Entry tags:
To Dream of Beer
Interesting dream last night. After 81 days without beer, I dreamed I drank half a Bud Light, and turned into Barry Badrinath from Beerfest.
I was once again suave and magnificent.
Alas.
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I ♥ Beer
I'm not entirely sure the far-reaching implications of not drinking beer has fully resonated with me yet. I mean, there's the obvious ones, 2000 calories a day and $400 a month saved - awesome deficits to have to be sure. But I was an otherwise very responsible drinker, always drinking around my children's schedule; picking them up, dropping them off, and ferrying them here and there. So the most obvious question staring me back in the face was, "What do I do now?"
I had a lot of time to fill that I would normally fill drinking, and since drinking doesn't lend itself to coexisting with many activities, I was in a bit of a slump. When drinking this past year - because I don't watch much television - I would often throw darts in the garage or play video games, both of which seemed rather dull without the brightness turned all the way up. So, I started working out. Cardio and weights every day for a month. I just added yoga.
So I am consuming far fewer calories, saving a shitload of cash, and working out because I have a lot of time I don't know how to spend. There's one more thing - gout. The effects of excessive drinking are finally beginning to subside. But its not all rainbows and unicorns. There's a dark side to not drinking. My social life has tanked. No more get-togethers with the neighbors and no more seeing my favorite beer store girl. I'm also not sleeping as well, and this one has been the most notable. Beer is such a soothing elixir, that without causes me to toss and turn and lay awake most nights.
The silver lining to being a social pariah who cannot sleep is all the extra time spent meeting and playing with new females, and that's an activity I can really get behind.
Welcome to 2015.
Active Recreation
After the long days of the past two weeks, I decided to get back to some active recreation - throwing darts and drinking beer in the garage. I invited my neighbor, who showed up with a mutual acquaintance, and we got started in earnest. As we were the most active corner in the neighborhood after nightfall, people started coming and going and we were at about 10 people at one point, all throwing darts, drinking craft beers, and listening to music - mostly 80s metal.
And after two full weeks of non-drinking, I made up for it in volume. I'd picked up a 12-pack Goose Island sampler, the 12-pack Shiner Family Reunion, and a 12-pack Best of Belgium (Hoegaarden, Stella, and Leffe). The neighbor brought three six packs, one of which I'd not had before, the delightfully rich and smooth New Belgium Abbey Dubbel.
The next day I ground into powder the fresh basil
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But just in case we drank down too much of the cooler, I augmented it with a beer the beautiful and engaging local wench couldn't stop talking about, Lagunitas. I picked up one six of each; an IPA, a Fractional (whatever that means) IPA, and a Pale Wheat Ale.
Then played GT5 on and off all day Sunday, as I wanted to be anywhere but my office.

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The Beer Fairy Cometh

Gave away even more beer this year, and found some new offerings in cans as well to share this time around. See the "Old Chub"
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Only thing missing was canned Shiner :(
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Bootleggin'

Loaded up and truckin' just watch ol' Bandit run!
During my May foray into Texas, I brought back only the essentials. Specifically, four cases of Shiner White Wing. I was growing weary of the local Kansas liquor stores running dry; a lesson I'll think about repeating again when its once again time for Holiday Cheer.
As I am surrounded by Texans in this bedroom Mennonite town, I did share my haul.
Happy 4th of July, ya'll!
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Not the Only Beer Fairy in Town
I am forever known as the neighborhood "Beer Fairy" to this day after rolling around a wheeled cooler filled with beer passing them out last 4th of July and again the following Halloween. Then there was this guy who delivered a 12-pack of Lone Star last Thanksgiving.
While I was in the garage working on the Dyson and drinking The Best Beer in the United States of America, my neighbors across the street came home. I excitedly hailed them and handed each of them a Shiner White Wing. I explained, "I have been around the world, drinking the best beers each country has had to offer. The U.S. has always paled in comparison. Until now. Shiner White Wing is the best American beer I have ever had." They cracked them open right there in the driveway and upended them, and just like the video from "Beerfest" their faces lit up as a supernatural light from heaven illuminated their weeping faces.
Then, two days later, as I was leaving the house to drop off a Shiner White Wing to another neighbor, I find a box of twenty beers on my porch, and my neighbor from across the street explaining, "We went to our friends house and I told him about the beer you brought over, and he had to get rid of a whole lot of beer from his last party, so I split them with you."
I hugged him.
7x Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy
2x Leinenkugel's Snowdrift Vanilla Porter
3x Budweiser Black Crown
2x Boulevard Pale Ale
2x Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat
1x Samual Adams Chocolate Bock
1x Samual Adams Blueberry Hill Lager
1x Samual Adams Little White Rye
1x Abita Turbodog
Entry tags:
Adjuma
Adjuma came into our dorm rooms and emptied our trashcans every Saturday morning in Korea. Each floor of the dormitory had its own large, wheeled tilt hopper which adjuma would roll down the long hallway emptying individual trash cans into.
Invariably, ours was always filled-to-overflowing with cheap OB (Oriental Brewery) beer bottles - which made a horrendous racket when dumped in the echos of the hallways - and rousing even the heaviest of drinkers in the early morning.
I hadn't thought about that in a long, long time.
Since I bought the bike I've been riding in the mornings after the kids get on the school bus before work.
I have been reserving my beer-drinking for when the kids are gone for the weekend with their grandmother, or staying at a friends house. A side effect of the children being gone is a much slower trash accumulation rate. Normally, I roll the trash and recycle out once a month, and with the kids being gone or otherwise engaged nearly every weekend in April, the only thing in the recycle bin was beer bottles. I estimate about 72.
So when I was standing outside getting ready to mount up and the robotic arm of the recycle truck upended the contents of said bin into its metal hopper and the unmistakable eruption of morning-after beer bottles came crashing down with a concussion that echoed throughout the neighborhood?
I'll admit to feeling a touch of chagrin right before I laughed aloud at the memory.
Entry tags:
The Best Beer in the United States of America
I have been around the world, drinking the best beers each country has had to offer.
The U.S. has always paled in comparison.
Until now.
Shiner White Wing is the best American beer I have ever had.
:43
Calm Focus
The Human Condition is a fascinating thing. After not drinking for eight months, I drank every single day for four. (As an aside, what a wonderful, wonderful four months it was!) At some point however, after Christmas and before New Year, I stopped drinking again altogether - it simply wasn't working for me - and stopping I believe, is responsible for the seriously weirded out dreams I've been having here lately - uncovering an über-surreal reality. Go me.
Additionally, I ran out of blood pressure medication sometime after my birthday and before Christmas. I was hyper-aware of being out of meds, drinking, and not-exercising (I have some sort of silly correlation which prevents me from working out when I drink daily or something). I also decided the whole ace inhibitor thing was absolutely not working for me - it was damaging my calm - so I asked my doctor to put me back on the beta blocker, citing the above, which he not only agreed with, but also acknowledged by putting me on a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor and suggesting I chew nicotine gum. In his defense, I admitted I was thinking about chewing tobacco again, and while he supported rotating dopamine substitutions as a rule, wasn't entirely keen on smokeless tobacco, so I'm giving that a try. The funny thing about nicotine gum is in the instructions - they're written entirely from a cessation point of view, up to and including quitting the gum; not a word about beginners starting to chew nicotine gum for my specific purposes.
Despite all that craziness above, which should have adversely affected my health, my BP never got above 130/80. He therefore cut my previous prescription by three-quarters. Whatever life-changes I've gone through have apparently been notably stress reducing. Numbers don't lie. I'm basically on a 1/4 maintenance dose until I lose weight.
Were I depressed, the norepinephrine-dopamine-reuptake inhibitor would take weeks for me to notice. As I'm not, I'm expecting results in about a day. Given my history of being fanatically self-aware, I'll be sure to detail all the fascination here xD
HALLOWEEN 2013
Had an absolute blast last night. As soon as I signed off work I readied the "Candy Deployment Area" with a comfy high-tensile folding camping armchair, a footlocker as a table holding a freaking vat of almost 1000 pieces of candy ("mini" versions of the popular candy bars as well as enough Smarties for every kid to huff - its what kids these days are doing with them - crushing, then huffing them), a decorative pumpkin, far too-bright LED rope light across the entire brick-rail of the porch, and a cooler with cans of things like Guinness, Stella, Smithwick, Tecate, Heineken, Modelo and the like. Not that I sat. I stood there grinning from ear-to-ear passing out candy like a retard.
I had the front door open and my spooky mixes playing (by the way, matching the tremolo from The Walking Dead as a segue into Downton Abbey...? Yeah, NOT spooky. That was my bad. I will likely remaster the mix without it and re-upload). I was shocked at how many kids told me I had a nice house after peering inside. I also discovered all the kids, no matter how young or how old appreciated me knowing who/what they were dressed as. They were all genuinely thankful. As dusk fell and night drew on, key neighbors who had been coordinated with ahead of time stopped by to partake from the cooler, including some neighbors who'd moved away recently but returned for Halloween. It was particularly nice since I don't really socialize much, the last time being with these same neighbors on the Fourth.
Lastly, since I'd intended to take a pic of my awesome set-up but failed to, here's the picture I submitted to
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Entry tags:
Where Our Antagonist Fails Yet Again
Who among us could ever forget the lesson of Delorean, who at the suggestion of penetrative intercourse over text replied, "Absolutely! Who is this?" Apparently me, who received an obviously mistaken text invitation for a 4th of July bash which stated, "We'll provide the meat just bring a side dish!" to which I replied:
Is beer considered a side dish? If so, I'll be there! BTW, who is this?
Outside of dinner with my Grandfather-in-Law Bill, I didn't seek out plans for the 4th. I surely have plans now. Turns out I was NOT a mistaken recipient - the text was from the mother of one of my daughter's friends - who took my glib reply as an R.S.V.P.
So after a short but acute bought of 300.23 (nods to
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Two notable mentions here - I bought a wheeled cooler for Bill's family reunion, and this beerfest is taking place within walking distance of my house. What could go wrong?

Entry tags:
Congruency
I didn't drink for 8-months. Nor did I work out.
Now I seem to be making up for both.
Problem is, the two aren't exactly congruent :/
Entry tags:
What I Like
Know what I like?
Source: google.com via Eric on Pinterest |
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Elephant
Sometimes there's an elephant in the room no one wants to tackle directly. Labor Day weekend there were six. I grabbed the elephant by the tusks, so to speak, and laid that formality to rest, one at a time. It was during one of our frequent trips to Wichita when I stopped at my favorite world-beer store and asked one of the very knowledgeable staff if they could think of a crisp lager that had an "ZOMG!punch" to it. I wasn't in the mood for a heavy or dark beer at the time, yet I wanted something more powerful than flavorful. He suggested Carlsberg Elephant and within each bottle I found both.
I hadn't seen it since.
Until Labor Day weekend, here at Newton Discount Liquor.
When there's so much to say, but no one to listen, talk to the elephant in the room.

Back in Germany on a Phototour with
schpydurx
Watched the Season 4 Supernatural episode "Sex & Violence" about a modern-day Siren last night before going to bed and dreaming I was back in Germany - Wiesbaden to be specific. The location may be because I plan on photographing two Churches my next trip - one of which can be found on the 50 Most Extraordinary Churches of the World (#24) and while perusing the site I ran across another I had previously blogged about (#30 on that list). This also accounts for the activity & the girl. As for Tomas' involvement, I cannot say.
Here we go:
I was visiting
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Tomas was at work - I don't remember actually ever seeing him, though we spoke often throughout the day in planning our evening activities once he got off work. At one point I decided I needed a smaller tripod, and I was rummaging around the top shelf of the closet where Tomas kept his gear, and that's when I saw it: The Nikon D-80! The largest, heaviest, most expensive Nikon on the market. It couldn't even use existing lenses because its lens-mount was twice the diameter of average DSLRs to house its enormous image sensor. He had several very nice, interestingly configurable tripods - some of which I wasn't even familiar with. I grabbed the smallest, hand-sized tripod normally used for photographing close-ups. I was going to use the minuscule tripod to photograph the tree from sidewalk-level, pointing up - to capture its immense beauty - just like the tree that was created from Anna's Grace in the Season 4 Supernatural episode "Heaven & Hell."
The girl was more and more alluring. It felt like I knew her, like I'd always known her. I wanted to be with her, forever. I was very excited for Tomas to get off work so we could all hang out. He was excited too. I wanted to got out and pick up a half-liter 4-pack of canned Koenig Pilsener. Real, unpasteurized German beer. I walked out of the apartment with the girl on my arm. She asked which route I wanted to take and because I remembered the street names and their directions, I told her. It was a beautiful day out, a little gray, but not cold. The dark green wooden kiosk was the only peddler on the corner of the block of the magnificent tree and reminded me of the Vietnam Vet who sets up shop outside the Lincoln Memorial.
The beer was a surprising £13.99! Nearly $26 U.S. I reached into my pockets with fingerless woolen gloves...and awoke. I awoke with the ache of the girl who's name I didn't know, but perhaps more importantly, an unquenchable desire for some great Germany brewski.
Its been far, far too long.
Wall Of Pride

7 Years
4 Continents
10 Countries
122 Bars
Growing up in Texas allowed me to drink beer and wine before the age of 21 if was with a parent. Dining out always afforded me a glass of wine with dinner, and later, beer - a right my wife and I enjoy exercising with our own children. My parents mostly drank red wine, so before I was even a teenager I was familiar with the differences in burgundy, merlot, and lambrusco, but it wasn't until Germany that my eyes were opened to truly magnificent white wines: Spätlese, auslese & kabinett as well as icewein. I was in wine country, situated on the Rhinegau area of Weisbaden where the majority of the wine I drank came from. I was astounded that I could get the best wine I've ever had for DM2,50 (about $5) a bottle. I bought cases at a time. This was the time in my life where I could pick out any one of Verdi or Puccini's operas as well as identify which movement of which Beethoven symphony after only a moment with them. I spent quiet weekends in my dorm room reading the classics, drinking wine, and listening to classical music. An occasional trip to nearby Mainz on the Main River yielded equally as delicious, if not different tasting wine - Rhinehessen & Rheinpfalz. Toward the end of my tour there, I went around collecting varying vintages from different areas along the Rhine and Main and very nearly got to where I could blind-taste select not only different regions, but also different years. Again, magnificent!
Great wine was more difficult to find in my next assignment, Great Britain, and again so back home - I positively abhor most California wine I've had. I cannot afford, at the volume I prefer, some of the better French wines which don't assault my palette, and cannot easily access my favorite domestic wines which, believe it or not, are all Kansan (my favorite winemaker is an American who grew up in Germany and makes a highly coveted local version of spätlese). And excepting the OMGZ!homemade "Cactus Juice" wine I infrequently get the opportunity to purchase, I really don't think I'll ever drink bottled wine again. Goody-Goody sells an array of boxed wine for as low as $9.31 US, Wal-Mart that same box for $8.97...My time in Rhineland a happy memory.
Before thou protest, let me assure you that I understand your argument - I do. I love good beer and won't bat an eye dropping coin on a well-brewed six-pack. I love Crisp pilsners, flavorful ales, strong stouts and light lagers. I actually look down on people who only drink "Bud Light" or "Miller Light." I even know people who argue over taste differences between the two! I understand that there are those who will look down on me for only drinking boxed wine. So be it. When I spend my money, its going to be on really good beer!

Favor
Sometimes I think I'm blessed not through grace, but because I'm so freaking awesome. How else could one possibly explain this? I know that Texans are proud, but damn can you blame us? LOOK HOW COOL THIS IS? They say Texas is God's country. This is surely such a sign, because I really don't deserve it, yet here we are, and I've been waiting one-hundred and one years for this moment:

Since my boy was being a butthead, I invited his friends over to spend the night and stay up play video games with me. We had a blast, yes, even my son. Loaded the `Asian Dynasty` expansion for Age of Empires III which was just great, immeasurable fun (my boy and I were disappointed they omitted Korea though), the kids had a double-length pre-testing class for taekwondo belt-testing this coming Saturday. This evening he and I watched The Forbidden Kingdom. 30-seconds into it he quips, "So this is where you got that music." THAAAAAT'S my boy...
And giving credit where credit is due, I used
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Two Funerals
With the funeral behind us, and the dead buried, we picked up the pieces of our lives and with heavy hearts, continued living. My days had been filled with the weight decorum of respect places above and beyond responsibilities in the labor of love I volunteered myself for again and again, but it was the short nights I think, coupled with the gravity of the events which drained me. I didn't sleep as much as pass out in bed each night and the sheer number of days which have passed had taken their toll. It was time to go home.
We packed our vehicle, said our goodbyes, loaded up the kids, and slid the gear selector into "Drive." As I pulled out of the driveway I thought dreamily of my absurdly expensive mattress only six short hours South.
Then the phone rang.
All the results came back - My wife's grandmother has been given only days to live. They've moved her to hospice and put her on morphine - there's nothing to do but but make her as comfortable as possible. Her children and their children are providing around-the-clock coverage. My brother-in-law is driving down from Oregon with his entire family in tow because there were zero flights out. Another cousin had to leave her family at the airport as she found only a single seat out from Florida - at $1000.
I pulled back into the carport and wearily unloaded the bags from the car.
Amidst all this woe, there have been the occasional highlights: Making new friends, mixing drinks for the widow after the wake, and my wife's ex-husband not showing up to the funeral after he confirmed his attendance. All notable events. And were there a tag for my favorite beer store in Wichita I would surely link to it now - many of my favorite beer stories and discoveries happen right here in Kansas, and this visit was no different. I discovered Rauchbier (my photo here), the original German "Smokebeer" which, at the time of my post on Shiner Smokehaus I was unaware of. And it even comes in a weizen. Its as if I were the one who'd died and gone to Deutscheland.
Lastly, bound and determined to balance the time spent in hospitals and funeral homes, I've taken my kids on several outings in which they've been able to run and play. After today's news and subsequent unpacking, and with nothing which required my direct involvement, I loaded up everyone's kids and took them on a six-hour adventure of nature trails, playgrounds, hills, hiking and of course: McDonald's.
I haven't seen my son this happy in weeks.
There was no fighting, bitching, boredom, or attitude. We played loud hip-hop in the car, drove with the windows down (it was the first sunny day in months here), and piloted the vehicle like a Texan in the Midwest (GUILTY!) So while I'm still fucking exhausted nearly to tears and don't know how long I'm going to be here, as long as I can pull off a few days like that every once in a while, I think I'll make it. I think we all will.

Spoetzl

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I like good beer. Crisp pilsners, flavorful ales, strong stouts and light lagers. In Germany the beer you order is served in that beer's branded glass, and outside a fest stein, a glass particular to the type of beer ordered. Pilsner comes in a pilsner glass, weizens in a weizen glass, and so on and so forth. Drinking beer in Germany is not just a pastime, its an entire culture.
In England, due to strict regulations, all beer of any variety is mandated to only be served in an "Imperial Pint" that is, a bulged conical glass with the mark of the Queen etched into it certifying that you are being served a full legal pint. And let me tell you - those of you who've never tasted unpasteurized British beer have zero comparison to the bottled stuff they export to the United States.
I get downright giddy when I think of my time overseas, and all the fantastic beer I consumed. Sometimes, cracking open a mini-keg of German beer, I weep. I weep for what's been lost in the pasteurization process. Then I drink. I drink and weep. But eventually the beer cheers me up and I stop weeping.
Now some of you may have heard that us Texans are a rather proud people. And while that's true, we're also usually pretty honest. If something sucks, we'll say so, even if its to our own detriment. Its a matter of pride (see how that works?) For example, I'm not a fan of domestic wines, and of all the domestic wines California wines are the bane of my existence, but I'll be the first to say that Texas wine is worse. We simply do not have the ability to produce good wine. But we do make good beer.
Enter Spoetzl Brewery. I won't repeat anything you can read on Wikipedia, but it was during my Pilsner Urquel days in STL that
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Shiner Family Reunion
More recently, my excitable friend
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So there I was, gearing up for
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You see, Smokehaus is brewed with malt which has been smoked with mesquite. And while it seems unlikely that this would affect the taste of the beer much, I assure you, I was drinking a smoked brisket. It was fanastic. Some of the beers overseas are so filling, they're affectionately called, "liquid bread." I've had those beers - its not an exaggeration. I submit to you, dear reader, that I was drinking "liquid smoked brisket" and God was it fantastic. I've never (and I mean never) tasted anything like it in all my travels of this globe. Belgian monks? Pussies.
When my folks came down, I pulled out my mesquite smoking chips, and soaked them in Shiner Smokehaus beer prior to placing the metal basket on the heat shield of my gas grill. I smoked those burgers a good 20-minutes before applying fire to them. I know that every time I grill burgers, I tell you that they're the best burgers I've ever grilled. But I hope you can now appreciate that when I say these were the best burgers I've ever grilled, you've got a little history and understanding of why these were the best burgers I've ever grilled.

Shiner Smokehaus