The Dirty Dozen

This is getting real.  By the end of tonight, I will hopefully be in single digits.  While the drinking part has gotten easier, the finding time to post is uh, still a tad difficult.  The problem is that literally every minute of every day from now until I drink my 1000th beer is booked.  Seriously.  Check this out (I'll start with tomorrow):

Wednesday
8:00-12:45 - Breakfast/study/interview prep
12:45-1:45 - Interview
1:45 - 10 - Study/dinner

Thursday
9:00 - 1:00 - Final
1:00 - Bed time - Eating/grocery shopping/cleaning

Friday
Waking up - 7:00 - Cooking/prepping apartment for the in-laws' visit
7:00 - bedtime - Liz's school's Christmas party

Saturday
Waking up - Going to sleep - Brunch with in-laws/Pee Wee Herman on Broadway/Dinner with inlaws/Christmas stuff with in-laws

Sunday
5:00 - 1000th beer!!!!!!

So there you go.  There's no time.  There's never any time!  For instance, right now?  I really need to be studying.  I don't say that in a "I'm a neurotic studier" way.  I say that in a "I have a final Thursday I haven't started studying for yet" way.

None of that had anything to do with beer.  Let's talk about beer, shall we?  Now that I'm in the final stretch, I'm trying to make every beer count (uhhhhhhh, pun?).  Gone are the Simpler Times (although tonight I think I'm going to drink TJ's bottle conditioned holiday ale).  On Sunday I limited myself to one beer, on account of having an 8 AM final.  That beer?  Probably my favorite of all time (at least top 3 that's for sure): Ommegang's Three Philosophers.  When two of those showed up in the Park Slope Coop Mix Pack, well, I was just about as happy as a clam.  Monday I had two Goose Island IPAs at Reservoir following a final.  Later that night I had a Duchesse de Bourgognes.  Well that's enough beer talk!  I'll remind you all about the 1000th beer, still happening this Sunday at 5 at the Gate in Park Slope on 5th Ave at 3rd Street!  Tomorrow you'll get a pretty lame-o update about tonight, but Thursday/Friday will be epic, epic I tells you!

Total Beers: 988
Countdown: 12 (ok, the video at the beginning is a bit premature, but the whole point is this is countdown time.  Also, that song isn't racist in the context of the musical, soooooo..........)

EDITORS UPDATE.  MY DAD MAY BE COMING TO THE 1000TH BEER.  BRACE YOURSELVES.

Beer Regrets

Much like John Adams on his death bed, as I approach the end of this year, I find myself looking back at what I've accomplished and what I wish I would have done.  Not that I'm filled with remorse or anything, but I do have a few beer regrets.  To be clear, these aren't regrets for things I've done after drinking.  These are regrets over what I should have drank, where I should have drank, etc.  For example, I regret not compiling a spreadsheet from day one of every beer I drank and where I drank.  It'd be nice for analysis purposes now, like a spreadsheet could tell me what percentage of the beers I drank were, say, Brooklyn Lagers.  I tried to put together a comprehensive list a few weeks ago, but it was taking forever so I quit after logging like 50 beers.  That will be a task for an intern at the publishing company that inevitably releases my best selling book I suppose.  What got me thinking about my beer regrets is that Draft Magazine just arrived and it has their list of the 25 Best Beers of 2010.  I was glad to see beers like 21st Amendment's Monks Blood and Brooklyn's Sarachi Ace on their.  But what stood out for me was the inclusion of Short's Brewing Key Lime Pie.  Let me take you back to Michigan for a second.  While in Alpena, Liz and I went on a beer run with my dad.  We found a beer store with a TON of Michigan microbrews.  The stipulation was that we could only get one six pack, lest my grandparents think we were total drunks (a weird stipulation, but it was what it was).  After narrowing down the beers to Michigan microbreweries that I couldn't get in New York, I decided to get a Short's Brewing beer.  They had a ton of different things, from weird fruit beers to classic pale ales.  Seeing as how my family would be drinking this beer, I decided to go for a standard.  I grabbed the Pandemonium Pale Ale.  If you recall, this was the beer that was perpetually foamy and just not all that good.  You know what was sitting next to the Pandemonium Pale Ale?  The Key Lime Pie, one of Draft Magazine's Best Beers of 2010.  I had to make a choice, and I chose incorrectly.  Beer regrets.  This is sort of like when I go to a beer bar with a ton of different things on tap.  Do I get something I've already had that I know I like?  Do I try something new?  What if I get something new that's not that great when there are other beers that I haven't had that would be better?  It can get paralyzing at times.

Well, there's my daily dose of producticrastinating.  As to the beers for the past two days:  Friday I drank a Redbridge Gluten-Free Beer (still gross) and an Avery Brown Ale (still good).  Saturday was an excellent beer day in terms of both quality of beers and also quantity.  I had a Sam Smith Taddy Porter, 2 Duchesse de Bourgognes, a Two Brothers IPA and a Golden Pheasant Pilsner (okay that last beer wasn't so great).

Total Beers: 984
Countdown: 16.  All right.  Here we go.

Blinding You With Science

It's finals time, which means I'm doing just about everything but study.  I get pretty good at doing productive-ish things that aren't exactly what I need to be doing.  For instance, I've got to eat dinner right?  So why wouldn't I make an elaborate meal that takes two hours of prep time?  I'm not procrastinating, I'm making dinner!  I've got to work out right?  So why not spend an extra hour doing the most non-intensive yoga possible?  I can't neglect my health just because it's finals time!  And in this vein of doing things I "need" to be doing, you're getting two posts, two days in a row, something last seen I think in 2007.

In the past, say, two years or so, I've been growing increasingly angry at myself for not getting an undergrad degree in science.  Nevermind that I'm terrible at science, that I withdrew from THREE separate intro-to-different-sciences courses in college, and that I'm 80% sure that I have the fine motor skills of a toddler, making lab work pretty impossible for me.  If I had a science degree, the world would be my oyster.  It's literally the best thing you can have in the legal world.  You can do all the law nonsense that us liberal arts majors can do, PLUS EVERYTHING ELSE.  Oh yeah, you know who's still hiring in these dire times?  Patent/bio law firms because like three people on earth can do that stuff, the three people who had the foresight to major in some science before going to law school.  You know what else you can do with a science degree?  EVERYTHING ELSE ON EARTH.

Why this rant right now and what does it have to do with beer?  Well I was watching the excellent show Brew Masters last night, which chronicles the comings and goings of the Dogfish Head Brewery, and I noticed that everything everyone was doing on that show was science related.  Their yeast expert?  I looked her up.  She's younger than me and she has one of the dopest jobs on earth.  How'd she get it?  Well, she majored in a science in undergrad, applied for the job and got it!!!!  All of Dogfish Head's brewers?  Science majors.  So my ultimate plan in life is to work a crappy legal job that pays the bills and then quit to do something awesome like start a brewery.*  You know what would make both the getting a job and starting a brewery parts infinitely easier?  A science degree.

Both of my parents are engineers, which is another major that is science-y and super practical.  Like all good modern parents, they instilled in me a belief that I could be anything I want to be/do anything I set my mind to.**  I didn't have to be an engineer.  I want to go into liberal arts?  Go for it!  There are plenty of useful things I can do with a poly sci/philosophy degree!  Well hopefully when I have kids, I can instill in them the same attitude.  You don't have to be a student till you're 27!  You don't have to get two worthless undergrad degrees and a somehow more worthless grad degree!  You can study things that will make you a contributing member of society!  But of course macrobrew will still be strictly verboten.  Another thing I wonder about in Brew Masters is this: Sam Calagione's kids have to be trying some of that beer, right?  Unfortunately the Discovery Channel can't show/broach one of the more interesting subjects about the life of a brewer: the brewer's attitude regarding his product and his kids.  I'm sure he's not getting his kids wasted, but there's got to be some kind of healthy balance between "Don't touch this stuff till you turn 21" and "Go nuts, kids!"  I'd imagine an artisan cheese maker's kids would know a whole ton about cheese.  Why wouldn't a brewer's kids know a ton about beer?  I don't care about erecting a retired Burning Man fort on your brewery's grounds!  Answer these questions, Brew Masters!

And so we get to the beers I drank last night.  It actually was a fair amount, because 1) the studying during the day went well, 2) Sunday is a one-or-none beer evening and 3) I could!  I had an Erdinger Weizen, whose bottle notes that it is "Crystal Clear."  I was hoping it would be like Crystal Pepsi and actually be clear, but unfortunately it was just a piss-yellow beer flavored beer.  Followed that up with a Stone Pale Ale, an Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter, and 2 Fuller's Extra Special ESBs.  So there's that!  In the grand scheme of producticrastinating (which is my new term for doing things like this), I'm sure you'll be hearing from me tomorrow!

Total Beers: 977
Count Down: 23 (I realize putting this number here is pretty stupid, but being but a liberal arts major, I don't have any real conception of what does and doesn't constitute a good idea)


*Note to potential employers, I'm not talking about quitting your job, which is surely great.  I'm talking about quitting that other one, you know, the one that sucks, which again, is not your job, which I'm super jazzed about.
**Like drink 1000 beers in a year and end a sentence with a preposition!  Thanks folks!

Huzzah!

I'm on the mend!  I suffered (that's a weird word to use in this context) a miraculous comeback after posting yesterday!  While I still have very little voice, my brain/body capacity is operating at close to 100% meaning I was able to have beers last night!



I mean, was able to sensibly drink some beers!  I had a Brooklyn EIPA (sweeter than I remember!), a Two Brothers IPA (IPA night I guess) and a Geary's Hampshire Special Ale (pretty good!).  So I guess all that freaking out yesterday was for naught!  And my studying is going well, so that means more beer (sensible) beer drinking tonight!



Total Beers: 972
How Many I Have To Drink For You Non-Math Wizards: 28

The Worst!

Man, I do not need this.  Seriously.  I was talking to Liz a few nights ago about how for the first time all year, the beer drinking has seemed a little like work.  I mean obviously this is all relative, because beer drinking is never actually work, but with my school/work/job application stuff in full swing, finding time for three beers a day gets a little tricky.  And now?  I'm sick!!!!  This is total and utter BS.  So far the cold has forced me to have a completely beer-free night (Monday) and a one beer night (a Cooper's Lager) last night (Tuesday).  If you recall, I have to drink about 3.1 beers a day to keep on my December 19th goal.  One beer over two days just ain't gonna cut it.  The worst part is that I'm still a little sick here.  I may take another full night off here just to get myself 100% healthy.  I can't be sick next week because I have finals. I can't be sick now because I need to work on the numbers.  Everything about this is just the worst!  Also, I've already committed to the December 19th date, so there's no going back from that.  I have a feeling that the days leading up to that are going to be rife with beer drinking.  Anyway, here's the beer drinking I have done since we last chatted:

Saturday: Had a Troeg's Java Head Stout in the afternoon.  Later that night we had a party at our place where I had a Redbridge Gluten-free Beer (pretty gross, I thought about not counting it but it did say beer on there and there was some alcohol in it), a Roscoe's Hop House Pale Ale, and 3 cans of Schafer's.  Liz will tell you all about Schafer's later.

Sunday: Young's Double Chocolate Stout, Brooklyn Pennant, and a Golden Pheasant Pilsner (side note, I'm pretty sure the Golden Pheasant gave me a cold.  I felt 100% prior to drinking it, and then 3 hours later I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I was swallowing razors.  Damn you Slovakia!)

Monday: Again, nothing.

Last night: One lonely (and kinda gross) Cooper's Lager.

Total Beers: 969

31 beers to drink and 11 days to do it in.  Even if I skip today, I think I should still be able to do this.  Again, next Thursday through Sunday should be pretty intense.

I Have a Great Wife

Ha!  That title was created by me.  And by me, I mean.... Liz.  But, whatever.  If in 50 years someone says "Hmm...remember that great blog about that random dude who drank more beers than most people in their mid-twenties do?  I should re-read it", then they will click on "December 2010" and see this title.  And it will be preserved forever!!!*

(I wonder if blogs will be super outdated in 2060, aka 50 years from now.  Probably.  I mean, it was only 10 years ago that everyone had a Xanga and a Livejournal and an AOL account and AIM.  And now no one has any of those things.)**

That all said, I try to be a great wife like the title says.  Let me tell you a tale of a time (a beer-related time) that I tried to be a great wife.

*Ahem*

Once upon a time, last Thursday, Ryan and I ventured all the way up to Midtown to see Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson on Broadway.  It was awesome.  Simply and totally awesome.  If you live anywhere near the NYC area, come see it before it closes in January.

One thing I must say before I go on with my story is that I like the trend in recent years that I've been seeing at Broadway shows.  Now, a lot of theaters allow - nay, encourage - you to buy food and drinks for consuming in your seats during the show.  It used to be (and still is at stuffier theaters) that you would pre-order your cocktails so that you could slam them back during the 10 minute intermission aka bathroom-line-wait-time.  First time I ever saw this was at How The Grinch Stole Christmas and now have seen it at all shows at the New World Theater (Evil Dead the Musical, etc,).  At plays like In The Heights you had to go to the bar to order the drink and then bring it to your seat.  At other plays, like The Toxic Avenger, they come to your seats and sell drinks and food like you're at a non-boring baseball game.  It's a nice trend (in London it was also allowed in most theaters and having a drink while watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by myself may have helped the show be even greater in my mind).

Anyway.
After seeing this show (which is only 95 minutes long and has no intermission), it was only 8:45pm.  So we thought we'd go get a drink in fancy shmancy Midtown before heading back to crummy old Brooklyn (Just kidding!  Brooklyn's the best!).  I came up with the perfect plan.

You see, if we were just any-old couple, we would have probably stopped in some lame faux-Irish pub for an over-priced beer and called it a night.  Or gone to The Olive Garden's bar.  But we are not just any-old couple, we are the couple featured on a blog about drinking beer.  Which means that sometimes the beers being drunk are not too interesting so the location has to become much cooler.  So I suggested we head somewhere that many of the readers (hopefully) have not been to.

So we walked south a few blocks to this:

Yes, my friends, it is a bar owned by Burger King.  I had read about it on the interwebs, so I figured that would make for a fun story.  Ok, maybe not fun, but cooler than "and I drank the beers on my couch", which much of this blog features.  Drinking!  In Burger King!  Maybe it would make the suburban readers' heads explode!  Because New York City is so awesome and way more advanced and progressive than the rest of the country -- we serve beer at our fast-food places.  

So we walk in.  And there are signs everywhere saying things like "Alcohol must stay on the premises.  Sorry, it has to be our way on this one" (Get it!?!  'Cause their slogan is "Have it your way" but now they're saying that you can't!  Clever, marketing gods...clever.)  So yes.  We see all these signs with pictures of Burger King paper cups filled with yellow beer and we smell the flame-broiled meat and read the description on the menu about Funnel Cake Sticks (yup, that's a thing now...).  But we can't find the beer.

We walk upstairs (yup, fancy fast-food in the big city has two floors, y'all) and see no beer.  We look at the menu by the registers and see no beer.  We walk all throughout the place and see no beer. 

And then I spot it.  In tiny, little, itty-bitty letters on the bottom of one of the before-mentioned clever signs it says "Coming soon".  

Yup.  A BAR that has no alcohol.  Only dead animals.

WORST BAR EVER

So, this is a tale of my trying to be a great wife.  I suggested a place that I thought would make for a funny note in an upcoming Ryan-written post and instead we drank beers, where?  On the couch.

Oh well.  I have no numbers, and I have no actual beer-drinking stories.  

The End.

*Or until the End of Days.  Whichever comes first.
**My parents do.  Well, only those last two things.  I hope.

[ed. note: It's Ryan.  Here are the numbers for the past couple of days.  Wednesday night I had two Otter Creak Octoberfests and an Anderson Valley IPA on the couch, you know, that place of places Liz previously mentioned.  Thursday night (after the show) I had, wait for it, an Avery Brown Ale and a Moa Dark Lager (from New Zealand!) on the couch, so those are gone.  Last night I took a trip to jolly ol' England, having a Fullers Extraspecial ESB, Sam Smith Organic Lager, and a Young's Double Chocolate Stout while watching Cameron Diaz have one of the worst Irish accents of all time in Gangs of New York on the Couch (which I guess is capitalized now).  Then, having run out of English ales, I had a Roscoes's Hop House Pale Ale.  So that's 9 beers since we last checked in, bringing the total to.....959.  41 to go!)

A Tale of Three Rude Elves

As you might have gleaned from my year's worth of posts, I don't have the most sophisticated palate in the world.  This may seem odd given that I, you know, write about beer drinking and all, but I think in general having a less sophisticated palate helps me as a beer drinker.  It keeps me from getting too snooty about the whole beer tasting ordeal.  It keeps me more focused on drinking culture than on beer critique, which I think is good given that there's enough negativity and criticism out there.  Also, given my not so sophisticated palate, I tend to get drawn to bigger, bolder, more interesting beers, which I'm just going to assert is a good thing.  This would probably explain why one of my favorite beers, seasonal or not, is Bethlehem Brew Works Rude Elf Reserve.  But having a less-than-stellar palate can also have some draw backs, such as if you're attempting to compare a beer to an aged version of itself.  The differences can be super subtle and if you don't have the tongue for it, you might miss out on the differences.  Fortunately for me, the beer I chose to age was a Bethlehem Brew Work's Rude Elf Reserve and the differences were, let's say, not too subtle.

Way back when, back when I first started this blog, I picked up a 4 pack of 25 oz bottles of Rude Elf Reserve 2009.  I drank three, like, immediately, and patiently put one aside.  The plan was to pick up a bottle of Rude Elf Reserve 2010 and then taste the bottles side by side to see what the effects of aging it were.  You know what's tough?  Having an apartment completely free of beer EXCEPT for a nice 25 oz bottle of Rude Elf you've promised yourself you wouldn't drink until the year's end.  I don't want to say that this was "tie me to the mast so I can't run toward the Sirens" difficult but.....actually that's exactly what I want to say.  But regardless of the difficulties, I did.  I aged the ever-living-eff out of that beer and brought it with me to Bethlehem over Thanksgiving, ready to pair it with a 2009.  Except it didn't exactly turn out like that.

I went to the Brew Works on Wednesday for dinner and to pick up a 25 oz, bottle conditioned bottle.  The 25 oz bottle was key here, because those are bottle conditioned and the 12 oz ones are not.  They're both great but I wanted to be able to compare apples to apples here.  I am informed that they don't have any on hand at the moment, but to come back on Saturday because they might have some then.  Dutifully, I returned on Saturday only to find out they didn't bottle the Rude Elf in 25 oz bottles this year.  Well nuts.  Not having the will power to age my bottle another year and hope that they bottle condition the 2011 version, I came up with plan B.  Instead of a straight bottle conditioned bottle to bottle conditioned bottle comparison, I decide to compare my 2009 25 oz bottle conditioned bottle with a 2010 12 oz non-bottle conditioned bottle, AND one poured straight from the tap at the Brew Works!  Here's some fun trivia: that last sentence used the word "bottle" eight times, which must be some kind of record.

The three way comparison thus described is a little disingenuous.  I drank the Rude Elf from the tap at BBW at around 1.  Then I proceeded to have an Oatmeal Stout.  Then I went to the Weyerbacher Brewery were I did some sampling.  Then around 9 I opened the 25 oz bottle.  Suffice it to say, I can't really tell you how the tap tastes in comparison to the other two bottles because my sense memory, itsa, how do you say?, not so good-a.  But the Rude Elf on tap was delicious, I can tell you that.

So let's get to the meat and potatoes here.  I am awful at describing the tastes of beers, which is why I don't do too much brew review, but here's what I can say.  The aged 25 oz bottle was super mellow, super sweet, and, oddly enough, not alcohol-y tasting.  The 12 oz, non-aged bottle was way more intense.  The spices were way more impactful, the alcohol more present.  To make a strained music comparison that maybe three or four of you will understand, the 2010 non-aged bottle resembled the Mountain Goats' early lo-fi stuff.  It screamed.  It was raw.  It was intense.  The 2009 aged bottle resembles, lets say, the Mountain Goats' later album, We Shall All Be Healed.  Still intense, but more produced, a little more settled, and a little more mature.  The two Rude Elves, much like early v. late Mountain Goats, are both great in their own right and could very easily have ardent defenders.  But in the end, its a win win.  Both are great.  Different, but great.  So that was my adventure in aging and comparing beers.  Worth it?  If it means I got to drink three Rude Elves in one day (which also may be some kind of record), then yes, definitely.

Total Beers: 950!

(Sunday, I had nothing, Monday I had a Hebrew Lenny's RIPA, an Erdinger Hefe Dark, and an Otter Creak Octoberfest at home (3).  Tuesday I had a Brooklyn Winter Lager at City Tavern and an Anderson Valley IPA and Otter Creak Octoberfest at home (3)).