You know what? I tried. As I was sitting at one of my neighborhood haunts, I had a come-to-God moment. I was sitting enjoying a beer for what it was, a concoction of malt, hops, yeast and water, being subjected to the restraints of the English language as a distributor rep talked to a guy that looked vaguely like Malcolm Gladwell. I heard all of the buzzwords you hear: malty, good mouthfeel, hop complexity, barrel-aged. Good googligly-moogigly! I wretched. I felt a piece of me die inside, but also another part come alive.
Maybe it's coming from a blue-collar community? Generations before me got drunk solely for the purpose of escaping the grueling day-to-day. If I worked in a factory for 12 hours, slept for 7 and had to deal with a wife and kids, you'd be damn certain that at least an hour or two would be spent in a gin mill to take my mind off of the every day. My grandparents lived in a simpler time. Cars were made of metal and would take a monumental shift of plate tectonics to really fuck you up. You could get lit-shit, get a warning from the sheriff to be safe driving home and still make it home. James Dean ate shit because he was driving a Porsche 550 Spyder. If he was driving a Chevrolet Bel-Air or Nomad, he'd be 86 years old and playing shuffleboard in Palm Springs. Or he would have died younger for another reason, seeking help for his troubled soul. Regardless, grandparents would bomb down the road in metal missiles and come home to play parent. Consequentially, it made the Baby Boomer generation worse parents because they didn't know what to do with themselves... they couldn't be hard-asses like their parents were but they were also taught the world revolved around them. THEY were the first snowflakes, but I digress.
Have you ever tried to be something that you were not? I have on more than a few occasions. One of them would be my experience with a local social club. By no means am I a fancy man, however, in the past I have dressed up beyond my paygrade because my girlfriend's (at the time) family belonged to a prestigious social club in Buffalo. I'm a guy that until today had 3 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of shoes, random ties and some button down shirts. The rest was soccer jerseys and tshirts from breweries I liked. Needless to say, I felt like a donkey at a horse race, especially with social standing. My grandparents were blue collar, who lived in a mobile home. My dad was AWOL and my mom wasn't doing so well either. As time progressed, I found my place. I was (am) an escape hatch for the mundane. I'm nothing fancy but I know how to get down and have a good time. That's my milieu. My shtick.
Most people are coming here for the banter. A raw portrayal of a functioning alcoholic in the modern day and age. Where most gentiles steer away from the raw sewer of life, I embrace imperfection. Imperfection is marrow of honest living. So, I vow, if you're looking for beer reviews, I'll suggest Beer Advocate or RateBeer. This is the real deal, Alex Jones and Americana shit right here.
Love you assholes.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Down with CBD, yeah you know me
Dateline: Portland, OR (February 18)
Office happy hours are a slippery slope, my friends. While most people steer away, I've never been one to turn down free beer. This year's happy hour presented some difficult caveats. The first being that I moved further away from my office. Last year, I got a ride from a co-worker but I also lived 5 minutes away. Now, I faced a 12 mile jaunt. The second issue was that the location of the happy hour. It was at one of my favorite bars, in fact one of the bartenders recognized me and started explaining that it was a private function wherein I confirmed I worked for said company. Also, this place specializes in some stronger drink. Needless to say, I navigated well, isolating myself in front of the television and tune out the world around me.
While I was there, I noticed that Coalition Brewing was doing a tap takeover and it piqued my interest. I've had a lot of their offerings, Space Fruit IPA, King Kitty Red, Loving Cup porter and Dropping Science. These guys get smart with their brewing, almost like one of your nerd friends from college tells you he's brewing beers. There were two new brews they were offering: Roselandia and Two Flowers. For the uninitiated, Portland is known as the Rose City. Local lore, and Google say this is to an Episcopal Church holding a convention in 1888 called it "The City of Roses" and a few years later, the mayor renamed the Lewis and Clark Centennial exposition after roses. So, there you go. From the brewers themselves: "We start with a kettle soured golden ale before adding a delightfully sweet rose cordial, a concentrated syrup made from rose petals. The mild sweetness balances out the tartness created by Lactobacillus and makes for a wonderfully approachable sour beer. " They then top it off with rose water. My first experience with rose and beer was Southern Tier's Compass. It was a bottled conditioned beer that used a delicate ale yeast and rose petals to give it a citrus, East coast flavor but it did have more bitterness. Regardless, I enjoyed Coalition's Roselandia. I tend to stay away from sours because I am not a fan of the bite. However, variety is the flavor of life and therefore important to a boozer like me.
Speaking of a change of pace, Coalition's Two Flower IPA was certainly that. It is Oregon's first CBD (Canabidiol) and hemp infused beer. It was cloudier -fitting for Portland, than your average IPA. Two Flower maintained it's West Coast IPA taste and interestingly enough, hemp and hops have related flavors and smells. If you're not getting it, Coalition is dropping Inception level nuance with the naming. From their release notes, CBD helps in the processing of alcohol. Which for me on that night, was fantastic. But as I was drinking my friend pulled up an article saying the DEA has classified CBD beer in the same class as heroin. HEROIN!!!! You'd think that with one sip, that bar would be an opium den of iniquity! What's with all the damn consternation? CBD and hemp are non-psychoactive. As in, you're not getting high drinking this beer. Fortunately, marijuana is a legal substance here in Oregon - but I made sure to order a second, because you never really know, do you?
It's truly an amazing time we live in. Brewers are able to take more liberties as we surpass the watery water of our forefathers. Beer is constantly evolving as is any medium, however we are still bound by rudimentary laws that stifle progress despite evidence dispelling them. Providing awareness is one of the most important things we can do, in general. Below, you'll find more information from Coalition and Two Flowers.
Na zdrowie!
Footnote: Coalition Brewing "Two Flowers"
Office happy hours are a slippery slope, my friends. While most people steer away, I've never been one to turn down free beer. This year's happy hour presented some difficult caveats. The first being that I moved further away from my office. Last year, I got a ride from a co-worker but I also lived 5 minutes away. Now, I faced a 12 mile jaunt. The second issue was that the location of the happy hour. It was at one of my favorite bars, in fact one of the bartenders recognized me and started explaining that it was a private function wherein I confirmed I worked for said company. Also, this place specializes in some stronger drink. Needless to say, I navigated well, isolating myself in front of the television and tune out the world around me.
While I was there, I noticed that Coalition Brewing was doing a tap takeover and it piqued my interest. I've had a lot of their offerings, Space Fruit IPA, King Kitty Red, Loving Cup porter and Dropping Science. These guys get smart with their brewing, almost like one of your nerd friends from college tells you he's brewing beers. There were two new brews they were offering: Roselandia and Two Flowers. For the uninitiated, Portland is known as the Rose City. Local lore, and Google say this is to an Episcopal Church holding a convention in 1888 called it "The City of Roses" and a few years later, the mayor renamed the Lewis and Clark Centennial exposition after roses. So, there you go. From the brewers themselves: "We start with a kettle soured golden ale before adding a delightfully sweet rose cordial, a concentrated syrup made from rose petals. The mild sweetness balances out the tartness created by Lactobacillus and makes for a wonderfully approachable sour beer. " They then top it off with rose water. My first experience with rose and beer was Southern Tier's Compass. It was a bottled conditioned beer that used a delicate ale yeast and rose petals to give it a citrus, East coast flavor but it did have more bitterness. Regardless, I enjoyed Coalition's Roselandia. I tend to stay away from sours because I am not a fan of the bite. However, variety is the flavor of life and therefore important to a boozer like me.
Speaking of a change of pace, Coalition's Two Flower IPA was certainly that. It is Oregon's first CBD (Canabidiol) and hemp infused beer. It was cloudier -fitting for Portland, than your average IPA. Two Flower maintained it's West Coast IPA taste and interestingly enough, hemp and hops have related flavors and smells. If you're not getting it, Coalition is dropping Inception level nuance with the naming. From their release notes, CBD helps in the processing of alcohol. Which for me on that night, was fantastic. But as I was drinking my friend pulled up an article saying the DEA has classified CBD beer in the same class as heroin. HEROIN!!!! You'd think that with one sip, that bar would be an opium den of iniquity! What's with all the damn consternation? CBD and hemp are non-psychoactive. As in, you're not getting high drinking this beer. Fortunately, marijuana is a legal substance here in Oregon - but I made sure to order a second, because you never really know, do you?
It's truly an amazing time we live in. Brewers are able to take more liberties as we surpass the watery water of our forefathers. Beer is constantly evolving as is any medium, however we are still bound by rudimentary laws that stifle progress despite evidence dispelling them. Providing awareness is one of the most important things we can do, in general. Below, you'll find more information from Coalition and Two Flowers.
Na zdrowie!
Footnote: Coalition Brewing "Two Flowers"
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Backwash
Backwash. It's that gnarly stuff at the bottom of the glass or bottle that you don't really want to drink. There's no surprise of what that it, simply food particles that only you ate but it just doesn't feel right to drink. The bartender is asking if you want what's left, almost indignantly, as if you are an aristocrat that's beyond such things. All of this coming from a guy who walked into a bar known for a vermin problem and drank a shot of Jagermeister that was on the bar before he got there. Such depravity. Even though we're beyond it now, let's take a look at the bottom of the glass.
Never have I tried to get overtly political on here. That's for all of the jagoffs on social media but we do suffer from an undiagnosed condition of histrionic personality disorder. It's best described as a person who seeks attention, talks dramatically with strong opinions, is easily influenced, has recently changing emotions and things relationships are closer than they are. It's a dangerous diagnosis because a lot of people have these traits. I tend to speak with strong opinions, but I try to abstain from absolutes - rather taking a more subjective approach, especially with this blog. But my goodness, have you seen some of the social media musings? Everything is the worst it has ever been and if you ask a certain group of people, it happened overnight. However, allow me to allay your fears, it's not as bad as you think.
Put it this way, of all of the regimes over the course of recorded civilization, it's been a lot worse. Despite the din of mainstream media, the rash of murders in Chicago, murders and violence is still down! It seems counterintuitive but if you think the world is at war, your natural inclination is to hoard. You have a mentality of scarcity. You don't risk anything because you think the tumultuous world is going to crash in around you. We tend to think of things swinging back and forth like a pendulum, but on a long enough timeline, you see it moving in a very distinct direction, like an angle bisector. Let's put it to bed. Do me a favor, as a cohabitant of Earth, let's look at things objectively and without emotion. Pretend you're reviewing a case that you need to solve. Review the facts and try to make a decision based in reality. Is everything fascist? Is everyone Hitler? Hell, Hitler wasn't the best version of Hitler.
I'm glad to get that out of the way. I feel like I needed to get that off of my chest. Moving on to things beer. I'm approaching two years here in Portland. It's odd considering that two years and 2 months ago, I never conceived that I would even be here. The beer journey seems to be a never ending one - with over 70 breweries within 50 miles of me. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch but it has been damn near impossible to really conquer the market. Breweries are always introducing new beers, introductions of new hops, malts and yeasts. My Untappd app is certainly getting a workout.
Whenever I go long periods without updating this, I make the proclamation that I'm going to contribute more. But I get caught up in the day-to-day. Work, exercise, relationships, jiu-jitsu and actual drinking - it's real easy to let things like this slide. That being said, I will be making some capital improvements. It's my goal to update my soviet potato MacBook from 2006 to a newer version along with some video equipment. My next article will be a book review of The Audacity of Hops which is a history of craft brewing since the early days of the 1960s and 1970s until today. With the upgrade of audio/video, I'm hoping to provide an experience like none other.
In closing, I want to thank you for your patronage. Last week, I started a new website, www.redefiningform.com where I will be discussing all things American soccer (with a splash of Canadian), match reports from local games and scouting analysis. I plan to do a game of the the week where I basically break down the game and shit talk for 90 minutes. Also, I plan on splashing in some fitness and jiu-jitsu articles. Maybe later expand to a GQ for men.
Follow me on Twitter: @drunkproduction and @redefiningform
Never have I tried to get overtly political on here. That's for all of the jagoffs on social media but we do suffer from an undiagnosed condition of histrionic personality disorder. It's best described as a person who seeks attention, talks dramatically with strong opinions, is easily influenced, has recently changing emotions and things relationships are closer than they are. It's a dangerous diagnosis because a lot of people have these traits. I tend to speak with strong opinions, but I try to abstain from absolutes - rather taking a more subjective approach, especially with this blog. But my goodness, have you seen some of the social media musings? Everything is the worst it has ever been and if you ask a certain group of people, it happened overnight. However, allow me to allay your fears, it's not as bad as you think.
Put it this way, of all of the regimes over the course of recorded civilization, it's been a lot worse. Despite the din of mainstream media, the rash of murders in Chicago, murders and violence is still down! It seems counterintuitive but if you think the world is at war, your natural inclination is to hoard. You have a mentality of scarcity. You don't risk anything because you think the tumultuous world is going to crash in around you. We tend to think of things swinging back and forth like a pendulum, but on a long enough timeline, you see it moving in a very distinct direction, like an angle bisector. Let's put it to bed. Do me a favor, as a cohabitant of Earth, let's look at things objectively and without emotion. Pretend you're reviewing a case that you need to solve. Review the facts and try to make a decision based in reality. Is everything fascist? Is everyone Hitler? Hell, Hitler wasn't the best version of Hitler.
I'm glad to get that out of the way. I feel like I needed to get that off of my chest. Moving on to things beer. I'm approaching two years here in Portland. It's odd considering that two years and 2 months ago, I never conceived that I would even be here. The beer journey seems to be a never ending one - with over 70 breweries within 50 miles of me. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch but it has been damn near impossible to really conquer the market. Breweries are always introducing new beers, introductions of new hops, malts and yeasts. My Untappd app is certainly getting a workout.
Whenever I go long periods without updating this, I make the proclamation that I'm going to contribute more. But I get caught up in the day-to-day. Work, exercise, relationships, jiu-jitsu and actual drinking - it's real easy to let things like this slide. That being said, I will be making some capital improvements. It's my goal to update my soviet potato MacBook from 2006 to a newer version along with some video equipment. My next article will be a book review of The Audacity of Hops which is a history of craft brewing since the early days of the 1960s and 1970s until today. With the upgrade of audio/video, I'm hoping to provide an experience like none other.
In closing, I want to thank you for your patronage. Last week, I started a new website, www.redefiningform.com where I will be discussing all things American soccer (with a splash of Canadian), match reports from local games and scouting analysis. I plan to do a game of the the week where I basically break down the game and shit talk for 90 minutes. Also, I plan on splashing in some fitness and jiu-jitsu articles. Maybe later expand to a GQ for men.
Follow me on Twitter: @drunkproduction and @redefiningform
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