Drinking for Democracy

I've been trying to take it easy this week.  As you can see, it's been pretty successful... until last night.  It wasn't anything too crazy and it wasn't even my fault.  Because I'm a classy guy, I run in crazy elite circles.  As part of my being one of New York's best and brightest socialites, I have to go to a fundraiser or two.  Wait, no.  Just one.  I've been to one fundraiser.  Ever.  And it was last night.  And I didn't even donate funds.  So the deal is that a friend of mine was throwing a fundraiser for a New York state senate candidate.   But he was throwing it at a bar.  It's the first fundraiser he's thrown at this bar and he wanted to make sure could throw future events at that place.  But he was concerned about the bar tab.  If the bar gave him an entire floor and no one bought drinks, he probably wouldn't be welcomed back there.  Enter yours truly.  My friend told me I could go for free so long as I got drinks.  So I did.  Not an absurd amount (2 Sierra Nevada Summerfests, 2 Brooklyn Pilsners), but I'd say about three more drinks than most of the paying supporters.  So while I hadn't wanted to drink, I had to do my part for democracy.  In the future I will tell my grandkids how my drinking four beers directly led to the ousting of the most anti-gay rights member of the New York state senate.  After all, I am, if nothing else, a patriot.

Total Beers: 522
Where I Should Be: 493.150

I Wanted To Post "Rotten Mind" But Embedding Was Disallowed

Total Beers: 518, for now and forever (not really)
Where I Should Be: 490.410

Spring Breakdown Is Amazing

I told you I would do this.  I drank no beers last night.  Watch the lead crumble, CRUMBLE!  Oh, by the by, did you hear Obama gave Johnny Q. England a Goose Island 312 Urban Whear?  Way to go president!  What a guy!  Seriously though, that's awesome.  I'll pen a million word essay about it in the future, but suffice it to say, this almost makes up for his weak-sauce Elena Kagan pick.

Total Beers: Still 518
Where I Should Be: 487.671

I'm Back With a Half-Assed Post!

I'm just setting all kinds of records here.  After putting up my 500th beer, I walk away from this blog for the longest period since its inception.  Crazy, I know.  But after doing something as monumental as drinking 500 beers, I had to go off the grid for a while.  I went out to the desert, down about nine bulbs of peyote, and channelled my inner beer spirit guide, and just now returned to the land of living.  Not really.  I just went to work and drank intermittently.  Also I wanted to let my 500th beer post stand on its own two feet for a while.  So the last time I updated about drinking was about the beer fest on Saturday.  Well the next time I had beer was on Tuesday night, Liz and I split a growler of Brooklyn Brewery's Buzzbomb, their honey belgian ale (I had 3).  The next beer drinking took place on Thursday night where I had four beers, one Brooklyn Summer Ale, 2 Sam Adams Summer Ale, and 1 Blue Point Lager at a combination of the Watering Hole and Reservoir (weird, I just now connected those two bars as having water connections) while watching the NBA draft.  Friday, I had an Oskar Blues Pils at the apartment (our last beer in our place), and then had three Brooklyn Summers and two Heineken Lights (Liz got confused when grabbing the beers from the cooler) at a party at her co-worker's.  Saturday I had a Founder's Dirty Bastard (which if I knew more about trademark, I would imagine they'd have a problem with that name) at the Black Rabbit in Greenpoint, and then 2 Brooklyn Pennants and 2 Simpler Times Pilsners at my friend's party.  So this week I had 18 beers.  When I post the final tally here, it's going to seem like I'm light years ahead, but my lead has already dwindled since the beer fest.  I'm telling you, the pace is slowing down.  For some reason I'm thinking July is going to be a slow beer month.  I may even post on days where I don't drink just to see my enormous lead dwindle.  We shall see!

Total Beers: 518
Where I Should Be: 484.931 (remember, this lead is nice and inflated by the brew-fest)

500 BEERS!!!!!!!

Let's talk about the fallacy of positive instance, perhaps my favorite informal fallacies.  You commits this fallacy when you argue for a conclusion based on one result that conforms with your expectations (a positive instance), while ignoring discrepancies and unfavorable results.  Perhaps the most famous instance of this type of fallacy is trying to demonstrate you have ESP.  So you're sitting at your apartment, thinking of your old friend Spiccoli, who you haven't talked to in five years, and thinking about how great it would be if Spiccoli called.  Just that second your phone rings and its your old friend Spiccoli!  You were just thinking about how it would be cool if he called and he did!  You must be psychic!  False.  This is the fallacy of positive instance.  Think about how many times you thought of an old friend, Spiccoli even, and how many times you thought it would be great if that person called and yet nothing happened.  To prove your ESP, you're relying on one positive instance while ignoring heaps and heaps of contrary evidence.  This is a statistical coincidence.  You do not have ESP.  This type of fallacy also occurs a lot when people talk about "God wanted me to do X" or "God wanted me be at Place Y," because something positive/coincidental occurs.  Here's a good example of that.  Suppose you speak Swahili as a second language.  Suppose you're at an airport and you see a lost little boy.  Turns out this boy does not speak any English, BUT he does speak Swahili.  After talking to him, you find out he's been at the airport, lost all day, trying and failing to communicate with people around him and here you, of all people, sweep in and save this kid, all because you speak Swahili and encounter a kid who needed a Swahili speaker.  It's like God wanted you to be at that airport at that time.  False.  Think about all of the times you've been anywhere and have known Swahili without any remarkable whatsoever happening.  Statistical coincidence.  Ok, ok, ok.  So God may have wanted you to be there, but arguing for it from a positive instance is a silly way to go about it.  You do not have ESP.  You are not a divine tool (ok, maybe you are, I'm just saying that this is not the way to prove it).  You are merely overemphasizing a positive instance while ignoring all of the negative ones.  With that said, Satan wanted me to be at the New York Brewfest.

I'm going to jump in with a spoiler alert here.  I hit my 500.  That's not the story here.  The story here is the devil's hand guiding me to my exact 500th beer.  We'll start at the very beginning.  Brewfest is, well, a brewfest that takes place annually in New York, this year it was on Governors Island.  You pay $55, get a 4 oz tasting glasses (which really holds about 6 to 7 oz) and go from brewer to brewer, sampling their wares.  As you may remember from the rules, so long as the pour isn't super stingy, I get to count each pour as a beer.  Well, when we got there and I started sampling me some beers, I started to feel a little bit cheap about this.  I mean not cheap to the point of not counting them like this, but cheap to the point where I placed upon myself a restriction as a sign of good faith toward the project here.  I knew I had to drink 17 beers to get to 500.  I assumed (correctly) that would I drink more than this.  So as a restriction, I said to myself, I am only going to count up to 17 beers from this place.  For simplicity's sake, I made it the first 17.  This way, I could get my numbers, legibly record the names of the beers I was drinking, and still consume enough beer where I wouldn't feel like recording a 17 was too cheap.

So I start drinking.  I start writing down the names of the beers (I'll post the list in a bit) and when I start to hit 13 or 14, I'm putting serious thought into what my 500th beer should be.  By this point in time, I've made the rounds of the brewfest and had a pretty good idea of what all was there.  I decided I was going to make Brooklyn Brewery's Blast my 500th beer.  Seemed pretty appropriate.  While I have had it before, I thought a Brooklyn brew would be an appropriate 500th and the Blast was the best they had on tap.  So after I down my 16th, I get in line.  And wait.  And wait.  Brooklyn had a HUGE line by this time (seriously, this event was crowded).  I'm about 10 to 20 people away from the front when we hear that all they have left on tap is their Lager.  Perfect!  What could be more appropriate for my 500th beer than the workhorse that brought me so far in this endeavor.  Brooklyn Lager.  The People's Champ.  Forever immortalized as one man's 500th beer of a given year.  As the line dwindles, I eagerly await my turn.

Finally, I find myself at the front of the line, glass in hand, ready for my 500th beer.  The guy from Brooklyn grabs my glass, puts it under the one tap they have remaining, and lets the lager flow.  He hands my glass back to me, filled with delicious, delicious Brooklyn Lager, and then proceeds to shout, "ALL RIGHT!  THAT'S IT!  WE ARE OUT OF BEER!"  My 500th beer shut down the Brooklyn tent at the Brewfest.  My 500th beer consumed was the last Brooklyn Brewery anything to be served on that island at that brewfest.  I should note that at this point in time, the line behind me was still about 40 to 50 people deep.  I was meant to be in that line, at that exact time.  If I were one person back (or if I let my wife get her glass filled first) I would have been S.O.L.  I am but a divine tool of the beer gods.  And that is the 100% true story of my 500th beer.  I recognize it's not the most insane thing to ever happen, but all things considered I thought it was pretty awesome.  Let the record show, it was a Brooklyn Lager.  A Brooklyn Lager I was truly destined to drink.

Here's my list, in order drank, of beers I had at the brewfest.  I had originally planned on taking notes on all of them, but come on, I had beer to drink.  And, so you know, I probably had about 8 to 10 more samples after finishing writing these down, but I stuck with my original convictions and will only count 17.  So without further ado.

1. Defiant Muddy Creek
2. Ommegang Hennepin
3. Middle Ages Syracuse Pale Ale
4. River Horse Belgian Tripel
5. Two Brothers Domaine DuPage
6. Strangford Lough Legbiter Ale
7. Peekskill Vanilla Bourbon Stout
8. Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale
9. Great South Massive
10. 21st Amendment Live Free or Die IPA
11. Fire Island Light House
12. Weyerbacher Merry Monks
13. Weyerbacher Hops Infusion
14. Peekskills Rosemary
15. Long Ireland Ale
16. Great South Blonde Ambition
17...............Brooklyn Lager

I will say that lest my future biographer stumbles upon my notebook and sees that for my 17th, I wrote down Brooklyn Blast, this occurred because I would write the name of the beer down before I drank it in most cases.  I corrected them on the fly when I didn't get what I anticipated (as you'll note from all of my scribbles and scratching) but I didn't fix that one because I figured I would remember that I drank a Lager.  Sure enough I did!

Well, guys.  We're half way there.  Take my foot we will not make it I do not swear.  I wanted to post an epic reflection on my experiences so far, but you guys have been reading this (I hope).  You know what it's been like.  Pretty easy sometimes.  Pretty difficult at others.  As dumb as this sounds, it has been, I think, a really worth while experience.  While I've drank slightly more than I would have otherwise, I've written WAY more than I would have otherwise, which I think is a net gain.  My experience of sitting down and putting fingers to keys essentially mirrors the drinking.  Pretty easy sometimes.  Pretty difficult at others.  Sometimes I have a lot of fun and write things I'm proud of.  On rare occasions I'll write something I regret (you know, because the writing was awful, not that I think I'm over-sharing or whatever).  But all in all, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't enjoy it.  Through this first half of drinking, I've began to recognize why most of history's greatest writers have drank.  And hopefully it should be evident to you after reading this whole blog why history's worst writers drink as well.  I'm not even going to put down where I should be.  You all know its way ahead of the game.  I just want this to stand as is for the time being.  And now, to type those powerful but understated words you've all been waiting to see...

Total Beers: 500

NEXT POST IS THE 500th BEER POST

So this is it.  Next post I will be over the half way mark.  That's the plan anyway.  I put myself in a position for success.  Ten beers over the course of the last three days.  I'll just briefly run those down here.  Wednesday: 1 Brown Shugga, 1 Whitsun on the couch.  Thursday: 1 Goose Island Sofie at Bierkraft, 2 Bud American Ales (didn't buy them and they were all they had) at the Celebrate Brooklyn comedy spectacular, 1 Founders Rye at Barbe, and 1 Brown Shugga at home.  Friday: 1 Whitsun at home, 2 Bark Rd Ales at Bark.  10 Beers.  I'll do the numbers now.  And then I'm to the NY Brewfest.  I'll have an epic post tomorrow, I'm sure, if I survive this thing.  Till then...

Total Beers: 483
Where I Should Be: 463.013

Just the Kiss of Hops

Criteria number 5:  This one is courtesy of my dad.  I was thinking of having him do the write up, because as is evident by his sporadic yet hilarious use of Facebook, the internet is the perfect venue for my dad's jokes.  Also, this was a really good idea.  But don't tell him that.  He gives enough unsolicited advice/suggestion/ideas.  He doesn't need to know that some of them are actually good.  So he calls me and says, "I read your blog.  I have a suggest of what Obama should send.  Stroh's."  His reasoning: Whatever beer Obama picks (assuming its not a macro) will probably see an increase in sales.  The President of the United States says its the best beer.  Ok, well I have to try it.  So, if a bunch of people are going to spend their money on something, why not have that something be from a particularly economically depressed part of the country?  What fits that criteria better than Detroit?

I like this idea.  I mean, I don't think Stroh's is the choice here because 1) It's owned by Pabst now, and Pabst is most certainly not a Detroit company.  Some funds may find their way flowing through Detroit on account of a small uptick in Stroh's, but it can no longer be said that it's a solely Detroit based operation.  2) If it's about increasing sales, I just don't see it for Stroh's.  A lot of people have had it and stopped buying it.  Honestly, the only "new" market I think Stroh's has is hipsters, and if someone as mainstream as the president recommended it, well, count them out.  3) It's quite awful.  Although, I will say I did spend a fair amount of time drinking a Stroh's product, Schlitz, in grad school.  It was a dollar a can out at the bars.  You can't beat that.  Also, their wikipedia page is pretty funny.  Here's a line from it:

 "Stroh's strategy when seeking to enter the market for a new type of beer was to extend one or more of its existing brands. In the increasingly popular non-alcoholic beer segment, for example..." 


Come on.  That's rich.  But again, I like the sentiment.  There are a lot of great Michigan microbrews.  As I type this I'm drinking one (Arcadia).  Some of them are even nationally distributed.  Bells is great.  I'm not saying it should be Bells, or even a beer from Detroit/Michigan.  But the idea that it should be a beer that will pump some money into a region of the country that desperately needs it I think is a good one.  So there we go, another criteria for your consideration courtesy of my pops.  Still no answers or suggestions from me, but I like what you guys have been doing so far, so keep it up!



Total Beers: 473 (second verse, same as the first, that is the same two beers in the same circumstance as yesterday)
Where I Should Be: 454.794

Me, Obama, and My Favorite Brewpub

Not to sound like some dopey 2008 Oberlin undergrad, but that picture gives me hope.  Hope in a lot of stuff but in particular, hope that Obama will make the right decision when it comes to this.  Obama and King George himself made a wager over some fancy soccer tournament which I believe is called the World Genitals Protector.  The winner gets a beer from the loser.  Not just any beer, but his country's "best" beer.  Obama has made similar bets in the past, but they involved objective standards.  He bet the Czar of Canada a Yuengling (as the loser of the bet would owe the winner a case of beer from his country's oldest brewery) the U.S. would beat Canada in some sporting event, which I'm sure the U.S. won, unless it was on ice or something.  It was?  Well Molson sucks.  They can keep it.

Even though Obama and beer are probably best linked through the infamous "beer summit" where he drank a Bud Light, here's why the picture gives me hope.  You recognize where it's taken?  That's Bethlehem Brew Works.  You might have heard me talk about that place a couple of times.  You might also know that they're first organization to reference this blog!  Anyway, as if this needed repeating, they make some dope beer.  Clearly Obama knows.  He's drinking it!  Also, he apparently made the smart decision to order a sampler, but the moronic decision to split it.  Obama knows there is such a thing as "good" beer, despite the fact he drank that Bud Light.  He knows that.  Just look at that picture.  I'm not saying he necessarily has a super refined palate or even that he enjoys "good" beer.  I'm just saying that he knows its out there, which is more than a lot of people know.  That's why I have hope.  It's nice having a president that enjoys beer.  Bush's teetotalism was probably was the worst part about his presidency.  Just kidding!*

So let's cut to the chase here.  We have two questions (not four because who the hell cares what that limey, Monarchist** thinks over there in Foggy [more like Farty] Ol' London [more like Lon-dumb]?): 1) What should Obama pick?  2) What will Obama pick?  The first is obviously more fun to think about you're not a total dork.  The second is more fun to think about if you know stuff about domestic/international politics.  I think I might contract out an answer to the second question to a guy I know that actually knows about those things AND beer.  I mean this dood studied European labor laws in Belgium.  He'd be perfect!

Anyways, I'm not going to answer the first question.  Not right now anyway.  I want some feedback in the comments.  What do you guys think he should pick?  I don't have any beer examples right now, but here are my current thoughts on what should probably be some criteria.

1) I hate to state the obvious but no macros for a million obvious reasons.

2) The brewery should be 100% USA owned and operated.

3) The beer should have national distribution.  This one kind of kills me because this cuts out things like Weyerbacher and Brooklyn Brewery, but this is America's best beer, not the East Coast's best beer.  And why should the President of the United States ship some stupid Queen-Fiend a beer that more than half the citizens of the USA can't get their hands on?  But this one isn't totally damning.  There are a lot of great craft brews that have nation-wide distribution.

4) The style of beer should be uniquely/originally American.  Although I am of two minds of this.  Originally I thought this would apply to things like Belgian Ales.  While the USA makes some solid Belgian Ales, we don't want to show England we can make some other  country's beer.  We want to show them we can make our beer.  But then I realized: this would prohibit IPAs because, as we should all know, India Pale Ales owe their origins to those imperialistic dill-hole Brits sailing over to India.  This kind of sucks because America makes the best IPAs in the world.  No one does hops like the USA.  But you know what, I think Double or Imperial IPAs are pretty much originally American, so I don't think those would necessarily be out.  But here's my other mind about this: Wouldn't it be sweet to show those a-holes how much better our IPAs are than theirs in a sort of "anything you can do I can do better" way?  Like, oh, you guys invented IPAs?  Well guess what?  Much like imperialism and The Office, while you guys created them, we made our versions so good that yours are practically obsolete.  But here's where my third mind comes in (I can't count): those lame-os would probably would probably get all snooty and be like "Well I say chaps, that isn't a real IPA" or something to that extent.  But that would mean that our IPAs are originally America.  I don't know.  This whole thing is like a snake eating itself.  So the conclusion of this point is that Belgian ales, hefes, saisons, those types of things should probably be out.  IPAs, well that's debatable.

I'll probably think of more criteria as I start to formulate what I think he should send, but I really would like some suggestions in the comments.  If we pick a beer, I will personally send Obama a letter letting him know of our choice.  I'll sign my real name and everything.  Hey, if Bethlehem Brew Works can give us here a shout out, why not President Obama?

Total Beers: 471 (last night I drank an Arcadia Whit Sun and a Lagunitas Brown Shugga on the couch)
Where I Should Be: 452.054

*There were no bad parts about Bush's presidency, am I right, Grandma?
**This used to be a legitimate insult back during the USA's infancy.  USA!  USA!  USA!

Satan You're My Lady, Stick Me With Your Pitchfork Thing

Tonight I wanted to put up a big post about what beer President Obama could send the King of England or whoever is in charge over there that would 1) represent the "best" beer in America, and 2) stick it to those limey bastards.  However, I'm tired man.  Tonight was my night to cook dinner and I chose to make eggplant parm (of which I make a pretty mean version), but it takes a million hours to make.  And in a weird system the wife and I have set up, whoever (whomever?) makes dinner cleans the dishes that night (we don't have a dishwasher), so after making a dinner that entails using something like 87,000 pots and pans, I have to wash them all.  Suffice it to say, I'm a little burnt (I also went to work today, or something like that).  Anyway, I'll drop some insights on you all tomorrow.  But for now: last night I had an Arcadia Whitsun and an Oskar Blues Pils sitting on the couch watching Party Down.  Good times!

Total Beers: 469
Where I Should Be: 449.315

USA? USA? USA?

All right chumps and chumpettes.  You want to be there for the 500th beer?  Well, come on down to the New York Brewfest.  It's next Saturday.  You might notice that as of the last posting, I was 47 beers down.  You might think that's a lot to cover in a week.  Yeah, I think that too.  But here's the deal.  I don't need to cover all of it.  The Brewfest operates like, well, a brewfest.  You get a four ounce glass and get to go nuts with the tasting.  So let's say I get to 480 before that Saturday (which I think is doable).  I'll only need to have 20 tastings to get to 500, which is a whopping total of 80 ounces.  I can do that.  Anyway, that's the announcement.  Next Saturday.  Be there.  Till then I'll be here, working on my numbers.  About those....

The past couple (three) days have been a roller coaster of beer drinking.  Thursday night I had four beers.  Liz and I like to do this thing where we each pick out two six packs in lieu of buying a case of something.  Well I picked out Lagunitas Brown Shugga and Arcadia's Whitsun Ale.  Liz picked out Sly Fox's Phoenix Pale Ale and Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yella Pils (she was going for a canned theme).  I had one of each. The Brown Shugga is a barley wine (so I'm already on board) made with, I believe the technical term is a "shit ton" of brown sugar.  It's pretty sweet and really drinkable.  It's supposed to be a winter offering, but the beer distributor by my place sells all kinds of beers out of season, which is pretty cool.  The other three beers are all pretty self explanatory.  I will say that the Arcadia beer is really, really good.  It's way, way thicker than you'd imagine and is ridiculously refreshing.  While I liked the Oskar Pils, I think it definitely ranks as my least favorite Oskar offering, which isn't to take anything away from it.  As with the Whitsun, it's a pretty good summer beer.  It clocks in at 5.3% ABV, which I only note because Oskar Blues' website notes that it's a low alcohol content beer by their standards, which I thought was funny.

Friday: no beers.

Saturday: 10 beers.  See, roller coaster?  I will say that honest-to-Satan, I did not intend to drink 10 beers on Saturday.  And these were ten legit beers.  Yesterday some soccer thing happened apparently.



Anyway, I have a British friend.  Weird, I know, as Brits are so unlikable, but this guy's ok.  Well I went over to his place to chant "USA! USA! USA!" in his face for a couple of hours during the big USA-UK tie-fest-a-palooza.  Before I left, I had a Brown Shugga at my apartment around 12:30.  During the game, I had two Brooklyn Lagers, a Brooklyn Brown Ale, and a Sam Adams Black Lager.  That was going to be it, FOR THE DAY.  But, BUT, someone else at the party left half a 25 oz bottle of Unibroue's Trois Pistoles just sitting on their counter.  So I poured out a full pint from that.  Then I really thought I was done.  Turns out I was not.  There was a birthday party last night that everyone and their mother was going to, so of course I went.  Well first I went home and napped for a couple of hours, and then I went. The party was at Gallery Bar, where in addition to buying drinks, you could buy things such as a painting of a hipster caveman stalking a rodent for the low, low price of 3,200 dollars.  Suffice it to say, I had anticipated only buying one beer and then leaving.  Well I bought Liz and I a round of Land Sharks (their tap selection was not that great, and by that I mean it was awful, as you can tell from me buying Land Shark).  I go buy another later (including some drinks for the birthday girl).  Now my tab should include 4 beers as well as a couple of mixed drinks, which surely should put me over their 25 dollar credit card limit.  Turns out, they didn't put about three or so of those drinks on my tab, so when I go to close, I am informed that I have to buy two more beers to get to the 25 dollar limit.  So I get another round o' Land Sharks, Liz doesn't want hers so I end up drinking the two.  So, because of the bartender's error, I have to drink essentially two free beers.  Sometimes life can be so hard.  A total of six beers and two or three mixed drinks for 25 bucks in a fancy Manhattan bar.  Thus goes the story of me accidentally drinking 10 beers in a day.  Also, fyi, I woke up today at 8:30 in the morning feeling perfectly fine, which is pretty cool!

Total: Beers: 467
Where I Should Be: 446.575

Getting My Nixon On

This entry is short because I've been spending my beer writing energies elsewhere.  Hopefully you will all see soon!  But I just want to say that last night I had two Harpoon UFOs, their raspberry hefeweizen, which might hold the title of the most drinkable beer on the planet.  Additionally, today I got the last of my grades for my first semester of 1000-beering-while-going-to-school.  I was nervous at first.  If things went south, I would have maybe, MAYBE, have to re-think this whole endeavor.  But they didn't, so in your ear, naysayers!  Nothing bad will ever happen to me!  I live a comeuppance free lifestyle!  I'm going to live forever! (RIP Ass Dan).  That's all for now!  Also, I'm with in days, DAYS of announcing my 500th beer day.  It'll be awesome.  I have a mini-goal.  I might die (of excitement!).

Total Beers: 453
Where I Should Be: 438.356

Links!

As foretold in the Dead Beer Scrolls, I have thus far taken it easy and consumed zero beers in the past two nights (spoiler alert, that's a dry spell that is ending as we speak).  But in the grand tradition of this blog (saying you're going to do something and then not doing it?), I'ma puttin' up some links!

First, my first taste of fame.  Yours truly gets a shout out from the famed Bethlehem Brew Works.  Check it out here!  Scroll down a tic and you will see them mention the very post that precedes this one!  In fairness, they quote me talking about how great their veggie burgers are, but anything that draws people (except for current and potential employers) to this site is a boon!  (Also, I'm pretty jazzed that the blurb on their facebook case contains the opening paragraph of my last post which contains one of the most amazing jokes I've ever penned.)

Well outside of that, we'll have a politics theme.  We're talking state and federal politics!

Beer Tax Proposal Lifts Boston Beer Stock.  Good news for Sam Adams!  Bad news for people that hate craft beer (no one)!

Before I even post this link, I just want to say that this is indicative of marijuana's chances of being legalized soon.  I'm not even going to say if its indicative of those chances being good or bad (or if I care).  But given that Oklahoma Just Now Legalized Homebrewing, something George Effing Washington himself did, what do you think the odds are that it's getting ready to let every Sooner start blazing up?  Good?  Poor?  Super duper poor?  (Hint: I think it's the last thing).

Gaming the System

Oooooh boy.  Saturday Saturday I had 11 beers and got super wasted!  PSYCHE!  I only had two beers.  DOUBLE PSYCHE!  I actually had no beers.  TRIPLE PSYCHE!  Ok, now that you've take a ride on the tri-psyche-le, I will say I had 11 beers on Saturday.  That is no lie.  The lie (and subsequent psyche) is that I did not get super wasted.  The truth is...I gamed the system.  Saturday consisted of two breweries and 11 flight-sized samples.  As per the rules, which you all agreed upon when we started this thing (check your contract), those get to count as a beer a piece.  I didn't start the day out intending to game the system, but then I did.  So let's discuss!

Saturday, in a shameful (but appreciated) attempt to get more than a passing "I drank a beer on the in-laws couch," the in-laws decided to up the ante and take me and, for some reason, my wife (their daughter) to the Lancaster Brewing Company in, of all places, Lancaster, PA.

Lancaster Brewing is most well-known for its Milk Stout.  Well, it's not known at all if you live outside of PA/NJ/DE/DC.  They don't even have distribution up in NY.  Anyway, I've had a rocky history with their Milk Stout.  I first had it prior to my becoming a beer snob and I did not care for it all, but that's to be expected.  After my Enlightenment, I tried it again expecting to be pleasantly surprised.  I was surprised, but not pleasantly.  Still didn't like it!  I set the Milk Stout aside, expecting to never cross its path again.  But lo and behold, I found myself at the Lancaster Brewery.  I was pretty excited to have their Strawberry Wheat (a pretty solid strawberry wheat beer, in case you couldn't deduce that from its name) and their Hop Hop, an IPA, which oddly enough, only registers a 55 on the IBU scale and is the highest IBU beer they have.  I didn't know what else they had, but I was about to find out.  Liz and I split a sampler of the 11 beers they had on tap (her parents and her brother split a sampler as well).  I picked six and she picked five, draft style.  It was a draft draft!  I am amazing at wordplay.  Here's the aftermath:

Here's the thing.  While I'm a-samplin', I didn't write down the names of all the beers thinking that Lancaster would put all their beers up on their website.  Well, I suppose in a tribute to the Amish that inhabit the surrounding glen in their igloos, Lancaster only used the old fashion "chalk on blackboard" to give the names of some of the beers and didn't post them on the interwebs.  So here are the names I definitely remember:  Lightning Lager (a really light, drinkable lager, not flavorless, but not flavor-ful per se), HopHop (mentioned that earlier), Celtic Rose (an Irish lager, don't remember too much about it but it was good!), the Milk Stout (which I actually liked!  Crazy!), and another honey ale called Rumspringa or something like that that was super awesome, I almost liked it better than the Brooklyn one, and a Hefeweizen.  Well look at that.  I honestly didn't think I would remember them all when I began typing but whatdayaknow?  All in all, Lancaster was pretty dope.  The guy who gave us the tour seemed super nervous for some reason.  Probably because he could tell he was in the presence of greatness.

Later that night we all went out to Bethlehem Brew Works, which I believe I have mentioned a million times.  Here's a picture of it:

If they put in strip club, it would be hedonism central.  Their veggie burgers are super awesome.  I don't generally get pysched over veggie burgers, but these I do.  Additionally, they have some beer.  Some super awesome beer.  I figured I wanted to take it kind of easy in the upcoming week, so I figured since I already started gaming the system, well, game on!  That was awful.  I am sorry.  Truly sorry.  Anyway, instead of getting a beer, I got another sampler.  It was a sampler of six but I decided to pass on the raspberry beer to the ol' father-in-law on account of me being a really nice guy (and he paid for it and I didn't like it and he did, but mainly because I'm a nice guy).  In this sampler was the aforementioned Machine sHop (which was really sweet, sweeter than the last time I had it), the aforementioned Stumbling Monk (ok, the name was aforementioned, but it's the belgian ale I had last time whose name eluded me, and also it tasted way spicier this time, which I really appreciated), their Steelgaarden Wit, Hefeweizen, and their Double Brown Ale (which was surprisingly watery).  So that's the story of me drinking 11 beers in one day.  The next day (Sunday) I had a total of one Sam Adams Coastal Wheat back at my apartment.

This week I plan on drinking no more than one beer a day.  That's the plan.  But I think I'm approaching 500 beers, which is a pretty momentous occasion.  I want to do something for 500, and I've got a couple plans in the works, so I may have to drink a few more this week to meet deadlines and all.  I know that was super vague, but this blog is nothing if not convoluted.  Now, time for some astronomical numbers.

Total Beers: 451
Where I Should Be: 430.136

No Time For A Title!

Not being able to update from my work is sort of killing me.  I have a whopping total of four free hours a day, and those hours have been booked this week, hence the lack of updates.  Even this one has to be brief because I'm at the in-laws and on my way out to a wedding in ten minutes so no time to dawdle!  To the drinking!

Wednesday had a nice little date with the wife.  We went to Dos Toros for dinner where I had a Tecate.  We had tickets for Gods of Carnage that evening, so we decided to make a nice touristy evening of it by going to the ESPNZone bar in Times Square where I had a Sam Adams Summer Ale.  It was either there or one of the million fake Irish pubs, but if you recall (I'll link to that later, time crunch!) we've been burned by those before.

Thursday my friend Dave arrived at our apartment.  We went to Washington Commons where I had an Ommegang Rare Vos and a Jack d'or Pretty Things.  I want to talk about both those beers but no time!  Then we went home where I had a Sam Adams Coastal Wheat.

Friday I had one beer.  A Sam Adams 48*Latitude (can't figure out how to insert the proper symbol now). That's it!  I'll crunch the numbers later! (Sunday).  I just wanted to get the beers I had up before I forgot what they are.  And yes, I realize that if I didn't spend so much time complaining about how there isn't any time, I could have written more.  I am a man of many contradictions.

Insert video of the Jesse from Saved by the Bell freaking out about how there's Never Any Time!  Actually, just go watch it yourself!

P Diddy's St. Barts Vacation Yacht

Holy hell people.  Updating while working full time is hard.  All in all, I have to say that not working the bulk of the year has made this whole "drinking 1000 beers" thing easier than it otherwise would have been.  Well, the drinking beers is still pretty easy.  It's the opening up the laptop and putting fingers to the keyboard that is difficult.  It would be sweet if I could update from work, but on account of the whole "that's not a good idea" thing I don't.  Anyway, that's my precursor as to why these updates may be infrequent/short while I get used to this whole 9 to 5 ordeal.

So Monday I had a whopping total of one beer, a Six Point Bark Red Ale at Bark with my dinner.  After that I called it quits, playing the responsibility card and not wanting to go into my first day of work hungover.  Tuesday I actually got in my required 3 beers, 2 Lagunitas Censoreds and a big bottle of the Shmaltz Jewbelation 13 that I split with Liz.  That 13 was pretty intense.  As Liz mentioned, it's 13%, and while you'd definitely know it was a super high ABV beer, it is super drinkable, as evidenced by my downing it pretty quickly.  I thought it would be really syrupy but it wasn't!  If you like extreme yet drinkable beer, I'd recommend it.

Well that's it.  I'm going to bed.  Sorry, I've used up all my wit and charm on small talk and banter with new coworkers.  Their gain is your loss.  But as soon as they tire with my nonsense, which if experience teaches anything will be soon, I'll need another outlet for it and you better believe that will again be this blog.

Total Beer: 433
Where I Should Be: 416.438