11% ABV from a bomber

The Great Sports Trivia Quiz

Oh, the silly games men play.

It started with some casual shit-talking over e-mail on Friday.

Sal goofed on Graig for having lost to him in the recent College Bowl Mania challenge on ESPN.com.  He noted that Graig was lucky the contest had been so close, quote:

“I have sharted more sports knowledge than [Graig] has in that goofy head of his.”

Graig responded promptly:

“Any time, any place…sports trivia challenge.  I would MURDER you and you know it.”

And, since I am an classic goader, egger on, and rabble rouser, I responded:

“If you wish, I will compose an all-sports trivia challenge for you two, to be competed over in the afternoon on Saturday.”

I knew Graig, a fiery competitor and prolific gambler, would relish the challenge, would put his money where his mouth is, but I wasn’t so sure about Sal.  As Sal waffled for a few minutes, I continued trying to get this deal arranged.  Why you might ask?  Because few things are as interesting as watching two friends fight hard in a competition.  Sal and Graig are since-college best friends, former roommates, and currently coworkers, so a gambling competition between the two all but guaranteed fireworks.

Perhaps worried that Sal would pass, Graig told Sal he’d pay his apartment mortgage for February if Sal beat him.  Finally, after about an hour of deliberations, Sal and Graig agreed on the deal.  One-hundred all-sports trivia questions, $20 per correct answer, questions to be approximately split up into these categorical proportions.:

Obscure sports………………..2 questions
UFC……………………………..2
Women’s hoops………………..2
Autoracing……………………..2
Lacrosse………………………..2
Horseracing…………………….2
Soccer………………………….2
Boxing…………………………..4
Winter Olympics……………….4
Summer Olympics……………..4
Tennis………………………….4
Golf……………………………..4
Hockey………………………….6
College basketball……………12
NBA…………………………….12
College football……………….12
NFL……………………………..12

Now came the tough part. Composing the quiz. It was only 2 in the afternoon, but I put aside all my work and plans for the day–seriously–because I knew how hard it is to make a trivia quiz. Oh, sure, you think can just quickly google “sports trivia” and cut and paste together a 100 question challenge. But that would neither be fair to Graig nor Sal. And, most online sports trivia is insultingly easy.

First, I quickly formed an ad hoc trivia team, shot out a cc’ed e-mail to a half dozen of my most sports-savvy friends, asking them to send me some of their favorite questions related to sports arcana. Soon, the questions were flying in–and they were good.

Meanwhile, I began writing out some of my all-time favorites questions that I’ve gathered from three decades of being a sports nerds (”Who was the first European to win the Masters?,” “Who was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento?,” “This man, nicknamed “The Bayonne Bleeder,” was purportedly the inspiration for Rocky Balboa?,” etc).

After an hour, I realized this was going to be even tougher than I had imagined. I had only written and assimilated a dozen questions or so. Twelve quality questions to actually ask my friends. With such high-stakes involved, I couldn’t give them any garbage. I was shooting to write a quiz that neither had questions so hard that only the Schwab could get them, nor questions so easy that everyone’s mom could get them. In the past, I’d composed some trivia quizzes for friends, but never more than 10 or 20 questions. 100 was downright unwieldy, this was clearly going to be a Herculean task.

I had dinner plans with a girl that night but was forced to cancel them to give me more time. Time I would certainly need. And, no I did not tell the girl I was choosing to compose a nerdy sports trivia quiz instead of dining and drinking with her. To keep me company I popped a bottle of Southern Tier’s Choklat, an asskicking imperial stout. Terrificly smooth while still being quite potent, this was perhaps the most chocolatey beer I’ve ever had. Certainly right up there with Ommegang’s Chocolate Indulgence, Brooklyn’s Black Chocolate Stout, and Samuel Adam’s Chocolate Bock. I enjoyed the hell out of it, though its hidden booziness had me quite toasted just halfway through the bomber, giving me all sorts of drunken, wacky ideas for what sorts of questions to ask my friends (”Hmmmm…I wonder if, ‘Who was Webster’s father?‘ would be a good trivia question?”)

By midnight, I had completed the 100 question quiz. I was absolutely drained. Sadly, this was some of the most grueling work of my life. I should work for the Elias Sports Bureau. Of the 100 questions, I was quite proud of at least 80 of them, and was pumped to see how my friends would fare.

I got to my Graig’s apartment in Jersey City before noon the next day. We all had plans to attend the Syracuse/Rutgers basketball tilt in New Brunswick that evening to root on our alma mater, so we had no time to spare. I figured it would take about two hours to get through all one-hundred questions. Countless other friends of mine were quite intrigued by the challenge. Many of these people don’t even know Graig or Sal but they couldn’t wait to hear the results. Most were curious how each man would behave. Graig is quiet and humble, a huge competitor that takes losses hard. If he lost I could see him locking himself in the bathroom and crying, perhaps walking into a semi truck, maybe even skipping the basketball game altogether so as to grieve. Sal on the other hand is like the Incredible Hulk when he is angry, which is quite often for the hulking man. I was almost certain he would break something if he lost. He quite possibly would start some fisticuffs with Graig. Or me! I made sure my questions were well-vetted as I didn’t want any ambiguity in my answers to cause Sal to lose and thus lead to him pummeling me.

I couldn’t set a gambling line on the battle for several reasons. Both men know sports trivia quite well, but their knowledge is spread over different subjects. Likewise, Graig is well-known for getting jittery and, dare say, choking during competition. In fact, as I arrived at his apartment, he was literally quivering. Antsy, nervous, jumping around, like some fourteen-year-old kid who had been brought by his libidinous father to a brothel in order to lose his virginity. I’d never seen someone so freaked out about something so borderline futile. On the other hand, Sal was cool as an unbrined pickle, laughing, joking around, mocking Graig’s nerves, and even using some gamesmanship trash-talking to make his buddy even more scared.

Graig had no choice but to calm his nerves via drink. We had twenty-four beers on hand and by the end of the quiz, the three of us had blown through them all. A good decision I’m not so sure, but it was certainly a fun one. Graig got the first question right, but that was one of his few successes for the day. Sal charged out in front early and at one point was seven questions and $140 ahead, laughing, giggling, and clowning on Graig like Gary Payton smacked on the countless lesser NBA points that couldn’t guard him.

Three and a half hours later, all three of us were wasted and absolutely drained, too tired to even be that celebratory in victory or that demoralized in defeat. No one cried, nothing was broken, friendships were maintained, and your Vice Blogging moderator was not punched.

Sal prevailed by a score of 32 total corrects to 30 for Graig, netting the big guy a cool $40. Clearly, I had made the questions too hard by an order of magnitude. We all agreed that next time, they would write 100 questions and I would be forced under the sports trivial heat lamp to see how I fare. Can’t wait.

A-

(To view the full quiz, click here.  Highlight under each question to see the correct answer.  And, if any of you fools out there actually take the entire quiz, I’d love to hear your scores.  Please post in the comments.)

10.7% ABV from a bomber

One of my best friends Mookie, a frequent reader of the Vice Blog despite the fact that he has never had a sip of alcohol in his life, sent me an angry text on Christmas Eve:

“I am reading the Vice Blog on my phone and am trying to plow through the beer snobbery to get to a funny story.  You gone soft on us?”

No, I haven’t gone flaccid and I don’t need any Cialis.  Just nothing that particularly interesting has happened to me in the last week or two while I am simultaneously trying to unload a backlog of beer reviews before the New Year.  Having said that, I’ll offer a brief anecdote from last week to tide you over, Mook.

Drinking heavily on Thursday after an office Christmas party, my friend Johnny and I decided to go the absolute diviest bar in the neighborhood.  One of those Irish joints–Blarney Stone, Blarney Rock, Blarney Shit, I can never recall  its exact name–where anything goes, with the exception of smiling or happiness.  The kinda place that doesn’t even have mixers behind the bar, you best drink your liquor straight, perhaps on ice.  The kinda place that would even be too dingy for Mickey Rourke’s character in “Barfly.”

Just as Johnny and I were entering the Blarney, the bartender was furiously ejecting four girls.  Four fairly attractive and marginally put-together girls.  Certainly not the kind of females that typically go to this joint.   (The kind that do go usually need to put two barstools together to create a super-stool to sit their wide loads on.  The kinda lasses that bring in their own pizza pies to the bar.  The kinda women that order entire pitchers for themselves.  Though I ain’t hating.)

When the Irish barkeep returned I asked him what had happened.  His still seething response of which I will not try to replicate the cadence of?

“So I picked up one of those girls and took her downstairs to the basement to fuck her.  Since I’m the only bartender tonight, I told her friends to serve themselves while I was gone.  When I returned they had plowed through tons of top shelf bottles!”

The nerve!

I only wish I’d arrived at the bar a half hour earlier.  No, not to pick up the slut before him for a quick downstairs romp, but rather to be left to my own devices and bottles of Jameson Gold.

“Movie and some Chinese food?” is what every non-Jew thinks he is being highly comical in asking a Chosen Person about their Christmas day plans.  It’s the “Check please!” joke of the holidays.  In stereotypes there are some truths though.  I do indeed spend Christmas at the movies–always–because, shockingly, even in Manhattan, almost everything is closed.  After a movie or two I usually grab a steak and then proceed to get loaded.

Today’s (first) libation was Black Ops.  I’d been anxiously awaiting this beer.  Since Brooklyn Brewery refused to announce an exact release date for it, I was forced to call the Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room literally every single day from the Friday after Thanksgiving until just a week ago when the fed up employees were finally able to change their answer to my question of “Has Black Ops arrived?” from “Are you the guy that keeps fucking calling every day?” to “Yes, it is finally here!!!”

I expected nothing short of a masterpiece from Black Ops and indeed it is.  I’ve been having lots of bourbon-barreled beers recently, the world class Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout just two days ago in fact, so I was in perfect shape to compare this one to several other greats.

Aged for four months in bourbon barrels, bottled flat (no clue what that means), and re-fermented with Champagne yeast with an always seductive cork sitting atop it.  A filthy black pour that instantly stained the sides of my glass.  A deliciously boozy aroma of chocolate, vanilla, and much roasted coffee.  The oaked bourbon sensations absolutely pummeled my tongue.  I half-expected to piss stout after finishing this bottle.  A great beer that I felt could have used just a tad more sweetness, though that is the most mild of gripes.

This is a beaut, but I’d say it still loses by the smallest of margins in a photo finish to Bourbon County which remains the king of bourbon-barreled stouts.

(Oh, one final note, I really didn’t think this tasted like Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout at all, though I’d like to do a side-by-side comparison to be sure.  I had thought that Black OPS was simply a bourbon-barreled version of that one but now I believe this is a completely different stout.  Though I may be wrong.)

A+

13% ABV bottled (2008 BATCH)

Beer connoisseurship is kind of like drug addiction.  I just realized this.  Every “lower” beer a gateway to something higher.  Once you’ve had a 6% stout it becomes hard to ever enjoy a 5% one.  And once you’ve had a 10% beer it becomes hard to enjoy that 6% one you so used to love.  Bourbon or whiskey barrel that 10% brew and now a “normal” 10% tastes like a Coors Light!  It’s a slippery fucking slope.  Us beer geeks are always looking for the higher buzz and it makes us jaded men and women.  It’s not a good thing to be at the point where throwing back pale ales is like drinking a root beer.

I’d been anxious to try Bourbon County for several years now.  It’s not exactly a rare beer, but it never seems to make it to the East Coast.  Though it seems now that its distribution has been kicked up a notch throughout all of America.  The 29th ranked beer in the world, my friend had lucked into a bottle the day before Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving day, when he went to grab the bottle, it placed atop the fridge, he slammed the Kenmore a little too strongly and the bottle rocked, rocked, rocked and then in slow motion tumbled the five feet, shattering with a glorious and potent explosion.

In shock and holding back tears, we fell to the floor, using our fingers like a cat uses his paws in a milk dish in order to taste a little of the wasted brew.  Yes, despicable but true.  We had no choice.  We thought we might never get to try it again.  Fortunately, I again found a bottle of it this week and snatched the sucker up.

Aged in sixteen-year-old charred oak bourbon barrels for 10 months this is one massive brew.  One Beer Advocate commentator described it as a “beer-aged bourbon.”  That about sums it up.  This one kicked my ass and I spent well over two hours indulging in the 12 ounce bottle.

Packed with hints of vanilla, caramel, smoke, chocolate, and a prominent and scalding bourbon booziness which I totally dig, this is right up there with Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and the likewise bourbon-barreled Schlafly Reserve.  In fact, I will go so far as to say that this is the second best stout I’ve had in my life after Darkness.

A+

10.5% ABV

The same gentleman who tipped us off on the greatness of J.W. Lees went to the back room and returned with what he called his #1 beer of the year.  I would have been leery, being that I’d never heard of the beer, much less the St. Louis-based brewery, but the bomber was in a cheap cardboard box (not pictured), and as I mentioned just yesterday, I’m a sucker for beers in boxes.  And this one is also aged in Jim Beam bourbon barrels.  A daily-double!

I’ll be goddamned but that beer geek was absolutely correct.  Oh, it’s not the best beer of the year, but it is indeed a classic.  I had it over Sunday brunch–seriously–and was floored.  What a way to start the day!  A roasty, rich and malty stout with hints of caramel.  The oak and bourbon really shine through too, making this an absolute boozy delight.  Highly recommended.

And just like sands in the hourglass, so continues our week of cardboard boxed, barreled beers that score an…

A+

10.3% ABV from one damn fiiiiine bomber

The lights have been dimmed, a few scented (new car smell) candles lit, in addition to a Glade plug-in at every outlet including several surge protectors. I’ve got some romantic vinyl spinning on my turntable. Naw, not Barry White or Marvin Gaye, that shit’s for movie characters and bumbling, stumbling, fumbling virgins. I’m talking ’bout the legit sexy shit, good lovemaking music that doesn’t just bluntly discuss the act in question but handles it in a more matter-of-fact, nuanced manner ala Chris Isaak or Positive K. You’re right, Positive, if we can’t be lovers than we can’t be friends.

I unbutton an extra button on my Dr. Pepper pajamas, comfortably position myself on my satin bean bag chair just as the doorbell chimes. My butler Godfried brings my guest before. “Hello Darkness my new friend” I suavely say.  She cringes, no doubt having heard the Simon & Garfunkel play on words far too often.  I remain unflappable, focused, and once my manservant is gone I begin to examine the bottle, diving in immediately and ravishing her, caressing her sexy curves, admiring her beautiful label. I’ve never been so turned on.

Finally, it’s time. With a suppleness acquired from years of experience, I deftly unclasp the the string from the bottle’s neck and remove its luscious red wax top. My masculine hands reach for a bottle opener and quickly I pop off the final barrier between me and my love.

I put my giant Jew shnozz right into my lover’s open orifice, taking a huge inhale. “Goddamn, I said goddamn!” I’ve never smelt anything so fragrant, not even that year-end issue of GQ with all the cologne samples stuffed right into the magazine.

I pour my lover from the bottle, admiring her beauty, a black and flowing River Styx of liquid cascading into my monogrammed chalice (”#1 Dad” (I stole it from a friend)). In the goblet, Darkness’s smell is even more mindblowing, truly the best I’ve even sniffed. A frothy head like a pool of Nestle’s Kwik, I would like to swim in it, the backstroke, freestyle, perhaps even a butterfly if I have the lung capacity.

Nervous to proceed, knowing I may fall badly, I finally surrender, take a sip. Wow, you are one tasty motherfucker, Darkness.  The #8 beer in the world according to Beer Advocate, a perfect 100 out of 100 according to Rate Beer.

Darkness goes down so smooth, so easily, it’s hard to believe the ABV on this one. I felt like a one-pump chump, unable to remain disciplined and composed, taking huge gulps, never placing the drink farther than a few inches from my slobbering piehole. I knew I would only have one chance with Darkness and I should savor it, but I couldn’t, I was insatiable for her.

You are one of the most unique stouts, nay beers, I have ever guzzled.  So, so sweet, the candi sugar coming through a little like a barley wine.  Ever so slight roasted coffee tastes with molasses, raisins, cherries, and berries and chocolate too.  Eight different kinds of malts and oats.  I even get a little hops coming through, a surprising taste for a stout.  Mouthfeel is amazingly light and airy, hardly any stinging booziness at all.  Surly, you are famous for your unique, uncategorizable beers and this is yet another one.  Clearly a stout, though with so many un-stouty qualities.  My kind of women.

Darkness is the best stout I have ever had, quite possibly the best beer I have ever had. It is perfection.  Drinking her was a life-changing experience.  I laid back on my bean bag chair, still floored, spasming in my loins, trying to catch my breath, and relishing every delicious burp of Darkness I expelled from my mouth.

I now finally know what it means to be a man, I’ll never again be able to deal with silly, little, frivolous and vapid girls.

I wonder if I shall ever see her again.  If not, we’ll always have Paris…

A+

Hyooooooooooooge hat tip to The Captain for setting me up on a date with this one.

8.3% ABV bottled

Drinking Injuries

Last night at 5 AM, after a girl threw me out of her apartment, I found myself alone, in the middle of nowhere in Queens, calmly walking down the street, wondering how the fuck I was going to get back to Manhattan when…I fell ass over teakettle on the sidewalk.  As I rolled and skidded, I woke up the only other persons on the street at the time, two sleeping transients who quickly came over to help me up.  I threw the bums a dime, and with my jeans’ knee now ripped I was no longer dressed so fine.  I was just confused.  There was nothing that tripped me, no one that had pushed me, I just had fell.  In theory that makes no sense, you say, until I tell you that I had begun drinking some ten hours earlier, starting my Sunday afternoon with a rare bottle of the legendary Founders Breakfast Stout.

Big ups to my friend BDH, a prince of a man who scored me this coveted beer, currently the #15 ranked beer in the world, on a recent business trip to Detroit.  The Vice Blog will permanently hold a special place for BDH in our corroded heart.  The stout is perfectly balanced but, oh!, so complex, so many different flavors, all put to splendid use. Aptly named as it just feels like a breakfast beer.  Coffee lovers like myself will love this one as the smell of Joe is most prominent.  Roasted flavors with hints of subtle chocolate flakes and oatmeal.  Incredibly drinkable for the ABV.  A great beer, no question, but I’m not sure that it’s one of the twenty best in the world, though it is a world-class American stout.  So glad to have tried it though, and glad to hopefully have more soon.

As I type this, I am only able to use my right hand, my left hand badly cut and gashed from last night’s tumble.  A sack of ice on my right knee where a big bruised bump protrudes.  A medium-level drinking injury, no question, but I’m still in a bit of pain.  Any one that is a steady drinker has got to have a history of tumbles and spills, trips and slips, which have led to scars, wounds, sprains, and breaks which may just last until the next day, or which may afflict one for the rest of time.

The older we get the more foolish of injuries we receive from drinking.  Heck, just Tuesday night I spent ten hours hunkered over a bar watching college hoops.  I knew at the time the bar stools were uncomfortable and the bar layout poorly conceived, forcing me to lean way too far over to drink.  I awoke Wednesday with incredible back pain, forced to scuttle around the next day like I had scoliosis, a hungover Quasimodo.

Any one that drinks has chipped a tooth on a beer bottle.  If you haven’t, you don’t drink enough or you somehow have incredible dexterity, suppleness, and hand-eye coordination while intoxicated.

Falling down stairs is another common drinking injury.  One that’s claimed me many times.  Seems 50% of Manhattan bars have their bathroom downstairs.  Tight, narrow, small stairs without handrails.  I’ve fallen, slid, and ass-bounced my way down all of them.  Why oh why, when oh when, will bars gets escalators to the loo?  It’d sure be a lot safer and save me from numerous embarrassing injuries.  My worst stair fall being when I rolled on top of my thumb and seemingly dislocated it.  I was forced to ask the bartender to bag me some ice when I returned.  Never cool to be the guy in the corner of the bar icing his digits.

I recall a Saturday I had spent all day drinking and watching sports while my sweet girlfriend painted her apartment.  I stumbled over at 10 PM to see that she’d pretty much finished everything save for the hard-to-reach ceiling/wall edging work, something her lack of height prevented her from accomplishing.  Thus, I was enlisted to finish this up.  Drunk and uninhibited, I brazenly climbed onto a rickety step stool to do the work and though my girlfriend said “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall,” you can, imagine how this story ends.  As I somersaulted off the stool backwards I remember thinking, “My God, I’m going to die.”  Nope, I just hit a cabinet and landed on my neck, some of the worst pain of my life.  I was laid prone for the next two hours, but at least I got a sensual massage out of it from my lady.

My absolute worst drinking injury though involves a wee hour piggy back ride.  Returning from a $1-a-drink special, a girl I was with implored me to give her a piggy back ride.  I’m the kind of guy that thinks even the most innocuous inter-gender touching is just a ploy for a woman to transition herself into bed with me, so I was obviously game for it.  When the girl hopped on my back though she got too high up and we became top-heavy as I walked.  We started to teeter and soon I was falling forward.  She was able to jump off my back like a passenger abandoning a sinking ship but I ate concrete with my face.  So, instead of ending the evening by hooking up, by even having a nice at-home night cap, I spent the hours of 3 AM to 4 AM sitting on the shut toilet lid as the girl Neosporined my face and bandaged me up.  I looked like absolutely hell the next day.  Like a guy who had literally washed his face with gravel.  I was exfoliated almost to the bone.  The next day also happened to be Passover and I obviously had to feign an illness to skip the family Seder up in Westchester.  For the next two weeks I told any one that asked–oh, and everyone did ask–that I had gotten into a fight on the basketball court with some hoodlums over a disputed foul call, too embarrassed to tell the real truth.  To this day I still have an ever-so-slight scar at the corner of my left eye, the only wound still remaining from a decade of drinking follies.

I suppose my drinking injuries aren’t too terrible and could certainly be worse.  But I want to know, what’s your worst all-time drinking injury?

A

~5.5% ABV bottled

I heard all sorts of negativity and skepticism from my friends.

“You’re really going to do it?!”

“Heh, you got bigger balls than me, pal.”

“That’s disgusting! I can’t believe you.”

“Seriously–DON’T. You’ll only regret it.”

And what was this scorn and derision directed at? My goal to one day take down a fifteen pound cheeseburger? Maybe a newfound sploshing curiosity? Perhaps my belief that should I ever get married I would like to sport a tailed tuxedo?!

Nope.

I was simply going to drink a homebrewed beer mailed to me from a Minnesotan semi-stranger.

It’s odd, we aren’t amazed when a normal person, a so-called “layman,” cooks a halfway decent meal. We aren’t floored by an average Joe that can fix their own car, paint their own house, write their own hilarious and informative vice blog. But brew their own beer?! Good lord! Why that’s impossible!

You’d need a giant facility, a label-making machine, probably a forklift or two, tons of weird ingredients, and all sorts of beefy bearded guys like in those Sam Adams commercials to stir giant vats.

I will admit, even to me, it’s an impressive feat, almost bordering on alchemy. Why does it seem so impossible to believe that some normal dude, with some normal job, can, as a hobbyist, just for kicks, in the evenings and weekends, make a fermented liquid that is drinkable, enjoyable, and gets one drunkable?

I suppose because we simply don’t understand the concept of beermaking. We don’t come home from elementary school to find our mother pitching some yeast. We don’t know any kids whose dads can make a mash. We don’t know what hops look like or what terms like “carboy” and “original gravity” mean.

It seems so much like prohibition-era bootlegging to just make your own beer. It reminds people of their alcoholic uncle that had to whip up moonshine in the garage washing machine while his wife was at bingo. But that isn’t what modern homebrewing is like in the least. There are plenty of skilled craftsman making beer every bit as good as what is sold commercially, better in most cases. You aren’t surprised by an amateur chef that makes brilliant meals, nor should you be surprised by an amateur brewer that does likewise*. Remember, they aren’t necessarily amateur cause they don’t have the skills. They’re amateur only because they don’t get paid.

Nevertheless, my friends were still leery. Still somewhat skeptical. Still thinking it possible I’d get a tainted–if not poisoned!–batch of beer.

Seriously, I have to say, if The Captain was going to poison me, it was a genius and highly disciplined stroke on his part. Begin reading my blog months ago, befriend me over e-mail and Facebook, frequently comment on my blog, create his own beer blog which I enjoy reading and commenting on, orchestrate several successful beer trades with me, pretend to be a homebrewer, and then finally send me his “prized” homebrew (dum, dum, dum!) in order to kill me! Diabolical!!!

Sadly, the fact is, I’m just not important enough to be assassinated. Any how, after my foodtaster Stevie sipped the stout and didn’t die, I dug in.

The Captain’s Oatmeal Coffee Stout opened with an impressive pop from his own bottling job. It smelled fantastic. Like a Guinness Extra Stout. Poured dark like a Coca Cola with a decent half-finger creamy head. Taste is nice. No hops I can detect, just clean and very drinkable. Using mathematical homebrewing equations I still don’t understand, The Captain estimated the ABV to be around 5.5%. But I got drunk at about an 8% level. Perhaps it was because I had a light dinner or it might have been due to a yeast starter which had been super efficient in consuming all the sugars and therefore upping the ante.

I think this would be a stout that your typical non-stout drinker would love. As it warmed almost to room temperature, the Starbucks Breakfast Blend coffee inside popped and I really begun to enjoy the booziness of the brew. It has a thinner mouthfeel than I’m used to, but that’s probably my problem. I rarely drink stouts, usually only going with bigger, badder, bolder imperial stouts. Likewise, The Captain mentioned the thin mouthfeel could be due to his having topped off his primary with a half gallon or so of water.

That’s the thing about homebrewing, it’s an inexact science one must constantly tweak. I get it. And I bet his next attempt at this will be even better, though this one is quite good. I’d even pay money for it.

So read his blog and if you’re a rich venture capitalist send him some money to start a brewery. It’ll benefit us all. Or at least him. And probably me too, since I would no doubt beg him to let me do something at the brewery. Or at least give me free beer for life.

B

*I’d love to homebrew too, only problem is I live in an apartment as big as a Piercing Pagoda kiosk at the mall. Plus, I got a lot of other stuff on my plate. And by “plate” I mean DVR and by “stuff” I mean “Pushing Daisies” episodes I’m behind on. I’ll get into homebrewing in my twilight years, when I live on a golf course with my 25-year-old trophy wife who I married while wearing tails.

10.50% ABV canned

In the pivotal scene in David Sedaris’s brilliant “The Santaland Diaries,” the supercilious Sedaris is brought down to the level of the hoi polloi he so mocks when, in looking at a box of plastic eyeballs at a gift shop, he realizes what he thought would be a funny joke is something that every other idiot also apparently thinks would be a laugh riot. It finally dawns on him that he is not original, he is not unique, he is just like everyone else.

And so are you my dear readers, because everyone pretty much asks me the same questions, whether in comments, private e-mail, or in person. So I thought I’d make a…

VB FAQs:

How often do you drink per week?

Whatever you imagine, it’s far less than that. I mean, what you do imagine, yeah, I could easily handle drinking that much per week. In fact, sometimes I still do. But I drink a lot less than you think I do. Though still a lot more than most people would consider “reasonable.” Whatever the case, I won’t stop your from deifying me as a drinking legend.

Then are you an alcoholic?

God I hope not. Because that would ipso facto mean that I am also a coffeeholic, caffeineaholic, televisionaholic, cinemaholic, biblioholic, writingoholic, sexaholic, onanaholic, insultaholic, chickensaladsandwichaholic, WWWaholic, and sportsaholic because I like all those things at least as much as booze and engage in them just as frequently if not more often. Alcoholism is overrated any how.

Then surely your health is poor?!

Actually, I think I’m in the best health of my life right now. I weighed 175 pounds this morning (I’m 5′11″), I am lithe, my gut is fairly taut, I run 100 miles per month on average, and my energy is indomitable while my spirits are indefatigable and my resolve is unflappable. Everyone knows alcohol is good for you, keeping your blood thin and thus preventing heart attacks along with Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension, high blood pressure, and even the common cold amongst countless other things. In fact, my blood is so thin it flows through my body like an enfilade of liquid bullets.

I meant your mental health.

Oh. OK, you can debate that, and you may be right, but I think I’m pretty swell. And my arrogance, narcissism, and hubris means that I will always feel mentally stable and vigorous even if that is far from the truth. Ignorance can be bliss. Not always, but usually.

Would I like you if I actually met you?

Yeah, probably. I’m much nicer when I drink than when I’m sober. Plus I’m hilarious and quite dashing.

You make fun of people and places too much.

Thank you. There’s just so many eminently mockable cities, states, countries, and humans. It is truly a fine world we live.

OK, well surely your stories are made up????

Not in the least. Robert Evans famously said “There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth.” Well my stories are 99% true from my often-intoxicated side of things. And the 1% would serve as merely slight changes in detail to preserve story flow, protect the innocent, and add some amusing bluster.

Then how do you get in such crazy predicaments?

I’ll handle the answer piecemeal. Firstly, I don’t believe that I really have that amazing of adventures. Certainly not every second of every day. Often times my life is quite boring. Aside from that, I live in Manhattan, maybe the most interesting place in the world. Every single day one is bombarded with the weird and the “out there” that if you can’t find yourself frequently in media fuckedupedness, then you just aren’t leaving your house enough. Also, of course, I drink. Drinking always leads to mischief. And I have no problem approaching and engaging strangers for my selfish gain. Finally, I have a Twainian, Hunter S. Thompsian, Tom Wolfeian eye for the bizarre and know when and where to pursue things in order to get stories. Stories which, most importantly, I am them able to compellingly tell.

LFAQs (Less Frequently Asked Questions):

I’m a guy that thinks you’re awesome. I’d like to have a drink with you sometime. Can I?

Maybe. Are you buying?

I’m a female that thinks you’re awesome. I’d like to have a drink with you sometime. Can I?

Maybe. Are you attractive? Oh…and are you buying?

I’m admittedly a mediocre-in-attractiveness women. But, here’s what I’m thinking. What if I were to set up a $50 tab at the bar of your choice. You would tell me when you would arrive at the bar to start drinking from the tab and then two hours later I would appear for our date. Would that cut it?

Better make it a $100 tab and three hours.

Hi, my name is Arthur P. Schulmeyer, esq., the general counsel for the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company. Your repeated incidents of slander and libel toward our fine products will no longer be tolerated. In fact, our quality control department is 87.2% sure that our Sunset Wheat decidedly DID NOT poison you. We are opting to sue. How may we locate you in order to serve you?

Contact my lawyer Oscar Z. Acosta. My dream is for you guys to take me all the way to the Supreme Court. Leinenkugel v. The VBer. It would be a landmark case. Does a man have the inalienable right to rip on beer that tastes like bottled public swimming pool water? I suspect Ruth Ginsberg would be the only dissenting vote toward me.

IFAQs (InFrequently Asked Questions):

Our school/city/town/public park/prison would like to honor your legacy by commissioning a statue of you. Will you please come sit for the sculpture?

Absolutely. It would be the 2nd greatest honor of my life.

I work for the [Blank] Brewery. Where can I send you some promotional beers to sample?

E-mail me at theviceblog [at] gmail.com and I’ll give you the info.

Do you promise not to eviscerate our beers?

Nope. But I’ve always wanted to be a shameless shill, so there’s a good chance I will heap effusive praise on your gratis products.

I own a bar. You’re so awesome that we want to let you drink at our establishment for free in order to garner free pub in return. You know, quid pro quo. Do you accept our offer?

Firstly, I don’t believe a New York City bar owner actually knows Latin and could correctly use it in a sentence. However, If your bar is in Manhattan from Canal to, let’s say, 59th street, possibly as high as 80th on the UWS, then yes, I accept your offer. Anywhere else and I’d rather sit on 7th Avenue and share a bottle of fortified wine with a transient.

I’m a transient. Will you share a bottle of fortified wine with me? You have to buy since all I have on my person are some out-of-circulation subway tokens and a video ipod I stole from a passed-out Columbia student.

Sure. It would be an honor. What’s your poison?

You never answered my question!

Then ask it again in the comments.

And what did you think of Ten FIDY?

I was stoked to finally find a can of the only Oskar Blues beer I’ve yet to have. Without question the darkest black stout I’ve ever seen. Poured like some Kikkoman’s. Very hoppy for a stout. Almost smells like an IPA/stout hybrid. Weird. Taste is a smooth one of malts and creamy chocolate. The ever faint hints of roasted barley and oats. I cannot believe how high the ABV is. This one is tasty, son! So smooth and balanced in every way. I loved it.

Now, I can only wish Oskar Blues had more stuff for me to try!

NAQ (Never Asked Question):

What side effects may I incur with my switch to the NuvaRing?

Device-related adverse events (foreign body sensation, coital problem, or expulsion) were the most frequently reported adverse events also including but not limited to: vaginitis (14.1%), headache (9.8%), upper respiratory tract infection (8.0%), leukorrhea (5.8%), sinusitis (5.7%), nausea (5.2%), and weight gain (4.9%). In addition blood clots and spotting have been found to occasionally occur, while male partners have reported being sick of the ring getting stuck on their wang during the ol’ in-out like some batting donut. Real horror show.

8% ABV on draught

I thought only the uncivilized, uncouth, uneducated, and unemployed read my blog, but I’m starting to learn otherwise.  Lately I have begun getting a small slew of fan letters, something an egomaniac like myself absolutely loves.  So people, especially you lurkers, especially you attractive lurkers of the opposite sex, please keep ‘em coming, they fuel my arrogance, causing me to hubristically do drunken things which lead to the funniest of stories.  And, thus, your further enjoyment.

This week I got a splendid e-mail, one of my best, which I’d shudder to even call a fan letter because this man certainly doesn’t worship false idols such as the Vice Blogger.  We began an online dialogue, quickly hitting it off.  The man’s missives showed him to be a far better writer than me and he likewise displayed a familiarity with beer that I can only dream of.  After a few back-and-forths I learned he was an NYU professor.  And, an e-mail or two later, I learned he was a professor of religion, a bonafide priest.  The fact that he signed his e-mails “Father” should have probably tipped me off.  Hey, I just thought it was a playful affectation he was going for.

Now I’m not religious and I don’t exactly believe in God, and some folks may even call me a heathen, but when a clergyman offers me a beer recommendation, you bet your sweet ass I will follow up.  Not exactly Pascal’s Wager, more like The Vice Blog Gambit, a belief that says, “Hey, why not try a complete stranger’s beer recommendation?  At best, you try a heretofore unknown glorious beer.  While at worst, you get gloriously drunk!”

Among his several NYC area tippling recommendations, Father Name-Redacted-To-Protect-His-Piousness was adamant that I try Lion Stout, oddly enough a Sri Lankan brew.  I did my research–ten seconds of googling–and learned that Lion is indeed an esteemed stout, mightily hailed in the past by beer hunter Michael Jackson, who told of how the bottle-conditioned beer, brewed using British, Czech, and Danish malts, Syrian hops, and an English yeast strain, has all its foreign ingredients transported to the 3,500 feet-above-sea-level brewery using the most precarious of roads.

Further research found, for better or for worse, The Ginger Man to be the only watering hole in Manhattan currently offering the beer.  Knowing that The Ginger Man becomes a zoo of boobs once happy hour heats up, I made sure to get down there early enough to avoid the Stella drinkers.

My confusion and worries over the quality of a Sri Lankan stout were quickly assuaged.  This was a good, if not great, beer.  Incredibly thriftily priced for an 8% stout that had to seemingly travel so far to get into my mouth*.  One of the sweetest stouts I’ve ever had.  Now, I know a lot of people don’t like sweeter stouts, but I’m quite the fan.  Frankly, I hate those overly burnt, meaty-tasting stouts that seem to be what most breweries are producing nowadays.  Lion Stout is the complete opposite.

Tastes of sweet prunes, mocha, and smooth chocolate.  Smells somewhat like a barley wine and goes down incredibly easily.  I’m stunned how high the ABV is because I could drink these all day.  A very, very good beer.  After only a couple though, I had to leave The Ginger Man, the tipping point being when a guy beside me simply ordered “IPA.”**

So thank you for the delicious recommendation Father, and I’m still waiting for that invitation to speak to your religion class some time soon!

A

*This beer definitely serves as a big “fuck you” to local food activists.  Distance between where the beer was constructed and where I drank it:  ~ 8,770 miles.

**Actual conversation:

MEATHEAD:  I’ll have an IPA.

BARTENDER:  OK, sure, which one?

MEATHEAD:  IPA.

BARTENDER:  Yes, but which one?  We have several.

MEATHEAD (louder):  IPA

BARTENDER:  …

MEATHEAD (louder, sure the bartender can’t hear him):  IPA!

BARTENDER: (fed up)  Sure.

Turns around and fetches the meathead something that was decidely not an IPA.  I think it was a Hofbrau Oktoberfest.  Later, the Meathead remarked to his friends, “I love IPA.  I’ve had it here before.  You should get one too.”

9.2% ABV from a bomber (July 2008 bottling)

I’ll assume you haven’t seen Fellini’s “8½.” That’s cool. Most people nowadays haven’t and I’m not looking down on you for it in any way. I get it, modern folks simple have no interest, no tolerance, for “weird,” black and white, foreign, subtitled, art films. Shit, people in ‘08 barely have the time, energy, or inclination to sit through entire American mainstream pictures on such easily digestible subjects as lame faux-satires of lame trailers of lame films no one ever saw in the first place.

But you should see “8½,” it’s a frickin’ masterpiece, one of the best films in history. And it’s far from as boring as you probably think it is, rife with sex, sex, and…well sex. Isn’t that enough?

I bring “8½” up because I had a dream last night just like a dream the main character Guido has in “8½.” A visionary sequence that forms one of the most indelible scenes in cinema history. Now, yes, I too hate any conversation that begins, “I had a dream last night…”* but more on that in a bit.

I’ll steal Roger Ebert’s brilliant prose to discuss Guido’s dream where he “…occupies a house with all of the women in his life, past and present, and they all love him and forgive him, and love one another. But then there is a revolt, and he cracks a whip, trying to tame them. Of course he cannot.”

A similar thing happened to me. In my dream I was walking down the street minding my own business, listening to the “This American Life” podcast, when who should cross paths with me, but an omen even worse than a black cat–an ex-girlfriend. Our eyes met, her’s dilated and reddened, my jaw dropped, her nostrils flared like a bull seeing red, a squirt of urine came out of my urethra, and then I did what I’d probably do in real life–I turned and sprinted like a coward. One of those sprints where you can’t make ground, you feel as if you’re wearing patent leather tuxedo shoes on recently Zambonied ice. And I kept slipping, and she kept pursuing me slowly like a zombie. And just when I got some breathing room, I came across another girl from my past. A one-night stand I scorned by claiming I was moving to Los Angeles the very next day. With a Brian Westbrook spin move I escaped from her and ran into a three-months-long fling I jilted because she had a fat roommate I was getting sick of being seen in public with. I juked and jived and came to another ex and then another and another and another. I was surrounded on all sides. I had no choice. I fought through the swarm like a fullback plowing a goal line stand.

Somehow I escaped. I thought I was finally in the clear. I looked over my shoulder back toward the zombie exes, giggling at my freedom, when I collided with a freight train. My head hit smack dab in her well-formed chest. It was her! EGADS!

I woke up with a sweat, it had seemed all too real. I stared at the sleeping girl beside me. I’d liked her when we hit the hay but now I was nauseous from the spectacle of her. I went to the bathroom and read some Crate and Barrel catalog she had lying on a cosmetics stand.

So why am I telling you this?** Do I want to know what it means? Do I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something? Am I perhaps seeing into the future? No, of course not. Dream interpretation is a pseudoscience that is as big of crockery as phrenology or Ouija board seances. I tell you this simply to note that I dreamed last night. You see, I never dream. The only time I dream is when I drink heavily. “So you dream every night?” you retort back to me. Har, har. Not quite.

I only dream on those few-times-a-month occasions when I tie one on hard. And I only dream lucidly, vividly, like last night, when I drink something so potent and pleasurable. You see, last night I drank an entire bomber of Stone Twelfth Anniversary and it made my resting mind do backflips like I’d tripped the absinthe fantastic with Van Gogh and Gaugin. Yes, I know, this isn’t the most intellectually rigorous way to determine the worth of a product, but sometimes we need to simply critique things in the visceral.

The bottle lists its ingredients, oh so simple: barley, oatmeal, chocolate, hops, water, and yeast. I wish more breweries would list their brew’s components. It would take the guessing-game fun out of trying to “figure out” a beer, but it would also eliminate those insufferable pedants that try to humble you by claiming they taste all sorts of flavors that are simply not present.

The stout pours black, perhaps dark, dark purple, like sludge. A bubbly and gurgling cocoa brown head. The smell is of warm alcohol and smooth chocolate.

Gotta say, the taste is nowhere close to as bitter as I suspected. Likewise, I taste hardly any oatmeal at all. Though it is much more alcoholic than I thought it would be. A lotta bite on the back of the throat. It definitely warmed me up on a cold fall night. A member of the Polar Bears could drink one of these and have no problem jumping nude into the Atlantic.

I actually liked this one the more I drank it as the back end tastes started to shine through. Its got some problems no doubt. It could certainly use more pronounced flavors and it lacks complexity. It also has a quite bitter aftertaste that I really did not enjoy. Also, whether this is good or bad, at times it didn’t even feel like I was drinking a stout. More like a strong dark ale.

As it has been said before, this is one major league asskicker. The kind of stout that leads a person to–after polishing off a solo bomber–searching out hot former classmates on Facebook and actually contacting them (even though they are Relationship Status: Married (and quite frankly not as attractive as you recall from a decade ago)), to ordering the $9.99 soft-core from channel 535 on Time Warner on-demand, and then to, yes, having some fucked up dreams.

Overall, Twelfth Anniversary is a very good beer, but not one of the brilliant Stone’s best, and certainly not world class. And I don’t actually really like dreams that much, especially scary and all too real ones, so this may be my second and last time to have the Twelfth.

A-

*Second worst conversation starter: “Did you see what was on ‘Oprah’ yesterday? Let me tell you…”

**Other than to show that even asleep I may be a hack that plagiarizes my ideas from the greatest masters?