
At 5pm, it was time for my other volunteer shift, the official one that got me in for free. I went to the front desk and got instructions on how to check people in. Yes, people did arrive with three hours left in the fest, but not many. Mostly I replaced broken glasses. It was so slow I didn't feel bad that Rick kept bringing me new beers to try and I was fairly tipsy for the whole shift. Fortunately for me, I'd remembered to match beer with water throughout the day.
7-8, last call for alcohol, I tried a couplefew more beers and then...well, then I got to talking to one of LA's beer celebrities, and then Rick got into an argument with him, but it was fairly good-natured and philosophical rather than the "yeah, well you're a Belgian fucker!" sort of argument. Regardless, this took up about the next 40 minutes :) By then, the club had packed up (oops...I meant to help...) and we stumbled back to the camp area.
I didn't last too much longer after that. Back at the campsite, we had dinner and water and water and water and water. Rick got into another philosophical argument (this time with one of the club's token Republicans) and I almost bit someone's head off who was trick or treating from another club -- they were talking about high-octane beers like Sam Adams Millennium and Utopias and I ventured my long-held opinion that they hardly qualified as beer anymore, they were more like cognac. This stranger gave me a condescending spiel about how they're more beer than Coors is, and I thought, screw you, buddy, I may have boobs but I don't drink Coors, or what would I be doing here? What I did say was that it wasn't about being better than Coors (of course they fucking are) but about the pissing contest between Sam Adams and Dogfish Head for who can have the most powerful beer. He then implied that I didn't necessarily know anything about Dogfish Head, either, and I gave him my opinion on all their major brews and some not-so-major ones (like India Brown) and then exited the conversation as gracefully as I could.
Anyway. I made sure to get to bed before more beers emerged to tempt me. 12 hours of drinking is enough for me, no matter how special the occasion. My early turn-in did mean I missed the nude bicyclist that circled camp a few times.
Homebrewers sure can snore, by the way.
