Showing posts with label beer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beer. Show all posts

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Oktoberfest – The Best German Idea Since the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

The Uncertainty Principle is a pillar of modern physics, just as Oktoberfest is a pillar of modern beer drinking.

In quantum mechanics, the Uncertainty Principle states that one cannot simultaneously ascertain the precise location and precise speed of an electron. The more precisely one quantity is known, the less precisely the other quantity can be calculated. Likewise, during Oktoberfest, the more beer one drinks the less precisely one can know their own location.


Controversial East German waitresses use performance enhancers to allow for incredible feats of beer lifting strength.


I know that Werner Heisenberg – the famed Nazi sympathizer and Nazi physicist – first proposed the Uncertainty Principle back in 1929. I do not know who first came up with the idea for Oktoberfest – a 16-day festival revolving around beer and sausage – but whoever it was, their intellect rivaled that of the world’s greatest scientists, including Heisenberg. In fact, I’d argue that the dude who first proposed Oktoberfest was smarter than Heisenberg, or Niels Bohr, or Shaquille O’Neal.

I mean, it seems intuitive that it would be really tough to know the exact speed and location of some tiny-ass, super-fast little thing like an electron. But then again, the concept of Oktoberfest seems rather intuitive as well.



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Monday, August 10, 2009

The Mill's General Store

This recession won’t end. The economy keeps shrinking, and jobs continue to disappear. Fuel and food prices fluctuate, wages shrink. The flowers for our wedding are going to cost thousands.

In this economic environment, one needs to prepare for any eventuality. That’s why I’m making my own pickles.

I’ve been brewing my own beer for several months now – and it’s becoming rather drinkable after several tries. But humans cannot live on beer alone. I mean, you could probably survive for a month or two, but scurvy would inevitably set in – you’d lose your teeth, your hair, your fingernails. And although you might think it would be cool to tell girls that you’ve been living off of nothing but beer for the last two months, your lack of teeth, hair and fingernails, and the yellow pallor of your skin – from liver damage - would be a serious turn-off.

So you’ll also need to eat something else. And what else can you make at home that lasts a long long time? Besides beef jerky, which will probably be my next challenge? Of course, the answer is pickles.

Pickles are salty, delicious, preserved vegetables. I feel almost naughty eating them, because they’re delicious AND vegetables. Vegetables are supposed to taste like crap. Also, pickles are fat free, trans fat free, cholesterol free, and hormone free. They last forever in the fridge. They are a crowd pleaser. You can pickle nearly anything. Anything.

Pickles are magic.

And beer is also magic, for similar reasons. Plus beer makes you drunk. That’s why I now make my own pickles and my own beer – my own magic, if you will.

I am a wizard.



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Monday, May 18, 2009

BeerLab

Much like NASA’s Skylab paved the way for the Space Shuttle, and man’s inevitable mission to Mars, so too does my foray into the magical – and experimental – world of beer-making pave the way for fantastic beer-related journeys to the edges of the known brewing solar system.

Or something like that.

Yesterday, for the first time, I decided to brew a beer not from a specific recipe. It’s an amalgamation of various internet sources, my own wild imagination, and a fledgling knowledge of the most basic brewing techniques.

I’ll be lucky if it tastes as good as monkey piss – or some similar highly ammoniated yellow liquid. Of course, no matter what, it will be more refreshing than monkey piss – being that it’ll be served ice cold, rather than at or around monkey body temperature.

Anyway, I ordered a few pounds of various specialty grains (chocolate malt, oat malt, something else that looks like oat malt but I forget what it is) added some high-quality cocoa, some standard barley malt extract – and boiled it all together in a big ol’ pot with some hops and a whole lotta love. I’m going to add a bit of cranberry extract at bottling time – if this batch makes it that far – to create something truly of The Mill, by The Mill, and for The Mill.

The Mill’s Cranberry Oatmeal Chocolate Nasty and/or Tasty Stout.

Truly, I may have to drink all 50 bottles of the stuff myself.

I don’t really know if the proportions are correct. I’m not sure how strong it might end up being, or how long it will take to ferment. All I know is that the little yeasties are currently gorging themselves upon all the sugars I boiled up, producing a nice stream of bubbles out of the fermenter’s airlock.

It will be about a month before this stuff can even be considered ready for consumption. I think it will be either bitter as all get out – from adding WAY too much unsweetened cocoa – or not taste too terribly awful. There’s a 0.5% chance that it will actually be pretty good.

As I’ve always said, I’ll try anything once. And in that same spirit, my BeerLab is now officially open for business. What should I brew next?

Snickers Fruity Pebbles Porter?

Mutton Mint Chocolate Stout?

Cilantro Pumpkin Pie East River Water Ale?

I think each of those could really dazzle the taste buds. Look for it being drunk out of a jam jar, at a street corner near you.


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Monday, May 04, 2009

Breakfast in a Glass

I finished bottling my second batch of beer yesterday - a super-hoppy ale. Everything went smoothly – more so than the first try – and I’m pretty optimistic that this round will taste better as well. Of course, the omnipresent, latent fear of the bottles exploding in my cabinet still exists.

But I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. You see, if you bottle too early and the beer’s still fermenting, then the pressure in the bottles can grow so great, that you get a big fucking mess of broken glass and beer everywhere. At least, that’s the scientific explanation.

So now it’s on to planning my next brew. Now that I’m getting the hang of it – an assuming the bottles don’t explode – I’d like to try something a bit more complicated. Smoked Salmon Lager? Saag Paneer India Pale Ale? Pepperoni Parmesan Porter?

These are all great ideas. And would no doubt be delicious – even when sipped off floor through bits of broken bottle glass. But what about something a little more practical, and a little more revolutionary. A real category-buster, if you will.

The Breakfast Beer.

Fruity Pebbles Summer Ale. Bacon and Egg Brown Ale. Brown Sugar Cinnamon Oatmeal Stout. The list goes on and on. But the key ingredient that connects all of these delicious brews would be caffeine. Instead of your morning coffee, you could drink a few of these beers. In fact, they would truly be breakfast in a glass.

“Wake up your lazy ass. Have a breakfast in a glass.”

“When you’re too tired to chew, grab The Mill’s breakfast brew.”

“You’re an alcoholic, I fear. So start your day with breakfast beer.”

And so on and so forth. As you can see, the marketing initiative wouldn’t be a problem. Just add a catchy jingle to those rhymes – and James Earl Jones reading them - and you have yourself a great radio commercial. It’s practically guaranteed to sweep the nation.

Note: if you drive to work, you should limit yourself to three breakfast beers. But if you take the train, or carpool, then there’s no need to limit your intake. And so breakfast beer also encourages the use of mass transit, which limits the burning of fossil fuels, prevents global warming, and saves the world.

“Breakfast Beer: Saving the world one sweet sip at a time.”



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Monday, March 30, 2009

The Right Name for My Beer - Will It Taste Better?

So the beer is bottled. It wasn't a pretty operation, and I'm now anxiously awaiting the first exploding bottle.

My bottle-explosion paranoia is probably unfounded, as I checked to see if the beer was finished fermenting several times before bottling. The only problem is, I don't really know what I'm doing. Let's just cross our fingers and hope for no explosions, or only minor explosions.

As the beer ages for about 2 more weeks - turning ever more delicious minute by minute - the task becomes figuring out a name for my inaugural brew. My matriculation into homebrewing. My preliminary entry into the cold, frothy fold of beer making.

It's worthwhile to keep in mind that this first attempt may very well not taste very good. Personally, in the deepest, darkest recesses of my beer-soaked heart, I believe that people will be pleaseantly surprised when they taste it. Reactions will be, "Oh my. This isn't awful," and, "Aw hell, Mill, this actually tastes like beer. I could drink ten of these for breakfast," and perhaps, "I expected much, much worse. This is marginally drinkable, and doesn't seem to be poisoning me."

Any of those responses would be perfectly fine, as far as I'm concerned. But the real test, and the real challenge, is coming up with the perfect name for my brew. A cool-sounding name, that elicits strong emotions in the drinker could potentially make the beer taste much, much better. Or at the very least, make the drinker feel better about themselves - depending upon the individual, this is a monumental task.

So for the moment, I'm moving on from brewing, and into psychology. Here are a few ideas, ranging from standard and unimaginative, to elaborate and trademark infringement-y:

Mill Genuine Draft
Mill High Life
Mill Lite
The Mill's Master of Your Own Domain Brew
The Mill's Jewish Red Ale
The Mill's Quit Complaining, Keep Drinking Ale
The Mill's Zero Trans Fat Ale
The Mill's Barack Obama Presidential Beer
Kim Jong-il's Ballistic Missile Brew


Please let me know if you have any ideas, comments, or questions. If you come up with a good name, you'll get a free bottle of beer - pending federal, state, and local regulations. Must be 21 years old to legally drink beer. Beer cannot be shipped to PO boxes, or in regular envelopes - I've tried it before and it doesn't work.

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Monday, March 09, 2009

Hurtling Towards Homebrewing

As I mentioned before, Jaimi planned to get me a homebrew kit for my birthday. What a brilliant gift. I’ll soon have so much beer around the apartment, that I’ll be forced to pour it over my breakfast cereal, and bathe in it from time to time just to make sure the golden nectar doesn’t go to waste

Maybe you thought my fiancĂ©e would have second thoughts about this gift. How could it REALLY be a good idea to establish a nano-brewery in our kitchen? I don’t know. But that question is moot, because the beer-making equipment is already on its way. No turning back now. I’ll attempt my first homebrew this upcoming weekend – or at least that’ the plan.

Partly in preparation for my budding homebrew hobby, my good buddy Greg and I went the Philly Craft Beer Festival at the Philadelphia Navy Yards this past Saturday. We knew there would be a lot of breweries we’d never heard of, and we hoped to find some hidden gems.

There were some old familiars there, such as Blue Point, Stone Brewing, and Magic Hat. But out of the 50 breweries at the festival, I’d say at least half of them were previously unknown to us. Suffice it to say, I didn’t bring a notepad.

I remember Cricket Hill Brewery because I thought it was bad name for a beermaker – someone might mistakenly assume that they make pale ale infused with crushed cricket corpses. And there was Gritty’s Brewery, whose banner read, “Show us Your Gritty’s!” And Straub Beer, whose product was kinda bad, but they gave out free bottle openers – pretty much the only free swag we got all evening.

So, I’m not here to offer a full review of the festival. There were indeed a number of obscure craft breweries in attendance. And some of them offered some very good – if not terribly memorable – beers of various flavors and styles. There were even a few homebrewers there, who decided to show off their skills alongside the professional brewers.

I thought this was pretty cool. They weren’t there for the money – they couldn’t have been, because they weren’t selling anything. They were simply there to share their love of beer with thousands of other beer lovers.

It got me to thinking, what kind of unique and amazing beers will I soon be brewing? How will I make the world a better place through better beer? I haven’t learned all of the basics yet – I need the homebrew kit’s instructional DVD in order to get my learn on. But after I’ve made a few basic brews, I plan to graduate to the next level.

Here are a few uniquely flavorful ideas for The Mill’s Craft Nano-brewery. I don’t know if you can even add some of this stuff to beer without killing the yeast and/or creating a potentially poisonous mixture. But that’s what the experimentation process is all about.

Wasabi Mike and Ike Ale:
Classic pale ale infused with Japanese wasabi and shredded Mike and Ike candies.

Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Stout:
Truly, a breakfast in a glass.

Twizzler Lager:
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.

Smoky Bacon Brown Ale:
I don't know. Bacon-flavored beer? It could be amazing, or it could be undrinkable. I think this definitely warrants further research.



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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Homebrew - Preparing for a Lifelong Hobby

I talk about beer a lot. But it’s all talk – with a bit of drinking thrown in for good measure.

At long last, it’s time to put my money where my mouth, throat, stomach, and bladder are. Money will be going where the beer normally goes, so to speak. Especially during these times of economic uncertainty - when one never knows what the value of a dollar will be tomorrow – we must find other sources of stability, and of comfort.

Buy gold. That’s my advice to you. And stock your pantry with Tamiflu, spare ammunition, and plenty of Chunky soup - to prepare for any sort of potential catastrophe, whether it be economic, biological, or otherworldly. Just make sure your ass is covered.

But if you fail to do any of the above, just please heed my final piece of advice. Learn to brew your own beer. In these tough times, it’s as good as liquid gold. And far more digestible. And much less hot. And less shiny. But beer conducts electricity okay. But the similarities really end there.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to brew my own beer. The beer-making kit will be a birthday present from Jaimi – and it’s one that she’ll very likely regret buying. It’s messy and smelly. The fermenting chambers, and bottles take up a lot of space. And the final product makes people drunk and stupid – when handled irresponsibly. Also, the bottles could explode, the fermenter could burst. The beer could turn out bad, which might cause me to cry.

I don’t think Jaimi would want to see me cry.

So there are a lot of potential dangers associated with beer-making. That’s why I need to prepare carefully, and read all the proper procedures and best practices. For example, you should not dunk your hand into the boiling wort Wait until it cools to room temperature, and at that point also do not dunk your hand into it.


A typical homebrew set-up, which Jaimi doesn't realize will soon be taking up half of our living room. It will also smell really bad, and be potentially explosive.


A typical batch makes about 5 gallons of beer, or around two cases of 12 ounce bottles. That’s 48 beers. Be careful not to drink them all at once. That could make you very drunk, and worse, you might be too drunk to remember to turn the lights off before going to sleep – which will waste energy and thus add to our global warming problem.

So yes, brewing your own beer could make sea levels rise, and kill the polar bears. Brew with extreme caution.

But seriously, I’m a little uncomfortable with the concept of brewing up a big mess of beer, only to discover several weeks later that it’s nearly undrinkable. I probably wouldn’t actually cry, but I’m afraid that I’d convince myself that the bad beer WAS actually drinkable, and end up making myself very, very sick after only a dozen or so bottles.

Of course, as I enter the wonderful world of home brewing, I’ll take you along for what promises to be a wild adventure. A smelly, yeasty, malty, hoppy, intoxicating ride. So grab your floating thermometers and hop into my 5 gallon stainless steel brew kettle for a trip to Beerland. When the temperature reaches 200 degrees, it’s time to add the hops – and to get the hell out of the kettle unless you want to be boiled alive.


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Monday, September 15, 2008

NY Brewfest 2008 - Plenty of Port-a-Potties

Beer festivals are absolutely fantastic, in theory. The idea - you get to choose from hundreds of different beers and try any and all that you like as many times as you want - from your very own 4 oz. souvenir glass.

Ideally, bathrooms would be plentiful, the selection of beers would be impressive, crowds would be thin and courteous, and the venue would not smell like urine. And finally, that venue would protect you from Mother Nature's fickleness.

The NY Brewfest - at South Street Seaport this past Friday - succeeded on 2 out of the 5 criteria above.

I've only been to one other true beer festival - TAP New York 2007 at Hunter Mountain - and although there weren't any children in strollers at the NY Brewfest, both festivals were similar in many respects:

a) Impossible to get your money's worth - entrance fee for both was around 50 bucks. You'll try your best, by downing as many samples as possible, but you'll never be able to down 200 samples.

b) Meatheads, frat boys, and sorority chicks flock to these events to get "wasted" on "the new Michelob malt liquor" or "that fuckin' awesome Creme Brulee Stout." Seriously though, Southern Tier Brewery had a creme brulee beer that tasted like dessert. It was a little nasty. And the crowd was going buckwild for it.

c) They allow way too many people into the event. It's hard to move around. You have to wait in line for the better beers. The bathrooms are crowded. I'd rather pay a higher entrance fee, and be able to move about more freely.

Specifically, the NY Brewfest had a few more issues worth noting.

First off, there was no food included in the entry price. Spanky's BBQ was there, slinging hot dogs and pulled pork, but you had to pay extra for it. They should have at least offered some pretzels or bread - anything to soak up the alcohol. Without food in their stomachs, meatheads get very drunk, very fast.

Secondly, it rained like a bitch all night long. 80% of the festival was out in open on piers 16 and 17. The beer vendors themselves were under tents, but there was very little covered space. 20% of the festival remained warm and dry under the ominous overpass of the FDR Expressway. This area was totally packed and impossible to walk through. Next time, hold it in the Javits Center. Or the Met.

Third, and on the bright side, there were more than enough portable toilets for everyone. You had to wait in short lines near the crowded part of the festival, but if you walked towards the area with the Polish beer that nobody wanted to drink, then you could quickly find a place to piss.

And finally - and most perplexing - I had one of the most wicked hangover headaches on Saturday after drinking a total of maybe 5 or 6 beers of the course of 3.5 hours. Normally, that amount of beer would not cause such a severe reaction, and in fact, I would barely even feel it the next day. I know my limits. But for some reason, both me and my brewfest playdate Greg felt horrible the following day - as I discovered when we met up to drink more beer and watch football yesterday. We both marveled at the intensity of our hangovers from the Friday festival.

Could it be that they didn't clean the taps and lines from last year? Or maybe they cleaned them too well, and left a good amount of bleach in the dispensing equipment? Did Dogfish Head slip a little antifreeze into their Festina Peche Ale?

I don't know - and now that my liver has processed whatever toxins I consumed on Friday, we'll probably never know the answer. And so the question goes out to all others who joined in this event: Did you feel like shit on Saturday?

Would love to hear your thoughts.


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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Not Quite Ready For Some Football

The NFL season is upon us. It's official. I’m not joking. It's really here.

It seems like just yesterday that we were celebrating LaDainian Tomlinson’s speed, Tom Brady’s chin dimple, and Michael Strahan’s strength (and child support payments).

Well….they’re back - except for Strahan.

And I feel a bit unprepared.

Fantasy football draft preparation is one thing. You can read up on the latest injury news, analysis of the pre-season position battles, rookie forecasts, and all the rest. That’s the easy part. With just a few 12-hour days of focused study, you can easily get yourself ready for the draft.

But what about the real-world NFL season? It’s a grueling 17 week journey. Sunday in, and Sunday out for 4 straight months. 1pm to 11pm every week.

And don’t dare forget about the Monday night games, and those strange and confusing late-season Wednesday, Thursday, Friday night games on that unavailable cable station. Then they’ll throw in one or two Saturday games just to make sure your entire weekend is booked.

You’ll have to watch them all - not out of necessity, but because any football game is the ultimate excuse to drink beer during the day. It cannot be frowned upon by even the most draconian teetotalers in your social circle.

You will drink your beer, and they will just have to deal with it. End of story.

But NFL season is also the time when men join other men in each other’s apartments to watch sweaty, well-muscled men in tight pants chase each other all over the playing field. And then they grapple. And then they tackle. And then they roll around on the ground for a while.

It's physically and emotionally draining. 17 straight weeks of drinking and watching, watching and drinking. Beer and touchdowns. Beer and interceptions. Beer and cheerleaders. Beer and John Madden.

It's exhausting. I think I need my own preseason preparation. I'm not in game shape just yet. I need to train as hard as possible over the next 8 days to get ready for the season opener next Thursday.

I believe I can do it. I can overcome adversity - just like Bengals receiver Chris Henry has overcome being kicked off the team, several trips to jail, multiple league suspensions, and the urge to bring his gun to the stadium each and every game day, only to be asked back by the team to play again this season.

Go Bengals!! That's what I call integrity.

Anyway, bottom line:

The NFL season is a time to drink beer during the day and watch men pummel each other into oblivion on every single play. It's the best time of year. Get yourself ready.


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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Lake Placid Recap

Jaimi and I returned from our Lake Placid, NY mini-vacation on Sunday evening.

I had never been to the LP before. Here are a few things I learned while on the trip – about Lake Placid, and about life in general:

- “Lake Placid,” the 1999 Bill Pullman/Bridget Fonda blockbuster about some kind of monstrous alligator, was set in Lake Placid, FL, not Lake Placid, NY. This was incredibly disappointing for me. I never saw the movie, and it supposedly really, really, really sucked. But still, I had hoped to wrangle me one of them huge-ass alligators and have it stuffed by the local taxidermist.

- Lake Placid has some of the slowest drivers on the planet. They’re not bad drivers, necessarily. They’re just very, very, very slow. Like 20 mph in a 35 slow. It made my blood boil - literally. Which gave me a headache, and left me badly dehydrated.

- Lake Placid has very good beer. There are two decent brewpubs there – Lake Placid Brewpub and The Great Adirondack Brewing Co. Good beer. Below average food. Stick with the liquid diet if your constitution can handle it. Great smoked porter at the Great Adirondack place. Excellent English red ale called “Ubu Ale” at Lake Placid Brewpub.



Enjoying a miniature glass of some very light-looking beer. The thin mountain air left me drunk after 3 or 4 sips.


- Hiking is hard. I was out of breath after a few minutes of traversing a “moderate” difficulty trail. The path looked like the boulder-strewn mountains of Mordor. Except with more boulders and less fire. There was nothing moderate about it. I can only imagine what an “advanced” or “difficult” trail would be like. I picture a lot of quicksand, and many sheer cliffs. Also, some angry natives.


I find our precise location by triangulating the angle of incidence of sunlight, current time in China, and pointing in a random direction. In the end, we just followed the path.


Pretty sure we weren't supposed to eat these. Oh well. The convulsions stopped after a day or two. Or three.


A serene mountain lake. What evil lurks beneath?


- Driving is better than hiking. We drove to the top of Whiteface Mountain - and no, there is no Black face Mountain, you racist jerk. At nearly 5,000 feet, the view from the top was spectacular. It was SO much easier than climbing to the summit on foot. Hell, it was easier than running a 12-minute mile downhill with a tailwind.


Whiteface on Whiteface.



Lake Placid in the distance. I tried, but could not skip a stone from here.


- Battlestar Galactica, Season 3 totally rocks. During our downtime, we watched a few episodes (8 to be exact) of Battlestar on DVD. The action doesn’t quit during the 3rd season, and neither does my enthusiasm for this show.

- Work is good, but vacation is better. Also, as a corollary, time off from work is good, but 3 days of vacation (and 2 days of driving) is not nearly enough. We really only had 3 full days up in the LP. It wasn’t enough. I guess we’ll have to go back soon!


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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Whole Foods - A Fantasy Food Land

Whole Foods - a true marvel of modern American society. The birthplace of the organic grocery movement, and the home of the sixty-dollar single grocery bag purchase.

I recently visited the SoHo store, at Houston and Bowery, for maybe the tenth time. But it was the first time that I was able to locate the Whole Foods beer store.

It’s an entire wing dedicated to so many of the finest beers in the world. The selection is dizzying. Hundreds upon hundreds of beers you’ve never heard if, and never tried before.


This is, like, 1% of the overall beer selection at Whole Foods. It's ricockulous.


I was like a kid in a beer store.

Plus, you can get yourself a growler, and fill it up with the fresh draft beer of your choice. They usually have 5 or 6 taps to choose from.

Sweet beer flowing from six sparkling, splendid fountains, amidst a microbrewed garden of luminously labeled brown bottles. Simply amazing.

At first, I thought I was dreaming. Then I assumed I had died and gone to heaven. Finally, when the total came to $38 - for a six-pack and a growler - I knew I was in New York City.

But still, I can’t get enough of this place. And not just for the beer, although that’s definitely a highlight.

The cheese. The prepared foods. The deli. The fruits and vegetables. The seafood. The incredible selection of fresh birds’ eggs - ostrich, quail, duck, pheasant, squirrel, etc.


The floor is cleaner than your face after a spa beauty treatment.


Quite simply, there’s no other place like it. And the advertisements don’t do it justice. They don’t convey the true Whole Foods message.

So here’s my attempt to rectify that advertising shortfall.


- The Mill’s Top 5 Whole Foods Slogans of 2008 -

Whole Foods: “The epitome of conspicuous consumption.”

Whole Foods: “Sticking it in the eye of second and third-world nations.”

“One pound kobe beef filet - $87.95. Ostrich egg and white truffles - $95.50. Breast of California Condor - $175.99. Being able to buy all of this overtly decadent food in one fabulous store – priceless.”

Whole Foods: “If you don’t know the definitions of “free-range,” “organic,” and “line-caught,” don’t even bother.”

Whole Foods: “We got more gourmet cheeses than the Bible’s got psalms.”


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Monday, June 23, 2008

High Gas Prices Means Less Beer?

High gas prices – they totally blow, right?

Well, my car gets about 35 mpg, so I don’t really care too much. But even so, I can imagine how those of you with personal tractor trailers or 18 passenger vans could be well injured by the skyrocketing prices – if you drive more than 200 miles every day, that is.

Think about it. If gas were 1 or 2 dollars less per gallon, how much money would you really save on a weekly or monthly basis?

Allow me to use myself as an example.

I drive 40 miles to work each way, an average of 4 days per week. That’s 320 miles per week. Account for the occasional 5 mile ride to Costco, a 12 mile trip to the Bronx to stock up on some crack (just kidding Mom!), and the already planned 2 AM joy ride down the Jersey Turnpike when the Phillies win the World Series this year – and we’re looking at less than 350 miles per week.

That’s 10 gallons in gas – about 45 bucks at today’s prices. No doubt about it, this $4.50/gallon gas most definitely sucks. But last year at this time, I still would have paid about 30 bucks per week for gas.

Is that extra $15 per week really keeping me from doing all the amazing things I was able to do last year – such as driving my 8 mpg Ferrari from Maine to Miami every weekend, while feeding Dom Perignon to $1200/hour hookers, wearing nothing but kobe beef bras and solid platinum hot pants? (To be clear, that’s what I’m wearing, not the hookers.)

Don’t be ridiculous. Kobe beef is super-expensive no matter what the price of oil.

But seriously, I understand the frustration that comes with soaring gas prices. I fill up at least once a week.

My point being, is this really the worst of our problems? Or is it an excuse to complain, and divert our attention from the real problems associated with the looming energy crisis.

Let me help put things in perspective.

It's been all over the news lately - at least the news that I read. And my greatest fear is becoming a reality. Beer prices are on the rise, and will continue to rise as long as the cost to transport beer's main ingredients - barley and hops and magical goodness - keeps going up.

And since grains, hops and magic all travel by truck, that means gas prices will continue to hit me directly where it really fucking hurts - my beer budget.

The only answer? Grow your own hops and barley on the roof, and brew beer in your basement or bathtub.

This, my friends, is how best to tackle the oil/beer crisis of 2008.


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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Ripped Off At The Tap

It turns out that your favorite pub may be committing the worst of all possible crimes known to man – cheating you out of a small amount of your beer.

That’s right, according to this article.

I won't make you read the whole thing on your own. They use some big, multisyllabic words like "bartender," and "profitability." So here's the gist: An increasing number of barkeeps are cheating their customers out of at least 2 ounces of precious, disease-curing, life-sustaining beer per serving.

How do they do it?

More foam? No. That would be too obvious.

Dilute the beer with water or rubbing alcohol? No. Too obviously offensive to the taste buds, unless you’re used to drinking Olde English.

Magic joke pint glasses that appear normal but are actually slightly smaller than normal? Well, yes. That’s exactly what they do. Except it’s no joke. And the magic involved rests in the fact that the bottom of the glass is thicker than normal, thus making the volume of the glass slightly smaller.

I guess that’s not really magic at all. It’s really nothing more than a dirty little trick.

Anyway, the only surefire way to avoid this is to bring your own glass to the bar - which is what I recommend. You can keep it handy in your fanny pack or man purse.

If anyone mocks you for carrying a fanny pack or a man purse into that bar, explain to them that it’s the only way you can defeat tyranny and defend the Beer Drinker's Bill of Rights. And proceed to rant about how these beer criminals must be stopped immediately.

Shout about your sorrow over the injustice of an absolutely full pint of beer not ending up in the stomach of its rightful owner. And stand up on the table, stomp your feet, and scream at the top of your lungs, "A PINT IS 16 OUNCES, UNLESS THE BAR IS GOVERNED BY ABSOLUTE EVIL - AND THEN IT'S 14 OUNCES....LET'S GO FLIP OVER SOME COP CARS!!"

Then just grit your teeth, close your eyes, and prepare to be tased.


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Monday, May 26, 2008

Never Too Sick For Beer

A little under the weather, but well enough to go on a brewery tour.

Jaimi and I visited Brooklyn Brewery this past weekend. It’s a well-loved microbrewery mere miles from our apartment. I’ve wanted to swing by and take a tour for quite a while. So although I’ve been coughing, sneezing, and generally hacking like a chainsaw, it seemed like the perfect day for a beer outing.

Jaimi doesn’t like beer. She never drinks the stuff - calls it unappetizing, bitter, “sorta nasty,” and all other kinds of names that would hurt beer’s feelings very, very much. So I won’t print them here.

But despite her natural aversion to beer - a highly-caloric, intoxicating, judgment-demolishing beverage often associated with frat boys and rowdy sports fans – she still made the suggestion that we visit the brewery.

It was pretty much the best idea I’d heard since Apple Computer stole the idea for the iPod from me.

Anyway, I was excited that she made the suggestion in the first place. And it promised to be quite an adventure – take the F train to the G train to the street to the brewery to the cup in my hand to the beer on my lips to the beer in my stomach to the urine in the appropriate receptacle.

Our quest was clear. The path was Mapquested (or Google Mapped) and we were on our way.

That’s most of the story right there. We made it to the brewery with plenty of time to spare before the last tour of the day. They have a nice, spacious beer room there, with 8 varieties on tap. I asked if I could bring a beer with me on the tour. They laughed – the answer was clear.


Beer selection at the on site beer tasting facility. 40 minutes didn't give me quite enough time to try all 8 varieties. I only had 6.


The tour began with a visit to the brewing room – a large cathedral-like space with about 6 or 7 giant stainless steel containers along the walls. These silver monsters, I would soon learn, are what hold the beer as it ferments.


That thing behind me has something to do with beer. Or it's where babies come from. The tour guide was speakng so fast.


The tour began with a brief history of the Brooklyn Brewery – who, when, why, etc. We learned that the guy who designed the logo for the brewery, is the same fine gentleman who came up with the iconic “I Love New York logo” – Milton Glaser. He did the work for a small equity stake in the company, along with a guaranteed lifetime supply of beer. Perhaps the best business deal ever struck.

After that, we learned a little bit about which canisters held what, and for how long. The place was closing early that day because of a private event, and it seemed clear that the tour guide – although very knowledgeable and enthusiastic – was hurrying things along a bit.

That was basically the end of the tour. But I still had 40 minutes left to drink beer.

As I sipped a nice Brooklyn Weisse, my cough began to calm, and my headache melted like a polar ice cap. What a fine visit to the brewery, indeed. And despite the abbreviated tour, I'm a big fan of Brooklyn Brewery. They really make some top notch stuff.


From the first cool sip, all parasites and invading microorganisms in my body are summarily executed by this flavorful India Pale Ale.


I learned two very important lessons from this trip to Brooklyn Brewery.

1) Jaimi is a selfless angel.
2) Beer cures headaches, coughs, and probably cancer.

What a marvelous pair of valuable lessons.

What did you learn this past weekend?

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

Unleavened Weekend - No Beer, No Bread, No Fun

Passover - the Jewish holiday which celebrates the Israelites' escape from Egyptian bondage.

It's a yearly celebration of the first degree - one of the most important times of the year for Jews, who often travel many, many miles along the New Jersey Turnpike to join their family and friends for the holiday.

For such a fantastic celebration, it seems like we should be able to have a beer with dinner.

Please God, gimme a break. I sat in traffic for 3 and a half hours this Saturday, trying to get to the Seder. And all I wanted when I arrived was a cold, yeasty, brew.

But alas, during Passover, Jews are forbidden from eating most grains, and anything with leavening. So no beer, whiskey, or Twinkies.

It's a way for us to give a little shout-out to Moses and the rest of the forefathers (and fore-bubbies) who didn't have time to let their bread rise, as they escaped from Pharaoh and his gang of meanies.

They suffered a lot back in the day, for years and years - at the hands of the Pharaoh, and then for 40 years in the desert. The least we can do is suffer a little bit by not eating bread or pasta for 8 days.

But still, back to the no-beer thing. It would seem to me that, after thousands of years of Passover celebrations, some inventive Jew would have come up with a way to make Kosher for Passover beer.

And whenever I need to quickly find an absolutely definitive answer to something I know little about, I checked Google. The search was simply, "Kosher for Passover beer," and I was not terribly surprised to find very few relevant results.

Apparently, a brewery in upstate New York called Ramapo Valley Brewery is the only damn brewery in the whole damn world that has even tried to make a beer for Passover. It's called the Passover Honey Lager. It doesn't sound very good, but I'd be more than happy to give it a try. It approximates real beer by using honey, molasses, and hops in the brew. No barley, wheat or other grains are used.

If anyone's actually tried this stuff please let me know.

Everyone knows the story of Moses parting the Red Sea. The plagues of locusts, vermin, and cattle disease. The smiting of the first born. The Nile transmogrifying into blood. And many other fun, wholesome, and hilarious stories of Passover.

Pharaoh was such a jerk for first enslaving my ancestors, then telling them they could go free, and then changing his mind at the last minute and chasing after them with his army.

I will never forgive him.

If only he had given the Israelites a little more time to let their bread rise, then I could be having a beer right now.

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Thursday, March 27, 2008

For The Love Of Beer

Some people dream of saving the world, or of curing a deadly disease.

Others imagine themselves pitching a no-hitter in the 7th game of the World Series, or tossing a last-second Hail Mary on 4th down to win the Super Bowl.

And some envision themselves as President of the United States, leading our military in the war on global warming, and enacting tax credits and other incentives to decrease terrorism. Or vice versa.

As for myself, I don’t have any plans that are - arguably - as grand as those listed above. But I do have my own special hopes and dreams.

1) Win the lottery
2) Open a microbrewery

One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other, mind you. For example, if I were to win the lottery, there’s a very good chance that I’d blow all the dough on stupid shit like jet skis, private planes, trips to Vegas, expensive booze, purebred dogs, Ferraris, Porsches, bling, and health insurance.

So there’d be nothing left with which to build a beer business.

Also, I suppose it may be possible for me to open a microbrewery without winning the lottery. But I haven’t quite figured out how that would work.

Where there’s a will there’s a way – as Jerry Falwell and other reverendy guys always say.

And just like Falwell and his fellow fundamentalists, before I start making plans for any microbrew, I need to ask myself – “WHAT WOULD JESUS BREW?”

Jesus would probably brew the most delicious beer in the history of beer-making. It would be hoppy (but not too hoppy), slightly fruity, and have a hint of malt, with a beautiful amber color. The alcohol content would be right around 5%, so you could have a few during the game and then drive home, no problem. Jesus thinks of everything.

But I am not Jesus. That’s for certain. I don’t have nearly as much confidence in my own beer-making abilities.

Despite not being good at making it, I love beer – and not because it makes people fat, drunk, and more stupider. Rather, I love it because of its amazing variety of styles, flavors, and subtleties. The available assortment is astounding.

I could drink a different beer every day for the rest of my life, and not come close to tasting all the different ones out there. Hell, I could probably have six beers every single day and not try them all. And no, I’m not challenging you to test this assertion. Although if you do attempt to taste every beer known to man, please tell me about some of your favorites.

What would I name my microbrew?

- The Mill’s Microbrewery?

- 0% Urine Guaranteed?

- Mill’s Magnificent Malted Barley Brew?

- Millweiser

What do you think?

Well you see, that’s the great thing about owning a microbrewery. You can make as many different kinds of beer as you like. And name them whatever you like, so long as you’re not violating anyone’s trademark or copyright - and as long as the bottles contain mostly beer.



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Monday, October 22, 2007

Ode To Beer: Redux

The crackling cap lifts from the lip.

A sizzling slide of golden amber.

Suds down the side of a fancy glass.

So cold. Fresh. Bitter. Smooth.

A biting cold. A sprinkle of snow down your neck.

Excuse me miss, how old are you?

Twenty-two, yet still with braces.

And only four foot ten.

But yet, this card says your age. And says it all.

I see here you’re from Maine.

The land of 10,000 lakes.

Or something like that.

I haven’t a clue.

Ten beers gone by.

Like a bygone high school daze.

In the dark dank alleyway.

No smoking inside. It’s the law.

What say you Officer?

Yes, she’s with me.

A fake? Who’s a fake?

What’s a fake?

Fake this! A flight to safety!

But no.

Too slow.

The blunt cold concrete.

The faint essence of urine.

It’s all you sense. With a knee in your back.

Suspect immobilized.

The pain is dull. A throbbing dread.

She’s talking to the cop.

He’s taking notes.

Thank you beer.


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