Christmas

Well, it's Christmas Eve and I'm back here in the Northwest for a few days. I randomly bumped into Emily Tomita in an Olympia coffee shop yesterday, and catching up with an old Whitman friend made me feel all nostalgic. I miss the hell out of all of you and I want to know what's new with everyone. Merry Christmas to some, happy belated Hanukkah to others, and festivus cheers for the rest of you.

Two Friends

Well, well, boys and girls, it appears as though Todd (for all of this girlfriend talk) has been spending a lot of time drinking in front of a computer monitor.

That is a recipe for a computer full of viruses.

I wanted to take this opportunity to announce the opening of the micro-est of microbreweries:

Two Friends Brewery was started in 2009 by one person in his now-estranged roommates' closet. In early-November of 2009, the entire brewing operation was moved from that closet to a communal closet because someone wanted to live in the (now-defunct) brewery.
With the change of scenery, Two Friends brewmaster released his first ever beer-that-doesn't-suck.

"Big, Sloppy Belgian" is a classic Belgian strong ale: a malt-forward dark ale with a pleasant sweetness and notes of licorice and darker fruits is shaded by an eggshell-white head and contains enough alcohol to lower the inhibitions of even the most guarded 18-year-old.

BSB is only available on-tap at Adam, Mike and Kevin's apartment. (You will have to move the cookbooks if you want to pour yourself a glass.)

Friend-of-the-brewery and artist-in-non-residence, Haas, is mocking up the brewery's logo. Merchandise (including t-shirts, full-zip hoodies, glassware and personalized autographed 8x10 glossies) are available by mail-order.

Please etch the item you would like and your size (if clothing) and gender/measurements (if glossies) on the underside of a LG 55-inch 1080p Backlit LCD HDTV and send to Seattle, WA. Please include $5.75 for shipping and handling.

Two Friends will be having monthly releases of its new line of product, including seasonals. Look forward to our upcoming signature Pale Ale "Knapped in the Closet: An American Ale-gory" and our "Tap It, Don't Whack It" Chocolate-Orange Porter.

Tastings will be held every night that it gets dark before 4 pm in front of the brewmaster's virus-infected computer.

Friends-of-the-brewery are always welcome to visit. Fun is mandatory; clothing, optional.

Winter Seasonals and a pleasant surprise.

So, I know I haven't had to say to much about beer in the last 6 months, but I had several occurances last night that I feel obligated to report:

First, Jubelale 2009 is back and better than ever. I'm predicted that this will be the Winter Ale of the year. It's much smoother and not nearly as offensive as it's predecessors. That is, you'll actually want to drink more than one of these at a time. It kind of has a hint of the Snow Plow of yore in it as well. Highly Recommended.


Second, the world of beer is changing before our eyes: Moose Drool and Fat Tire now comes in cans, Budweiser makes a Hefe, and it seems harder and harder to find legitimate "Microbrews."

Good beer in cans, to me, is a good thing. Now I don't have to drink Cole Smead's piss when I'm camping or hiking. Cans around going to make the hung-over pack out much easier. They're also easier to recycle. As Indy Z put it, "Victory!"

I know we all scoff at Bud's attempts to appeal to a market with a finer pallet, but what if they make something that actually tastes good? Given, it's unlikely, but that would really fuck with my beerality if it happened.

Lastly, it seems like the growing microbrew industry is it's own worst enemy. How can Widmer, Belgium, Pyramid, and Alaskan still qualify as microbrews when they produce millions of gallons a year? My only hope is that they don't sacrifice quality for market share as they grow from a nationwide into a global product. Thoughts?

Well, I suppose my semiannual update is slightly overdue. It’s winter here. Again.

The summer blazed by with my brother’s weddings in China and Oregon. Fairbanks enjoyed one of the driest, hottest summer’s on record. We even broke 90 for a day in July. Schmidt made a brief return to the frontier and had enough time to slay a couple dozen salmon and check out my new house. That’s right, I moved again. I counted the other night and I think this is the 13th time I’ve moved in 5 years. Fuck, this is getting old.

Anyway, the new place is awesome and even has running water, which I reckon means that I’ve moved in the early 20th century. I still have an outhouse, but I’m not complaining. I’d rather not deal with a sewage leak in the house at -40F. There are photos on Facebook if you want to get a better look.

I recently had an old friend, Rachel, visit me in Fairbanks. She was on her way to Dutch Harbor to work on the latest season of Deadliest Catch. She’s a real special gal that I met with studying in St. Andrews. We hadn’t seen each other in over two years so it was great to reconnect. I’ll be spending a week visiting her in LA over New Years. Sorry, Eli, this means you missed your window and I’m off the market again. I hope you guys get to meet her some day. If anyone else is in LA area the 31st through the 9th of January, let me know.

As for beer news, I’m still waiting for most of the winter seasonals to arrive. It seems like it’s taking long this years, doesn’t it? I’m more concerned about Powderhound and Jubilale returning than I am about getting my H1N1 vaccine.

I did go to a local Oktoberfest about two months ago and had some really tasty beer and grub. You know what goes better with an Oktoberfest beer better than anything? A scotch egg is what. It’s a hard-boiled egg coated with a sausage/breading mixture and deep-fried… on a stick. A gut bomb for sure, but Drunkard McSloppy is a huge fan.

Coming up to present, I just spent last weekend in Hawai’i for the 3-day Hopu ultimate coed tournament.

I’ve decided that arranging my vacations around Frisbee tournaments is a stellar way to travel. Three days of lodging, food, beer, and fun in paradise all covered for about a $100 fee. That’s hard to beat. And it’s not like any of it was skimped. We had Indian, Thai, and Hawaiian food catered for us and the beer never stopped. If you ever get a chance to get something from the Big Aloha Brewing Company, DRINK IT. DRINK IT ALL. Forget about Kona Brewing, Big Aloha is to Kona as Lacht Neppur in Waitsburg is to Widmer. This is an annual tournament, so if any of you are interested, we should do it next year, maybe hop on a spirit team, and stay longer than just the weekend. There were a couple of Whitties (Matt Stenovec and Molly Smith) down there already, so maybe we could put together an alumni team?

Now I’m settling in for another long Winter. I’ll be stirring in my den around April. Be thinking about coming up next Summer. I may be moving on next Fall…

I miss all of you . . .

Call It Stout, Though It Isn't

I'm glad such a venerable publication as the NYT shares my interest in both beer and assuring no misunderstood term remains so (misunderstood, that is). I'm also glad that the author has a "go-to midday brew."

And I'm most glad of all that I have only 26 days left in San Diego until I get to go home and mooch off my parents for the nearly two-month long Hanukah/Christmas/Birthday/New Year's season (because, let's be honest, now that we're on our own, we all know that paying rent really, really sucks the hairy root).

A Tribute to Dos Equis, the Most Inoffensive Beer

Dos Equis goes with everything. Dos Equis neither adds nor subtracts from any experience above and beyond its status as cold, wet, and laced with alcohol. It will quench your thirst. It will cool your brow. And it will get you drunk. Beyond this, it simply tastes like beer. Completely indifferent beer.

You may think I'm trying to bash Dos Equis, but this is far from the truth. Dos Equis should be your go-to beer for nearly every occasion. Here's why: if your goal is to get drunk, there are beers for that. They come in cans. We all know them. Every single one is at least mildly offensive to the taste buds in some way. You're not drinking a Key Ice with dinner, is what I'm saying. Only if your food is deep fried or slathered in BBQ sauce or both are these beers acceptable compliments to your meal.

At the same time, if you're trying to drink some fine-ass beer, there's a whole world of microbrews, and the Deschutes and New Belgiums of the world are forever coming out with new tasty treats. And old ones. I just picked up a Biere de Mars and I'm going to drink it in a sensory deprivation chamber because that shit tastes GOOD.

But both ends of the extreme are few and far between in our post-college lives. The endless days of Keystone Light are behind us (right?) and we're not so grown up we can both afford and are pretentious enough to drone on about microbrews all the time.

So, for the 90% of the time when you want a beer that doesn't complicate your life, try Dos Equis. Just drink that shit all the time. But not really all the time because then you'd be an alcoholic. But drink it a lot.

Dos Equis: It goes down your throat

Squick

UPDATE BELOW

So I take the bus to work every day, and I've come to recognize the four or five drivers who man the route during the week. There's the tiny Armenian lady who has some kind of rhythm-related mental disorder, because she both accelerates and brakes in these tiny, rhythmic tap-tap-taps. There's the overweight black guy who thrusts out his hand like he's warding off vampires if you attempt to board before someone gets off. And then there's the completely generic looking 75 year old man who calls out every stop in his best train conductor voice. It's this man that I now turn to, because today he did something that, for lack of a better phrase, gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.

For some reason that I can't figure out most people interpret proximity and repetition as a license to talk to me. This guy has started making inane comments to me as I get on and off the bus every day. "Did you order this heat?" he'll say, waving his hand vaguely at the outside world as I swipe my bus pass. "Yes, and I got them to throw in a tornado and three lightning bolts. Where do you live again?" I fail to say as I mumble something incoherent and walk to my seat. "Hey, didn't see you last Thursday!" he'll remark. "Yes," I again fail to say, not shooting him an off-kilter grin, "I was busy burying hookers in shallow graves."

Anyway. Today, he apparently upgraded me in his mind from Acquaintance to Close Personal Friend, because today as I was getting off the bus, he said - and I quote - "One of these days, I'm going to give you a surprise."

This is one of the creepier things an old man can say to you, I would argue. I must have stood there without moving or saying anything for a good four seconds, because he then apparently felt the need to add, "A good one." After a few more seconds of frozen silence, I said, quote, "'kay," and then got the fuck out of there.

So, here I sit, half-thinking that this guy is going to show up at my apartment with a chainsaw and a Buffalo Bill suit. I mean, the bus stop is right across from where I live.

UPDATE:

I found out what the surprise was. In a twist worthy of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, it turned out that what he wanted to give me was not a drink from his roofie-laced water bottle, but a $15 gift card to a local smoothie cafe. Seriously. A guy whose primary interaction with me consisted of watching me scan my bus pass and making banal comments about the weather gave me a $15 gift card. Why, you ask? Well, fuck you for thinking there needed to be a reason. If you don't think that I'm the kind of smooth-talking, charming, engaging, instantly likable person that you immediately want to shower with gifts, then you're a bad friend and you can go hang yourself.

No but seriously, I'll tell you the actual reason.

After profusely thanking him because I am a human being and not a robot, I asked him, "Why are you giving this to me?" Here's what he told me: about a month before this, he'd stopped me one day and made me pour out my cup of ice. For the past few weeks I'd been bringing a cup of ice to the bus stop because summer afternoons in Austin never dip below 100 degrees. I'd been taking ice onto the bus for weeks, but one day the driver stopped me and told me to pour it out. The rules had changed. No liquids on the bus. I helpfully and not at all sarcastically pointed out that ice was not a liquid. He thought about it for a second, and, unable to come up with a counter-argument, said, "It's in a cup." Further arguments on my part proved useless, as I had to admit that, yes, the ice was in a cup.

A month later, he gives me a $15 gift card and tells me that he felt sorry about having to enforce what he saw as an arbitrary and stupid rule. Ah, sweet victory. Still, $15 seemed a little much for a trival inconvenience. Putting myself in the bus driver's shoes, I probably would have felt $5 bad, not $15 bad. So I thought about it. Maybe it wasn't just that he felt bad for me, maybe it was that he felt a little bit of guilt.

That's when I realized what I'd been doing for a month. Every day I would still bring out a cup of ice to the bus stop. When I'd see the bus coming, I'd stand up. What was it that made the driver feel guilty? Not the stupid rule. Not the fact that he inconvenienced me. No, it was the expression on my face as, every day for a month, the bus would pull up to the bus stop, I would stand up, turn to the left, hold the cup out from my body, look at the bus driver through the windshield, and slowly, ever-so-slowly, turn the cup upside down and pour out my ice all over the ground.