Cincinnati Bockfest 2010

Yes! Friends! It is here again! No, we’re not talking about the tea party convention yet, but I have decided to subject you to my ramblings on fermented beverages yet again!

Silly goat, hats are for humans affecting to be richer than they really are. Unless it's a baseball cap, which usually means you're a) up to no good, or b) a complete tool bag.

Yes! Friends! It’s here again! No, not goats wearing silly hats and still not the tea party convention, but Bockfest 2010! The annual Cincinnati festival celebrating sausage, spring and getting so drunk that urinating on a police horse seems like a totally rad idea.

Back in the olden days when people rode dinosaurs to school, the monks would brew hearty bock beer for sustenance during their lenten fasts. While the modern Catholic church may see this as cheating, God is probably too wasted on heavy beer to care.

Bock beer is a dark, rich lager with a much higher nutritional and alcoholic content than traditional lagers. So while Guinness is usually viewed as the classic meal in a bottle, it has nothing on bock beer. It was also brewed to celebrate the coming of spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to love, or to keep the monks too drunk to realize how lonely masturbation is.

Bockfest in Cincinnati celebrated by drinking copious amounts of beer, free shuttles to take your drunk ass home, and parading through Over the Rhine led by the sausage queen, because Cincinnati likes to celebrate thick meaty things stuffed into tight casing.

This guy wants to be sausage queen.

No, you don’t have to be female to be a sausage queen.

According to Bockfest’s Web site, “A panel of “expert” judges (i.e. easily bribed) will determine the best applicant based on the following criteria:

1. Personality: Good traits will include a love of bock beer, a sense of humor, and a taste for meat. The personality round will involve a series of questions posed to the contestants by the judges.
2. Presence: The contestant must look good carrying a sausage and have diva tendencies. The presence round will involve a very short catwalk turn while sporting a string of bockwurst.
3. Talent: Whatever “talent” you think a Sausage Queen should possess is good enough for us.”

So in short, if you want to celebrate Cincinnati’s German brewing heritage, or just get sloshed in public, come down to Over the Rhine this weekend (March 5, 6 & 7).

New posts soon?

To whom it may concern…

To whomever told me that the Thirsty Dog Brewery 12 Dogs of Christmas was better than Great Lakes Christmas Ale, no, you’re wrong, it’s not.

20 things you should know about beer

Dear friends, I am very sorry about my lack of updates. I feel like we haven’t talked in forever. How are you doing? Did you have a good Thanksgiving? Did that rash ever clear up? Lol, jk, you can’t really talk back to me. This is a blog not a telephone (if you were confused about that, get off the internet). But you can and should leave comments. Because then I’ll feel like someone actually reads this and I will post more often.

Self-conscious-introspection-masked-poorly-with-humor-over.

So I saw this at the Oatmeal and thought it was both relevant an insightful. Rather than making you click a link to view this Web content, I will post the pithy picture below, for your viewing convenience.

Photo stole'd from Matthew Inman

So as not to deprive the Oatmeal of traffic (you’re welcome for the 3 hits, Inman), for the rest of the very informative poster (and there is much more hilarity), visit the Oatmeal’s beer section.

Poll results: My beer, she is named

Well fellow travelers, today is a sad day for democracy. And I’m not talking about the anniversary of Ronald Reagan signing the top-secret National Security Decision Directive 17 authorizing the CIA to recruit and support Contras in Nicaragua. No, my poll has been subverted; abused and tossed away by a fiend so dastardly he could only be described as a politician. The scoundrel who made a mockery of the democratic process stands before you:

The face of the oppressor.

This charlatan, this impostor, this moderate in Democrat’s clothing enlisted his friends from THE Ohio State University (I go to Ohio THE STATE University) to come to my blog and vote for his beer name. Though technically he did nothing wrong, that’s like offering people $5 to bring a friend to the polls. He’s taken my utopian democracy, carved in the very image of Athens, Greece (our fair college town’s namesake), and he has cheapened it; stealing the election like some monkey-faced former Texas governor.

So without further ado, the name of my beer is:

The Luscious Jord Ale

I want all three of you readers who have a Facebook account (sorry mom) to friend him on Facebook and send him angry pokes. I feel dirty. I need to go take a shower.

Now for something different: The liquor report – Rusty Nail

There are multiple ways to destroy your liver. There’s Tylenol, liver punches and stabbings, to name a few. The primary focus of this blog has been, and will remain to be, beer, but not everybody is a fan of consuming massive quantities of carbs in order to get their alcohol fixins. They call it a beer belly for a reason, and while the portlier among us tend to be jovial and funny,Carlos Mencia is still a dick.

Not funny.

So, I’ve decided to expand my horizons a bit and branch out to liquor on occasion. Now, my spirit of choice is whisk(e)y, particularly bourbon, neat. But, studly as that is, it’s not very interesting. So I’ve decided to go with one of my favorite drinks: the rusty nail.

Now, the rusty nail is somewhat special to me. Whenever I go back home to Cincinnati, my dad will make rusty nails and we’ll watch old film noir. So, in the stress of exam week, I got the hankering for a rusty nail and went questing for a bar that could make me one.

The rusty nail, with it's signature liqueur, Drambuie.

You’d think with the proliferation of bars in Athens that it would be no problem to sidle up to a bar and get a drink. But not every bar is equipped to make a rusty nail, and that’s because of it’s ingredients: Scotch whisky and Drambuie.

The rusty nail is a quintessentially Scottish cocktail (yes, the Brownfields have a little Scottish in them, via Clan MacDonald). It’s made with 1.5 oz Scotch whisky and .5 oz Drambuie, a honey- and herb- flavored golden Scotch whisky liqueur. The problem with finding it in Athens bars is that a great majority of them don’t stock Drambuie. So I went questing on Wednesday night, looking for a bar that had “the drink that satisfies.”

View Larger Map

Well, so far as my decidedly unscientific search could determine (I pretty much stopped searching once I found it), the only two bars you can get a rusty nail in are Casa Nueva  and Tony’s Tavern (Casa had a cover that night). Ironically, they’re across the street from each other.

Casa by default makes theirs with Dewars Scotch for $5.50, or you can get Johnnie Walker Red for $7. The dude at Tony’s was kind of a dick; aloof, dismissive, and he had to ask one of the patrons how to make a rusty nail, and on top of that he charged $5.75 for the drink, so I didn’t bother finding out which kind of whisky he used. But, I’d grudgingly admit that the Tony’s one did taste a bit better.

A rusty nail is actually pretty sweet, despite being made with the smokey, earthy Scotch. You can taste the smokiness of the Scotch, but it is cut by the honey sweetness of the Drambuie. It’s a potent drink, as both Drambuie and Dewars are 80 proof.

What are your favorite mixed drinks, and where do you go to get them?

Don’t forget to vote for a name for my beer! The winner gets a free six-pack.

Poll: What should I name my beer?

Well, here it is folks. The great poll. Vote for whichever name you like best, and the person who submitted the winning name gets a free six pack of my beer. The poll closes next Monday.

Athens beer on tap: How do they choose?

Athens, being the consummate college town, is full of consummate college bars: they play the same six trite, overplayed pop/rap songs on heavy rotation (often so loud you have to shout to be heard by the hottie sitting next to you [well, there's always the chance s/he's just ignoring you]), they have many giant screens playing the game du jour and they have a miserable selection of beer on tap.

Yes, the vasty majority of college bars “play it safe” by choosing beers they know will sell well. Popular beer is like popular music: it is watered down to appeal to people with shitty taste. These beers include your typical “Lite” fare, such as Miller Lite, Bud Light and Coors Light (I don’t care if it’s pink, that beer I won’t drink), as well as a few mainstays in every American bar, Guinness, Budweiser and whatever Sam Adams seasonal is in season at the moment. Which is all a shame, because beer tastes best the fresher it is, and the freshest beer comes from kegs.

Alec Guinness wants you to drink Guinness draught.

But all is not lost. There are some bars in town with truly excellent selections of craft beer on tap. But how do bar managers and owners choose which brews to pour for their patrons? I chose to pose this question to three bars in Athens in an exploration of how bars choose better brews.

First look: My homebrew, PLUS guest blogger

Cutting corners: it’s the American way, n’est-ce pas? Well, I visited the Athens Do It Yourself shop again last week to return the machine I used to cap my bottled beer, a ridiculous contraption that looked something like a microscopes retarded older brother, and is just about as functional. I asked the proprietor, Eric Hedin, when I should put the beer in the fridge, and he told me it should ferment in the bottles for 10 days at room temperature, then another 10 days in the coolest part of my apartment, or the fridge.

I can't think of anything clever to say about this.

OK, so this ran a little contrary to what he had said earlier about “21 days to good beer”; one day to brew, 10 days in the fermenter, then 10 days in the bottle. So I got impatient. I wanted to drink it NOW. So I did.

Now I’m not very good at critiquing myself. My mom once told me that nothing ever tastes as good when you cook it yourself, and I guess the same goes for beer. All in all, I thought it was a bit premature. I thought it was a bit sweet from the priming sugar that hadn’t yet finished fermenting all the way, and maybe a tiny bit flat (though it poured a good head). But, in striving for scientific rigor, I asked my room-mate Corey to step in and do a guest blog about what he thought of my beer. So without further ado, here is Corey’s take on my brew.

Corey, after having drunk my beer (well, a beer).

~Buy a man a beer and he wastes an hour. Teach a man to brew and he wastes a lifetime~
-Gordy form ABC Warehouse-

Fact. There is a reason for it too. It was my first time as the Assistant Roommate of a Brew Master (ARBM, official title) and the experience has opened a whole new book to my drinking solutions. Not problem. I’ve already solved it.

Watching someone brew beer filled my heart with such joy, more so than building houses for the poor. Once, the process was complete and I was able to taste the creation, I realized it is more rewarding too.

Andy is no longer a virgin in the brewing industry. Cherry popped right in our living room for all to witness. The result, of the first batch to be tested, was surprising. Life’s like a white bucket sitting in your living room fermenting: you never know what your ganna get.

As Brew Master, our leader informed us that he was creating an IPA. Yum, I thought. Bottle opener please. Yum, was the result. The beer had a nice tungsten-amber color and it was carbonated enough to form a nice head. The aroma had the familiar bitter-sweet smell that IPA’s usually have. But I did not want to look and smell my beer all day.

Almost had it. The beer was hoppy enough to achieve the bitter flavor of an IPA. The feel of the beer was great in my book. It did not tickle the tongue from carbonation, and did not sit flat either. The beer was just a little sweet with a slight after taste of a cider. There was an excess  of sugars sitting at the bottom of my glass, but I was drinking a preemie version of the beer. This also explains the sweet taste.

Overall, I enjoyed the brew. Even bought one for a friend to try. The beer accomplished what its original intentions were, to taste like an IPA. The only problem I had with it was its sweet side. Would I buy this beer if it were shelved? Yes, in fact I would buy it even if we already had the bottle sitting in our collection. This only excites me more knowing that when the rest of the beer is actually ready, I will get to enjoy the matured version of this already delicious beer.

~MMMM, beer~
Homer Simpson

Keep your glasses empty,
Corey

This is the last chance to submit a name for my beer. The poll begins this weekend, and the winning suggestion gets a free six pack of the beer you named.

Hooray Beer!

I hate beer commercials. I don’t need Brian Billick telling me to drink Coors Light (shit, I wouldn’t drink Coors Light if Clint Eastwood told me to [OK, well, maybe if Clint Eastwood told me to]). Bouncy buxom babes aren’t going to make Miller Lite taste any less like fermented urine, and I don’t care how many real men of genius Bud Light salutes, their marketing is obviously aimed at binge drinking, backwards-cap-wearing, chest-thumping bros.

Beer ads piss me off. If you can’t win me over by the merits of your beer, no ammount of celebrity endorsements, silly gimmicks or scantily clad women is going to get me to part with my money for a lousy drinking experience. But there is an exception to every rule: Red Stripe.

Silly Red Stripe, who would ever mistake beer for fabric softener! Hooray beer indeed.

Do you have a favorite beer ad?