My good buddy Aaron over at The Captain’s Chair thought I’d do well to try some brews from Marshall, Michigan’s acclaimed Dark Horse Brewing Company, and being that we don’t get any in NYC, he kindly sent me a nice little passel of them.

(My usual caveat to those readers that skim over the beer review parts and simply read this blog for the humor, insight, and perversion:  skip this post*)

Plead the Fifth Imperial Stout

12% ABV bottled

From their limited Holiday Stout Series, I unfortunately did not love this much-adored beer.  But I still liked it quite a bit.  I found it a solid but unspectacular Russian Imperial Stout with a predominantly roasted malt flavor accented by a slight chocolate sweetness and a smidge of hops bitterness.  I did love its smooth booziness and I gots to tip my hat to any 12 ouncer of beer that can put me down for an evening.  Hope to give this brew another try in the future to hopefully find out if I’m missing anything.

B+

Fore Smoked Stout

ABV unknown and Dark Horse ain’t telling…

Another from the Holiday Stout Series, I solidly enjoyed this one.  Smoked porters and stouts are often a tricky exercise in brewing and all too often I find them poorly balanced in one way or the other.  Either far too smokey or far too sweet.  This one wasn’t.  It was very smokey, obviously, like a piece of BBQed meat, but well balanced with sweet tastes of licorice and chocolate malt.  A nice mouthfeel and quite drinkable, but I must admit, the smoked beer I drank immediately after this one I enjoyed a bit more…The Captain’s homebrewed smoked porter.**

B+

Crooked Tree IPA

6% ABV bottled

I’d had a worldclass IPA to-be-named-later previous to this one, so maybe that distorted my palate, but I still suspect that this is just a good, but not great IPA.  It smells fresh and fragrant but the taste is just too bitter and unbalanced.  Salty even with next to no citrus profile like you’d expect.  Nevertheless, it’s a nice drinking single IPA and I could polish off a tub of these in a night.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that.

B

All in all, none of this troika of Dark Horses floored me, but I dug them all and could tell this is a brewery with some chops and inventiveness.  I hope to try more of their intriguing brews in the future.

*And come back tomorrow.  I’ll have a tale.

**Suck up alert!  Send me more!

9.4% ABV from a bomber

The Theater of the Mundane

Disclaimer:  The following post outright mocks people I may very well know.  Names have been kinda sorta changed to protect the lame.  It is the full opinion of the Vice Blogger.  Caveat friendster.

On Tuesday, Allie washed, dried, and folded three loads of laundry (YAY!); Linda made some Pillsbury biscuits in the oven (mmmmm…); Kathleen’s apartment inexplicably smelled like toast (LOL); and Casey took little Krista for a walk in the park .

Meanwhile, Aaron not only wondered why he had a Facebook and Twitter account, but why he continued to read status updates near hourly and, moreso, how he ended up with such boring fucking people in his life.

I suppose any communications tool has become fully mainstream once it is used for predominantly mundane purposes.  Where once man would only employ Alexander Graham Bell’s watershed invention to send pertinent audible information quickly over unfathomable distances, soon enough little teenyboppers were spending all night on the horn discussing boys.  Where once cell phones were used only for post-haste assistance in catastrophic emergencies, quickly they became a device for efficiently getting drunk chicks to meet up with you at a bar.  Emails went from high speed disseminators of information to simply an easier way for my mother to alert all eleven of her contacts to be very wary of the dangerous flatulence005 computer worm.

And now social networking.  Facebook was once a great gadget for doing legitimate stuff like spying on girls you drunkenly met the night before to assure yourself that they were actually attractive.  Now it has become a repository for stay-at-home moms to post mundane pictures from even the most meager events in their childs’ lives (”Krista’s First Arbor Day!”) and uninteresting “real-time” status updates every time their little rugrat does so much as rip a pea-sized fart.  And where ever-so-briefly Twitter was a brilliant bazaar for a rapid micro-exchange of ideas and content, now it has become nothing more than digital diarrhea for some of the most mundane people on planet #Earth.

Based on the fact that all these mundane status updates gets tons of thumbs-up “likes” from equally mundane people, all these mundane Facebook photo albums get countless “How cute!” comments, and all these mundane tweets are followed by a bevy of @mundane_person so kewl!!! replies, I am certain this theater of the mundane is only gonna get worse.

I suppose I’m not completely exonerated myself.  I’ve certainly been known to post an inane thing or two while lit up.  (Hey, if everyone else gets to be really fucking boring, why can’t I?)  But, at least I try to be interesting the majority of the time, giving you a microblogging bouillabaisse that roughly breaks down like this:

40% — Interesting links I thought should be passed on

10% — Hopefully humorous and pointed musings

5% — Info on what bars I’m drinking at if perchance I have a hot female fan that wants to stalk me*

4% — TwitPics of ugly New Yorkers

1% — Drunken chatter

40% — Reviews and thoughts on a variety of topics spanning the spectrum from food to sports to pop culture to beer.

Such as a review of B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher which was too great to waste on a micro-post.  I’d always wanted to try this Ohio brew but to my knowledge, NYC doesn’t not get any Hoppin’ Frog stuff.  Odd then that I should be just 6.1 miles away in Hoboken, NJ this past weekend where I found a glorious beer store (Sparrow, uptown location) that was stocked with this stuff as well as beer from countless other breweries us Empire Staters don’t get.  State-by-state beer distribution is so fucking odd.  I found B.O.R.I.S. silky smooth and amazingly flavorful.  Dark fruits, a surprising little hoppiness, and a nice sweetness reminded me of a poor man’s Surly Darkness. Maybe a middle-class man’s Darkness.  Even on a hot Saturday afternoon it was not too thick or potent, and its amazing drinkability made it a quite scary way to kick off a day which would eventually see about a dozen mint juleps and countless beers consumed over the next twelve hours.

Far be it for me to be the arbiter of what is interesting (in 140 words or less!), but people, come on, before using Facebook or Twitter, would it be that hard to ask yourselves these few things before you hit “post”?

A.  Will my friends/followers be entertained by this?

B.  Will they learn something by this?

C.  Will they find this truly interesting?

D.  Were I around these people in person would I actually say this thing aloud?

“Hey Stacy, how goes it?”

“Mowed lawn today, now craving lemonade.”

Ugh.

But I am just one man on the warpath and the mundanity continues, like sands through the hourglass, these are the boring updates of our lives:

Suzanne who can’t decide whether to take the dog out to pee; Meghan who wonders if she should gas up the tank 2nite or 2morrow; Alex who is eating Pringles and watching “Idol”; and Joseph who just vacuumed.

For God’s sakes people, either get more interesting lives or digitally fucking pretend that you already have them!

I look forward to countless unfriendings and unfollows.

Aaron says…BRING IT.

A

*Nope, still never happened.  Yet.

9.5% ABV bottled

They–meaning “good” people–always say to truculent assholes like me that, yeah, you’re right, the world will obviously still be up and running on all cylinders when me and you die, no matter how poorly we treat it, but we still have a responsibility to leave this world nice for our children and for our childrens’ children.  Recycling and maintaining itty bitty carbon footprints and not exploiting the land or our fellow man.

Well, I don’t plan on having any children*, so I guess I can continue to be an anti-environmental asshole, right?  Maybe.  But maybe not, if being a nice, sweet “green” dude means it will now be a part of my ethos to drink fair trade coffee.

Allow me to explain…

A few weeks ago I was bored, dicking around on Beer Advocate when I started studying their Top 100 list a bit trying to tip myself off to some great brews I had perhaps never heard of.  Those are sadly becoming fewer and farther between as my beer studies advance.**  However, this time I noticed a pop residing at the #15 position.  One I’d never heard of.  One with an odd “foreign”-soundin’ name.  Peche Mortel.  Interesting.  I didn’t do much further research at that moment and simply filed my newly-culled fact away in the ol’ Goldfarb memory bank.

Luckily, my research would serve me well as just a few days later I found myself at Whole Foods and came across a lone bottle of Peche Mortel residing on a high shelf.  My memory jogged like Chuck Bartowski’s Intersect-affected mind on “Chuck”–does any one in the entire world watch that show because that is one killer analogy I just made–and I quickly snatched the 12 ouncer off the shelf.  I examined the bottle.  Hmmm…an imperial stout from Montreal.  Odd, for some reason I thought it was gonna be a fruit beer from Belgium.  Maybe because I dumbly translated “peche” to mean “peach” and thought the funny language looked Belgian-y.  For the record, your honor, Peche Mortel actually stands for “Mortal Sin” if you’re as ineptly monolingual as I am.

That very weekend, while watching the sublime new “Thrilla in Manilla” doc on HBO, I popped the bottle with much anticipation and was floored by the intense coffee smell as the hot booze punched me in the snotbox the second I began to transfer the liquid from bottle to glass.  Whoa Nelly and Holy Cow, this is one great beer.  It tingles the tongue with a roasted coffee taste and pronounced bitterness, a smooth and creamy espresso body, and finishes with a subtle hint of sweetness.  I’ve had several great coffee beers lately, most notably Brooklyn’s Intensified Coffee Stout and Surly’s Coffee Bender, but this trumps them both.**  This is an incredibly complex stout and, personally, I think it’s even better than the much ballyhooed Kona-coffee-infused Founders Breakfast Stout.  That fair trade stuff is the real deal, brother.  And no, I still don’t really know what fair trade coffee is and am far too lazy to read the Wikipedia entry on it.

I honestly have no clue how rare this beer is as I just stumbled upon it through pure happenstance, but I am glad to learn that America, Jr. up north actually has another great beermaker aside from Unibroue.  Although, I’m not even sure if Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel makes anything else worthwhile as I know nothing about their other beers other than that they have some cool looking labels and their Aphrodisiaque sounds most exsquisite.  I’d love to get my hands on some if any one knows where to score ‘em.

Hey, it’s the era of grade inflation and I can’t help if I keep having masterpieces so…

A+

…I’ll try to drink something shitty this weekend, I promise.  Those are the most fun reviews.

Speaking of which, if any one has any tips for something abominable I can tipple for my next video review, please let me know:  theviceblog [at] gmail.com.

*On purpose that is, and probably not on accident either as I sit with a laptop on my balls for ten-plus hours a day, every day, and were my scrotum to be vivisected it would probably show a bed of long-perished spermatozoa floating atop a pool of neon green seminal fluid like dead fish at the end of a stream which has a tributary coming out of a nuclear power plant.

**If any one ever calls me an alcoholic, I’ll just start saying my beer studies are quite advanced.

**Quoth the brewers:

If you love really good coffee and really good beer equally, you will be thrilled with Péché Mortel. If coffee isn’t your cup of tea, and caffeine makes you bounce off the ceiling, then just put the bottle down and find something else to drink. This beer is all about coffee. Indeed, you may have seen ‘coffee stouts’ before, but no brewer has ever married coffee and beer so naturally and seamlessly.

10% ABV bottled

My Quasi-Celebrity Girlfriend, Part I

If I told you her name there would be a 0% chance you’d have heard of her.  But if I showed you her picture, there would be a near 100% chance you would recognize her.  Let’s call her the Land O’Lakes Girl.  I met the Land O’Lakes Girl–a name I won’t shorten to the unfortunate LOL, though later you may Laugh Out Loud in pity at me–in the late fall.  I had sat Shiva for exactly one month over my previous failed relationship and I got back into the swing of things with a vengeance.

People always say you meet girls when you least expect it.  On line at the grocery store, sorting through the bargain books at Barnes and Noble, stuck in a rickety elevator.  Yeah, maybe for some people.  Maybe for rom-com movie characters.  But not for me.  I always know when I’m going to meet women.  If I need groceries or bargain books or an elevator ride, that’s all I’m focused on.  Not hitting on women.  You ever seen the kind of clown that’s always “on” around women?  It’s embarrassing.  Embarrassing for everyone involved.  She’s trying to peacefully do a crossword in the coffee shop and he’s all amped up, “So you from around here where you work where you go out are you married engaged dating single you like to drink????”

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with flirting with girls at atypical locations, in fact, that can be quite effective and advantageous.  I just don’t like to utilize it most of the time.  The bar scene has always been my playing field as it is most people’s.  The place where I can focus my energy and put it to good use.  Having said that, I’ve always been someone who likes to meet women alone.  When I’m out drinking with my friends I’m out drinking with my friends.  They are interesting, funny, and cool people so why would I want to desert them in order to go speak with a, in most cases, boring stranger?  I don’t.  It’s borderline rude even.  Every one has a friend that will throw away a guys’ night out if he even sniffs vagina.  No one likes that guy.  I’d rather goof around with my friends, get drunk, watch some sports, and maybe something happens, maybe it doesn’t.  So if I’m only in the mood to meet women, I fly solo.

I headed to a nearby neighborhood bar.  A Utopian place for me to meet women:  good beer list, convivial bartenders, perfectly dim lighting to make me look my most comely, correctly volumed music to allow for easy conversation, classy dames aplenty, and, most importantly, no television.  Of course, I typically love bars that have televisions.  I’m an information overload kinda guy and I always need to know what’s going on.  But if you’re out alone trying to find women, a televisionless place is grand because it forces you to talk to people if you want to find entertainment that night.  It’s walking a tightrope with no safety net.

I was on drink two or three, having a good conversation with the bartender about some of my latest rare beer scores between his derisive fetchings of Blue Moon for the other bar patrons.  I’d just had Founders legendary Kentucky Breakfast Stout.  A brew I’d been trying to get my grubby little paws on for years.  Top 10 on BA’s much-debated list, I expected an orgasmic experience, and, as usual, my personal over-hype marred my experience somewhat.  This was a great beer, no question, but it simply did not floor me as I had hoped.  A kinda thin mouthfeel and not as bourbony as expected, or hoped. Tastes of roasted coffee, vanilla, and chocolate malt.  Silky smooth with not even a tad of boozy bite.  I liked it the more I had it, but I still would have to put Bourbon County Stout and Black Ops ahead of it in the bourbon-barreled beer game.

Soon enough a fellow drinking soloist had bellied up to the bar beside me.  Blond, youthful, perhaps Scandinavian, dressed laid-back and funky, and reading a worn paper back copy of Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.”  I don’t usually interrupt people in the act of reading–whether they are in the park, in a plane, on the can–but I couldn’t help myself.  Here was a great-looking gal reading one of my all-time favorites.

I leaned in:  “Thou mayest.”

I took the nerd approach, quoting the most famous line in the novel, one of the most famous lines and concepts in American literature.  She would have to be a dope not to get my reference, while she would be my crush of the moment if she showed any sort of recognition.

She loved the reference.  In fact, she had just read that iconic section, Chapter 24, Part 2.  Steinbeck’s succinct and Midrashian explanation of man’s free will*.

She musta liked my exhibition of mine own free will because with a flourish her Garfield bookmark had been slotted into page 386 and her bar stool tilted 45 degrees toward mine.  Quickly, the rapport between us was palpable.  It was like we were best friends.  No, like we were drinking buddies.  And we were both sober.  Or, at least, soberish.

We liked all the same art:  “Fight Club” and Tom Wolfe, “Arrested Development” and “Twin Peaks,” Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Bergman, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, and Kubrick.  Larry David and Ricky Gervais and Chris Rock.  “Lost” and “Mad Men.”  Warren Zevon and Brian Wilson and Simon but not really Garfunkel though we had to admit he was still needed.  Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Quentin Tarantino, and Paul Thomas Anderson.  Most specifically, the latter’s beautiful epic “Magnolia” which we both adored.

“I live on the corner, want to go back to my place, watch “Magnolia,” have a glass of wine?”

She said it all with the perfect level of casualness.  A level I had once delivered back in my younger days when I thought the only way to get a girl back to your place was through means of subterfuge.  Heck, maybe she did just want to watch “Magnolia.”  I accepted her offer.

“Great.  Let me go to the bathroom before we leave.”

When she was out of ear shot the bartender sprinted over to me.  He seemed both impressed but still also like he was about to offer a warning.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?!”

Who?

“You really don’t recognize her?”

No.  What’s the deal?

“Yeah, she looks a lot different in person.”

So who the fuck is it?

He smiled wide.

“The Land O’Lakes Girl.”

I searched my mind for past encounters with “her.”  I could kinda picture the iconic yellow butter box with the bucolic landscape of a rolling green hill and the blue sea, a young Indian girl kneeling down on it, garbed in ceremonial clothes, presenting the world with her churned milk fat in a box that looked exactly like the box she was on.  Like when you see a mirror within a mirror within a mirror.  The “Droste effect” if I am to be pedantic.  Odd.

“Think about…” the bartender goaded me on.

I was thinking about it.  Her.  And why did Land O’Lakes use a Native American pitchwoman?  Were they famous for butter?  Wasn’t that more of an Amish or Quaker thing?

I couldn’t fully reconcile what the bartender had told me, it seemed feasible but not exactly true.  Wasn’t that character made up?  Hadn’t it been around for a century?  ”

“They update the ‘look’ every few years,” he noted.  “She’s the newest model.”

He was so damn sure that I accepted it.

The Land O’Lakes Girl returned from the bathroom, grabbed my arm, and we headed out, the bartender offering a conspiratorial wink to me and only me as we exited.  I didn’t like that wink.  It was a wink that said to me, “Enjoy her.  The rest of us already have.”

On the sidewalk outside, I just blurted it out.

“So the bartender told me you’re the Land O’Lakes Girl?”

She stopped and turned toward me, a grumpy exhale.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“No it isn’t.  It’s terrible.”

For the rest of the walk she explained that though she was the face of an iconic character she had only made marginal money from the use of her likeness, certainly no royalties, had achieved a worthless and empty “fame,” and, in fact, needed a normal day job.  She felt that the Arden Hills, Minnesota-based agricultural collective had really ripped her off.  Her visage in two out of three houses in America, yet never more than three figures in her bank account.

Back in her small studio, she searched her massive DVD collection for “Magnolia” while I looked around the twenty by ten shoe box.  Once in a new apartment the first thing I always ogle are a person’s book shelves.  It’s a quick and easy way to learn a lot about that person, to snoop on them.  Zero books, books with pink covers, airport trade paperbacks, and you can tell you aren’t exactly dealing with a scholar.  Luckily, the Land O’Lakes Girl had a potent collection of notable novels aside her Dewey Decimalized selection of books on a variety of academic topics.  Hey, if we weren’t going to hook up, at the least I could “borrow” some of her tomes on my way out the door.

“I don’t feel like wine any more, wouldja go grab us some beers in the fridge?”

I did as asked, noting with glee upon opening the refrigerator that there was not even a miniscule pat of Land O’Lakes residing in the butter tray in the door.  Nope, instead a spritzer of Smart Balance substitute butter spray sat on the top shelf.  The Land O’Lakes girl was either watching her figure, had zero culinary tastes, or a deep-seated hatred for her impresariol company.  She had a solid taste in beer though as I grabbed two Victory HopDevils and headed back to her sofa just as the New Line Cinema logo spun onto her television screen.

As the Ricky Jay narrated prologue began we sat most chastely on her cheap futon, a full arm’s length away.  As Aimee Mann’s haunting cover of “One” exploded during the title sequence, the Land O’Lakes Girl had tucked her feet up under her and scooted near me.  By the John C. Reilly cop character’s voice-overed opening scene we were snuggling.  And, some fifteen minutes later, when Tom Cruise’s sleazy “Seduce and Destroy” pick-up artist Frank “T.J.” Mackey knee-slid into the fore-frame of P.T. Anderson’s camera we had begun making out.

“Respect the cock!,” shouted Frank “T.J.” Mackey.

She crawled on top of me.

“And tame the cunt!  Tame it!”

She ripped my clothes off.

“Take it on headfirst with the skills that I will teach you at work and say no! You will not control me! No! You will not take my soul! No! You will not win this game!”

I returned the favor.  Quid pro quo, yo.

“Because it’s a game, guys. You want to think it’s not, huh? You want to think it’s not? Go back to the schoolyard and you have that crush on big-titted Mary Jane.  Respect the cock!”

In flagrante delicto.

“You are embedding this thought. I am the one who’s in charge. I am the one who says yes! No! Now! Here! Because it’s universal, man. It is evolutional. It is anthropological. It is biological. It is animal.

We…

are…

men!”

And soon frogs were raining down.  It was incredible.  Hilarious.   A hook up set to a soundtrack of the maniacal rants of perhaps the most misogynistic character in film history.  Later, we would laugh about the dichotomy.  We did a lot of laughing together in the next week.

The only week we ever saw each other.

For the next week would bring me one of the most accelerated and bizarre relationships of my life.

CONTINUED…

A

*”Now, there are many millions who in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win…and I feel I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing — maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent towards the gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed — because ‘Thou mayest.’”

8.5% on draught

There seems to be a common refrain that you can never have a happy future with a girl you picked up at a bar. People always snicker, “Huh huh, wouldn’t want to meet your future wife there.”  Well why not?  I have at least four friends–conservative friends even–that met their wives at bars and all of them currently have swimmingly longstanding relationships. This is 2009, not the fucking Roaring Twenties.* You can most certainly meet your future wife at a bar.  Just depends what kind of future wife you want.  And what kind of man you are.

DIVE BAR

She: is an underemployed alcoholic with a minor STD or two whose face you’d never want to see in the  harsh daylight and who ends each night vomiting wherever she sees fit.

You: are an emetophiliac.

FAUX DIVE BAR

She: is into drinking pitchers of beer and isn’t concerned about her shoes getting sawdust on them.

You: are the kind of guy that enjoys the romantic bohemian notion of being a Bukowskiesque barfly but has too much cowardice to start drinking at 9 AM, get into alley brawls, and ruin your liver because even though you fucking hate your accounting job you really don’t want to lose it and have to tell your mother.

MIDTOWN HAPPY HOUR BAR

She: rarely goes out to bars and only did this one time because her co-workers forced her and now she’s done and gotten drunk off of two white wine spritzers and will soon enough start loudly singing along to trite songs like “Brown Eyed Girl” even though she thinks its opening line is “Hey there, Rodrigo!”

You: are not into loosening your tie just one millimeter before heading into the bar because you think women are actually impressed that you have a job that necessitates wearing a suit even though most wealthy people nowadays don’t wear suits while such occupations as doorman, movie theatre usher, parking attendant, and rent-a-cop security guard are always besuited.

HIPSTER BAR

She: listens to bands you’ve never heard of, reads books you’ve never read, has lots of skinny and scruffy platonic male friends who bitch about the fact that the bar sucks ever since it replaced its shitty old-fashioned quarter jukebox for one of those awesome digital Bose ones that hold 100,000 songs, and lives in Brooklyn on her parents’ dime.

You: have no issues with pretending you’ve heard of her obscure bands, read her obscure books, hanging with her “platonic” friends that you are certain fuck her and make fun of you behind your back for ordering Tom Petty from the Bose jukebox, and having two-borough walks of shame in the morning.

IRISH PUB

She: is a bit chubby, a prodigious drinker, eats most of her meals at the bar, and gives frequent mouth congress.

You: consider romance to be dates that begin with a shared Shepherd’s Pie followed by countless pints of Guinness and relationship that ultimately culminates in a dream wedding which includes you dancing your first dance to “One” because you’re a fucking moron that doesn’t realize the song is about breaking up.**

GAY BAR

She: is so annoying no women will be friends with her.

You: are into faking you are a homosexual in order to capitalize on insane Men’s Night drink specials (2 for 1 WooWoos?!) and are willing to capitulate to an “Ivy League rub” at the end of the night if you strike out with the bar’s fag hag or two.

LESBIAN BAR

She: is a lesbian.

You: are too daft to notice the giant rainbow decal on the bar’s front door and wonder why the place is so packed with stuck-up bitches you can’t spit game to.  Or, you are just way into standing on the sidelines during tribadism sessions.

HOTEL BAR

She: is an aging recent divorcee that had a tiresome day window shopping on Fifth Avenue and is very much into scoring a self-esteem boost before returning to Tulsa.

You: are into intentionally guessing that women are fifteen years younger than you know they really are (”48?!  No way!  You look 35 at most.”), drunkenly making out while the piano player pounds out “Lover’s Sonata,” disgusting the old men bartenders that wear aprons, breaking your personal “record,” and ordering a $25 room service Western omelet in the morning on her tab after having killed her minibar at 4 AM the previous night.

AIRPORT BAR

She: likes killing times during long layovers by drinking Bloody Marys cheaply made with Mr. & Mrs. T’s mix and Absolut, wanderlusting, and flirting with strangers.

You: always kill time by getting drunk at the nearest bar, flirt with anything that will listen, and have enough hubris to think that telling her you are from New York will get her to drop her panties in the airplane lavatory for you.

KARAOKE BAR

She: is a slightly overweight drama queen with a lot of gay friends.

You: are a slightly underweight and majorly effete dude that thinks performing an ironic duet of Neil and Babs’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” will sufficiently stand as foreplay before heading back to her apartment for some mammarian outercourse.

WINE BAR

She: is a snooty, pretentious, lush that still lives her life according to “Sex & the City” and has a bookshelf at home with predominately pink covered books about the “dos” and “don’ts” of dating.

You: are either on a date at the very moment or a homosexual.  Seriously, no single man goes to a wine bar.

STRIP CLUB

She: is a stripper.

You: are a rapper or professional athlete with a tattoo and fake tit fetish who wants a few more illegitimate bastards in your life.

CHILI’S BAR

She: lives in the kind of crappy burg that doesn’t have any place better to drink at, forcing her to sit at the overlit chain restaurant bar swigging margaritas and praying that this is the night a man finally walks into the bar that she didn’t go to high school with.

You: are in some shitty town on business and couldn’t find any other place to get a drink.  But, seriously, Chili’s margaritas are fucking delicious.

FANCY RESTAURANT BAR

She: is the kind of gal that sits alone nursing a $15 Manhattan (heavy on the sweet vermouth) waiting for some rich and aging pathetic loser to offer to buy her dinner.  Or, she’s a high-priced hooker.

You: are the kind of rich and pathetic loser that can only obtain female companionship by offering to buy a steak for them.  Or, sex from them.

SPORTS BAR

She: is either a legitimate “guy’s girl” that truly has a passion sports (10% chance), a girl that likes watching the big game and knows she looks cute in a tight football or basketball jersey (40%), or thinks it pretty savvy to go looking for dick at a bar with a 90/10 male/female ratio despite the fact that the former is intently watching the game while sloppy on beer and covered in wing sauce.

You: are the kind of guy that doesn’t subscribe to the “bros before hos” credo and will, at the drop of the hat, quit watching a game you supposedly passionately care about to flirt with a marginal girl who doesn’t even know who Lebron is, raising your friends’ ire.

LOUNGE

She: is the kind of girl that will assume you’re rich and come talk to you if you wear a blazer and get bottle service.

You: are the kind of fool that gets bottle service and can only ejaculate via irrumation.

DANCE CLUB

She: doesn’t like to wear underpants and can only seduce men who never get a chance to hear her speak.

You: are a bad conversationalist, ugly, dumb, maybe wealthy, don’t like your ear drums, enjoy dance floor frottage, possess drugs.

JUST-OUT-OF-COLLEGE BAR

She: is semi-annoying but fun, thin and in shape, and likes doing shots until she is slurring.

You: are a successful beer blogger that will put up with a semi-annoying little pop tart because she is fit and fun and you know she has no interest in getting married, having kids, and moving back to Poughkeepsie any time soon.

CRAFT BEER BAR

She: is either the bartender or not in such a geek hangout.

You: are drinking alone with other beer geeks.

Such as where I had Brooklyn’s newest release, their glorious Intensified Coffee Stout.  Wow.  By far the most aromatically coffee brew I’ve ever had.  As the bartender slowly drew it into a snifter, the entire bar began to smell like a little mom & pop cup ‘o’ Joe joint.  I knew I was in for a great treat.  And the taste was even more phenomenal.  Not an overly complex beer, just simple and splendid ingredients–Stumptown Guatemalan Full City Roast Coffee Beans and chocolate malts–flawlessly put together.

At the bar, I started to again ponder something I’ve wondered for a while:  are coffee beers caffeinated?  So, when I got home I decided to send a slightly tipsy e-mail straight to the source, Brooklyn’s always affable brewmaster Garrett Oliver who quickly wrote me back:

“Though we have not had it tested, our calculations are that the beer contains, per volume, about one-third the caffeine of brewed coffee. We based this on the volumes, our technique, and the coffee we use. It’ll certainly give a little boost to your day!”

Indeed it did, especially for a beer, coffee, and caffeine fiend like myself.

Currently only on limited draught, I truly hope this becomes a regular release.  Up there with Black Ops and Brewmasters Reserve Extra Brune as my favorite beer they’ve ever made.

A

*Though I certainly wouldn’t mind a flapping Zelda Fitzgerald type in my life.

**U2’s “One” that is.  Although a wedding first dance to Metallica’s “One” would actually be pretty awesome.  That song still rocks so hard.

Within the last month, Sam Adams released a new series of imperial brews in order to “offer beer lovers’ an intense version of some of their favorite traditional beer styles by boosting the ingredients and testing the limits of each traditional style” said the press release robot employed by the brewery.*

I was excited to try all of these as I can’t help but love Sam.  Sure, they aren’t the most adventurous beermakers in the world–save the brilliant Utopias–but they always make quality stuff and you have to admire the heights they’ve attained in the world of beer while not making watery swill.

Double Bock

9.5% ABV

I don’t particularly love most bocks, but this was a pretty good effort.  Incredibly malty, the bottle actually claims you could make a loaf of bread with it.  I believe that!  So rich, I honestly struggled to finish the bottle and liked it less and less the more I drank it I was so overwhelmed.  Though the initial flavor is admittedly pretty solid.  Robust and syrupy tastes of malts, caramel, and spices.  Worth trying, though I’d recommend splitting a bottle.

B

Imperial Stout

9.5% ABV

Inexplicably, Sam had never had a major release stout before this.  Odd for one of the most common and desired style.  Thus, I was excited to see what they could accomplish with this release.  I found it very boozy and harsh tasting for the not-to-so-high(-for-an-impy-stout-at-least) ABV.  Still, not bad.  High level of roasted coffee notes and malted chocolate but not much else going on.  It actually reminded me of a less polished version of Founders Breakfast Stout with a mouthfeel and a drinkability like a Guinness Extra Stout.  This would be a splendid “starter” imperial stout to give to a friend you are trying to get into craft beer. A worthy effort fo’ sho’.

B+

Imperial White

10.3% ABV

What a shocker!  I was least interested in trying this one of the three.  I mean, what do you think of when you hear American white beer?  You probably think nothing.  Flavorlessness.  The bland faux-micro macro Blue Moon.  Again, nothingness.  No flavor, just nothing.  Imperializing a white seems like an oxymoron.  How can something so bland be made “bigger” and “bolder”?!   Ultimately, what I’m saying is that I hate whites and much like two times zero still equal zero, I figured two “times” white would still equal shit.  It’s like imperializing tap water.  I saw no way this would be good.   Boy was I wrong.  This was incredibly flavorful, complex, interesting, and potent.  Tons of orange with strong coriander notes.  A hyooooge mouthfeel and body.  And the ABV!  Wow.  I will definitely get this again, and, actually, I kinda want one now. Truly one of the bigger beer surprises of the year.  I don’t even feel foolish saying this is one of a kind.  Beer Advocate actually may now have to create an “imperial white” style category.

A-

*He cost $2.5M to design but his brilliant and totally human-sounding statements meant to inspire customer loyalty and create a new fan base has paid off ten-fold!

9.5% ABV

HIQ:  Hungover Intelligence Quotient

I was slurring my words, unable to form complete sentences, a screwed up syntax, barely able to even move my mouth and tongue in the correct way to ejaculate words.  I had the most mild form of brain damage:  a massage hangover.

Thursday was one of the more epic days of my year.  Kicked it off around 4:00 PM splitting a bottle of Portsmouth Brewery’s legendary Kate the Great with my friend Derek who had actually trucked up to New Hampshire to secure it earlier in the year during KTG Day.  Currently BA’s 5th ranked beer in the world, I too was blown away by it.  Coca Cola dark with a beautiful smell of booziness.  Tastes of sweet molasses, rich chocolate, and a little spiciness to go along with a slight fizzy carbonation and some alcoholic heat.  Imminently drinkable, this masterpiece still doesn’t quite touch Surly Darkness in my all-time stout rankings, but it definitely battles for the #2 slot along with luminaries Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Brooklyn Black Ops, and Avery Mephistopheles’.

After catching our collective breath from our Kate the Great orgasms, we headed to 33rd Street for several hours of manly drinking before entering the World’s Most Famous Arena where, getting further lubricated on The Garden’s $8 Labatt Blue pints, we watched perhaps the Greatest College Basketball Game of All Time.  Euphoric in joy, somewhat sobered up being that MSG’s last call for brews was some TWO hours before the game actually ended, we headed back to Stout for some aggressive tippling and victory celebrating in that special hooliganistic way unique to upstate New Yorkers.

By 6 AM I somehow found myself in a luxury hotel room with three adorable Pitt fans I’d met earlier in the day, polishing off overpriced mini-bar M&Ms and impromptu vodka and Ocean Spray cran-whatevers.  I awoke the next day in the Park Avenue establishment feeling like I’d taken a shotgun blast to the head.  Still reveling after watching the greatest event ever in the history of tattooed pituitary cases placing round objects in peach baskets, I triumphantly walked up 42nd street, a slight limp in my gait from a groin pull which I’m still not certain whether I acquired during or after the game.  Still wearing my beer and sweat soaked team logo hat and T-shirt from the previous night and receiving countless compliments from spectators for picking such a grand school to matriculate at, numerous high fives were released.  But I didn’t have much time to relax and recover back home on the couch, a sack of ice on my crotch, watching back-to-back replays of the game on ESPN Classic, for I had to head back to the Mecca that evening for the Cuse/West Virginia semi-finals tilt.

To say my Friday was a tough one would be putting it mild.  My brain was absolute mush.  My vocabulary had to be at best at a fourth grade level, we’re talking maybe two syllables max per word.  Comprehending a dinner menu was tough, remembering how to take the subway tricky, understanding the rules of basketball an impossibility.  My trademark wit was sapped from me and I had become a retarded dullard on par with Charly Gordon with a jaw full of Novocaine.  I couldn’t even get my brain to execute the hand-eye coordination needed to simply claps my hands together after a made basket.

This got me thinking.  How dumb exactly had one of my all-time massive hungovers made me?  Minus 10 IQ points?  20?  I’d dare say it was more like a loss of 30 to 40.  I’ve never had such empathy for the dolts in this world if they have to walk around 24 hours a day like I was feeling on Thursday, their neural synapses misfiring more often than Leno during his monologue.

The stat nut that I am, I now want an actual quantitative measurement of my hangover induced dumbkopfism.  I know my approximate resting, sober IQ–something I just confirmed via an online test–so from now on dear readers, any time I am moronically hungover, I will take a similar online test and see how I fare, posting the results.  This should be a fun experiment.

Wow, taking IQ tests with a pulsating booze-created headache, what a way to spend a Saturday!  Much more exiting than ordering in some greasy diner food and watching a “Tool Academy” marathon.

A+

18% ABV bottled

My favorite line from “Fight Club”–the book, not the film, though I guess it somewhat appears in both media–is “The things you used to own, now they own you.”*  And that’s the way I’ve pretty much always lived my adult life.  In the most spartan way possible with not many more possessions than a set of golf clubs and a huge stack of used books.  It’s also why I like beer.  Something I can only “own” until I pour it down my gullet and filter it through my liver.

But what about mental “ownership” of things?  This is where it gets tricky for the things I used to mentally own, in other words used to unabashedly love, have gotten harder and harder to enjoy the more discerning  my tastes get.

A movie buff, no longer can I simply relax and enjoy a film.  Nah, they all fucking suck.  Even the so-called good ones.  I need a cinematic masterpiece to cause any of my synapses to fire.  Most of the “funniest” movies of the year barely make me chortle once.  The most dramatic of the year barely raise any emotion from me.  In fact, I’d say of the three-hundred-plus flicker shows I watch per annum, I’m lucky to have a dozen of those rattle my core.**

Television is even worse.  Just background noise for 99% of the week.  (Then why do I watch so much?!)  Ten minutes into most shows, even ones I supposedly “like,” I have lost interest, started texting, reading a magazine or book, my mind wandering.  It’s the rare program–a “Lost,” “30 Rock,” a tip-top “Friday Night Lights”–that can make me drop everything and stay fully locked in.

Ditto sports.  Aside from Syracuse, the Yankees, and the Giants–”my” teams–who I am lifetime signed up to watch and root for, I can barely enjoy other events.  Been there done that.  Oh, another dunk, another home run, another annoying T.O. press conference.  Just doesn’t inspire me like it used.

Food has become simple nourishment unless it is truly mind-blowing.  Luckily I live in Manhattan, so I dine well, even on the cheap, quite often.  But still many of my week’s meals seem to just be boring fuel.  It’s even worse when I’m in other cities as I often feel like I’m Oliver Twist in the gruel line at their “Zagat-reviewed” restaurant.

Women may be the worst of all!  And I live in maybe the most attractive city in America!  Certainly on the East Coast.  Lately, I’ll be out for hours and hours and not see even a single woman I would date.  No matter how great her personality is.  Oh boy, and in bed she better be more uninhibited than a drugged-up porn actress and more pliable than Olga Korbut.  I just don’t got interest any more with the 6-out-of-10 sober, lights-off, missionary position, “The Very Best of Chris Isaak” on the iPod dock, vaginal intercourse.  I’d rather just masturbate to voyeur porn.

Why have my standards raised so high?  Why have I become so jaded?  Am I just getting old, grumpy, and curmudgeonly?  Do I no longer have a libido that still fires on all cylinders?  Believe me, it’s not a good thing to be bored and unimpressed with 99% of things in life.  Who am I to have such arrogance, to be so critical, so discerning?  I’m not so great.***

Now we get to beer, specifically World Wide Stout which is a good beer, perhaps even a great one.  But I couldn’t enjoy it in the least because that very same day I’d enjoyed two masterpieces and the Dogfish Head just didn’t stack up.  What dangerous thinking!  It’s like being mad you’re dating a nice, cute girl next door and not Freida Pinto.  Being unable to watch the brilliant “Damages” because it ain’t quite as good as “Lost.”  Not enjoying Tarantino’s latest because it will never reach the heights of “Pulp Fiction.”  You see how this is a bad way to go through life?

So I will try to stop.  No, not just look for the good in everything, but instead savor that good in everything, no matter how good and savorable it is (Leinenkugel beers excepted).  World Wide Stout is famous as one of the most alcoholic beers in the world made by one of the most extreme beer maker on this planet.  Dark, rich, roasted, and malty.  Yes, I didn’t find it quite as complex or flavorful as Mephistopheles’ or Dark Horizon, but shouldn’t I just enjoy it for what it is as opposed to what it isn’t?  Yes, I probably should.  I think an average-looking girl I was once dating said the very same thing to me once when she caught me eyeballing a knock-out crossing our paths on a Soho sidewalk.  Naw, my average-looking girl was annoying.  I was right to stare.

A-

*In the film it’s slightly changed to “The things you own end up owning you.”  I think the used to in the literary version is incredibly important.

**Coincidentally, a rare orgiastic cinematic experience happened just last night with a viewing of little seen 2008 documentary “Dear Zachary:  A Letter to a Son About His Father.”  I didn’t expect much from this film and don’t even recall putting it on my Netflix queue.  Thank heavens some force of kismet did put it there. It’s one of those films where at the beginning you’re barely paying attention–checking e-mail, snacking, cleaning the house–and next thing you know you can’t tear your eyes from the screen.  An absolute jarring work, I ran the gamut of emotions from one minute to the next as more and more facts from this unbelievable story are masterfully revealed and woven together.  As for countless critics, both online nobodies or “professionals,” that call this work amateurish, those folks have clearly never made a film before because this is an absolute tour de force of both footage acquired and edited together. Heck, the editing alone is virtuoso. The best documentary I’ve seen in the last fifteen months or so, how was this not Oscar nominated?!  Not to be missed, I will NEVER forget it.

***Yes, I am.  Just trying to be humble for once.

15.92% ABV bottled (Nov. 2008 BATCH 4)

A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Homeless People in America from Drinking Low ABV Shit Beer, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public

If I was the kind of guy that was into charities, the one I would found would be called Craft Beer for Bums (CBB).  Oh how it upsets me so when I’m walking through my tony Manhattan neighborhood and see a hobo trying to keep himself warm with a pathetic forty of Olde English.  How saddened I am upon encountering a wino trying to drink his troubles away while forgetting that he smells like the Kansas City stockyards as he slugs some fortified wine.  How many tears have trickled down my cherubic cheeks watching a transient try to numb his pain and pass out for the evening on some rotgut potato vodka.

No, I will not stand for it any longer, from now on I want the homeless of the world drinking craft beer.  It just makes sense!  Man needs a certain amount of pleasure in his life.  You’re getting a lot of sex then you don’t need much else.  Not getting any intercourse and all of the sudden you’re gorging on food.  It creates a vicious cycle no question.  Which came first:  the girl was fat or she wasn’t getting laid?

The homeless are the same way.  Stinking like urine, members of the fairer sex are obviously not talking to them and thus the closest they get to coitus is that pocket pussy they stole from Babes in Toyland.  Likewise, little culinary pleasure can surely be derived from day old Dunkin Donuts munchkins.  Thus, the homeless have no choice but to get their daily minimum of pleasure from alcohol.  And I am the satyr that will orchestrate things.

What kind of life is it for these gentleman to be laying in a gutter drinking 4.2% Bud Light tallboys?!  It’s not a life, not at all.  They need stuff with taste and flavor and enough alcohol per volume to put them on their motherfucking asses.

A splendid beer to start a craft beer neophyte homeless man with might be Avery’s Mephistopheles’ Stout.  For years I’ve considered Avery as a good but nothing special brewery.  I’m not sure why that is, because I had no reason to feel that way, no proof whatsoever.  And, considering the last few beers I’ve had from Avery have been their splendid Collaboration with Russian River, their top-of-the-line DIPA, and now this stout masterpiece, I must admit my visceral regard toward them was unequivocally wrong.  Mephistopheles is simply one of the best stouts I have ever had.  I tippled it in the same sitting that I had the A+ Dark Horizon 2.0 and Dogfish Head’s Worldwide Stout and it outshone them both.  Probably the regular release beer I’ve found to be the closest in deliciousness to Surly’s phenomenal Darkness.  A very sweet stout, but not cloying in the least.  Lacks that overpowering dark chocolate/roasted coffee flavor most big boy stouts have which makes it quite unique.  Its prominent tastes are molasses, dark cherries, sweeter chocolate, and boozy, stinging, delicious rummy alcohol.  Even though it ain’t cheap–we’re talking a couple of sawbacks for just 12 ounces–you absolutely have to try it.

A single bottle of this and a malnourished, scurvy-riddled bum would be in lala land, having the most pleasent of dreams.  And the benefits of well-drunk homeless people would be immense to us beer geeks.  No longer would one have to waste a few minutes on Beer Advocate or RateBeer researching upcoming brew purchases.  Naw, you could just walk down you block and “Hey, Smitty, had any good saisons lately?”  The streets would be literally lined with beer recommendations.

You might think me callous, “Bums can’t be getting shit-faced on expensive, super alcoholic beer!  Have a heart!”

But ask yourself this:  who is callous?  Me, who wants to give the dregs of society a little pleasure in their lives, or the sanctimonous leftist city that won’t even sell cheap booze in the parts of town where their homeless congregate?  Move to New York, homeless folks, CBB will get you well snockered.

If you agree with my cause, please PAYPAL me your donations.*

A+

*Please don’t.  I don’t want to go to jail for running a false charity.  But feel free to send me some money or beer to satiate mine own dipsomania.

17.5% ABV (bottling #11,554; November 5, 2007)

Deleted Scenes

A few brief tales, anecdotes, one-liners, and happenings that never came to complete fruition from my recent life that were not quite good enough to make the theatrical release.

*BB and I picked up two best friends at a swank bar in Philadelphia who brought us back to my girl’s apartment for a sordid slumber party.  The next morning, under the guise of needing a Starbucks, they escorted us out of the building.  Awkwardly standing on the sidewalk, no one quite sure how to wrap up the one night stands, I said to the gals:  “So how you want to end this thing?  Handshake?  Hug?  Kiss on the cheek?”

*Brunching at a college diner on a Sunday, a man arrived amidst the sweatsuit-clad completely overdressed for 11 AM in a tuxedo.  My friends and I began loudly snickering and openly mocking him, perhaps due to the intoxicants still in our systems from the night before.  One friend nicknamed him “James Bond” and I couldn’t help but humming aloud Dum da-da dum dum dum.  Finally, I came up with the swell idea to secretly send the tuxedoed dork a shaken-not-stirred martini–a splendid value at only $6.50 I might add.  Unfortunately, the man departed before our waitress returned to our table and potential hilarity was averted.

*There was the night my youthful looking friend couldn’t locate his driver’s license, something that worried him since we were going out drinking later at a bar with ball-busting bouncers.  I told my friend not to be concerned for once we got to the pub, I handed the meathead doorman my ID, matter of factly asking him:  “You let Jews in here, right?”  He put his hands up in minor dismay, pleading with me:  “Why yes!  OF COURSE we let in Jews!”  I smiled good and pulled my IDless friend toward the entrance.  “I need to see his card.”  “He lost it.”  “I’m sorry, but I can’t let him in then.”  I exploded in anger, loudly calling out for the whole block to hear:  “You’re not letting my friend in?!  Cause he’s Jewish?!  That is unacceptable!  You anti-Semitic bastard!”

*On a similar note was the drunken night I decided to expose bigots, taking the guise of an anti-Semite and confiding in the bartender:  “Just between you and me, fella, I hate fucking Jews.”  I asked him if the rumors were true and Jews were indeed poor tippers.  He confided indeed they were, those swarthy money grubbing bastards.  I played it cool, but later in the night and much drunker I began laying waste to the bar, ripping decorations of the wall and “making it rain” with cocktail napkins, swizzle sticks, and lemons.  Of course I was 86ed but I must admit the bartender was quite prescient:  this Hebe gave him a zero percent tip.

*There was this previous weekend where I was talking to my friend on the phone as he worked, making a plan to visit him in his office later in the day.  I heard schoolgirl giggling in the background and my buddy revealed that the laughter was coming from a co-worker who had discovered the Vice Blog and was a huge fan, now excited and nervous to meet a “celebrity” later in the day.  Since I’m an inveterate egomaniac, of course I’m more excited to meet a fawning fan of mine than even they are to meet me.  And I was most excited to find her an attractive girl.  I now hope to meet more unknown fans in the future.  Come on ladies, have the balls to reveal yourselves to me and take me out for drinks, something I will reward with a few autographs and by letting you touch me.

*And the most recently disappointing “What coulda been…” an all-time legendary story was a few weeks ago as two friends and I closed down a bar when who should enter the deserted watering hole but an absolutely model stunning collection of ten friends.  I quickly made friends with the group by asking them if they thought the girl one of my friends was hitting on was a lesbian.  They took the analysis of that question with utter seriousness, mocking my friend enough that he soon skipped out on his girl and joined me with the ten hotties.  Quickly, we learned that these leggy youngsters were an entire college basketball team from a college you’ve never heard of in Pennsylvania.  These beauties loved me and my friends and were almost battling over who got to be paired with whom.  Heck, we even made plans to drive up and watch the nationally ranked team play a basketball game and then afterward sleazily party with them in their dorm rooms.  Attractive, 5′11″, leggy, college athlete, party girls.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  Unfortunately, after a few Facebook communiques over the next week, we all lost touch and the most epic orgy of all time never materialized.  Oh, what could have been…

My friend Derek hooked me up with a bottle of the second edition of Dark Horizon.  The first batch currently resides in Beer Advocate top 100 and it would seem the younger bottling is just as good.  In fact, the self-proclaimed “Uncompromising Brewery” has made one of the better stouts, if not outright beers, I have ever had, pushing the threshold of punishing booziness with its 17.5% ABV.  Being that the incredibly handsome tin and tissue-wrapped packaging notes “mature til Fall 2009, best by 2020,” I imagine this beer will only get better and better and better.  Though even drinking it not quite “ripe,” I found it to be just a hair below the immortal Bourbon County Stout in my all-time stout rankings.  Full of dark chocolate, coffee, a slight sugar sweetness to even out the bitterness, and a silky wine-ness, this brew is amazingly drinkable for its potency, and a true Norwegian masterpiece.

A+