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).

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Broney’s Alumni Grill

Broney’s is one of the newer bars on Court Street, owned by Brian Wharton, a former manager at Courtside Pizza and Sports Bar. By day it is a typical bar and grill serving standard bar fare, but at night it turns into one of Athens’ most popular night spots, with any numbers of games on big screen TVs and occasional djs. It has two full-service bars, on of which also serves patrons outside on the patio, and 17 beers on tap. I spoke with Wharton, who ultimately has the final say on which brews the bar serves.

Brian Wharton, owner of Broney's Alumni Grill

“The number one determination is availability,” Whaton said, “if they distribute in Ohio. Number two would have to be if I think it would sell, but that one kind of fluctuates.”

The bar stocks a lot of IPAs, which Wharton attributes to the preponderance of IPAs being put out by craft brewers right now. Wharton said they also stock a lot of ales, because, aside from staples like Bud Light and Blue Moon, those seem to be the best sellers. The bar also has a good number of stouts on tap.

As far as determining which beers to keep on tap, Wharton said it’s a matter of what’s being talked about right now. He considers word of mouth; what the distributors are saying, as well as what is being written about in the three beer magazines he reads: All About Beer, Draft and Beer Magazine.

They keep six on strong rotation, their most popular beers, such as Bud Light, Blue Moon and Great Lakes Christmas Ale, but the rest of them they change up every few months.

For a full list of all the beer Broney’s keeps on tap, see the bottom of this post.

Casa Cantina

Casa Nueva: restaurant, cantina and bodega.

Casa Nueva is Athens’ only worker-owned restaurant and cantina, a model that echoes the county’s progressive nature. In addition to serving Mexican food made with a variety of locally grown organic produce, Casa also includes a full-service bar with dozens of bottled craft beer. The bar only has eight brews on tap, but there is a tradition behind them.

Bar Manager Greg Lyle with his taps.

“Starting since before I was bar manager,” Lyle said, “we’ve had this Ohio tap situation where everything on tap comes from Ohio. We try to get as local as we can.”

The beers on tap at Casa come from the Thirsty Dog Brewery in Dayton, Great Lakes Brewery in Cleveland, Buckeye Brewing Co. in Lakewood, Marietta Brewing Company in Marietta and Athens’ own Jackie O’s.

Lyle, bar manager at Casa for the last 10 years, has kept up the tradition of stocking only Ohio beers on tap, but he also tries to accommodate for different tastes. Despite having five breweries represented in the taps, there is only one lager, one porter, one IPA, one christmas ale, one autumn ale, one wheat beer and two stouts.

The choice of which beers are on tap is made based on whether the brewery has a reliable distribution network, and whether they are offering something that the bar already doesn’t have, Lyle said. Because of the limited tap space, if Casa already has a popular IPA, they aren’t likely to stock another one.

For a full list of the beers Casa Nueva keeps on tap, see the bottom of the post.

Jackie O’s

Jackie O's pub and brewery.

Jackie O’s is Athens’ only local brewery. An Irish Pub at heart, you can find many Irish stouts and traditional pub fare, as well as pizza made from the spent grain from the brewing process. Jackie O’s is one of the only bars in Athens where you won’t be overwhelmed by the music, and they don’t play the same pop music that you hear at most other bars.

Art Oestrike, owner of Jackie O's.

“It’s important to celebrate craft brewing,” Oestrike said of the beer selection at Jackie O’s. “It’s the backbone of this business.”

Jackie O’s recently opened a new addition to the bar, so the bar now consists of two rooms. The main room is “as out of the box as possible,” Oestrike said. The 16 beers they have on tap are constantly changing, sometimes even daily, so hit as many different “taste-belts” or palates as possible.

In addition to the five different beers that are brewed in house, the main room serves a number of different guest drafts from craft brewers all over the country.

The new room has a more consistent lineup, and is being used to introduce people to a micro-situation, Oestrike said. It is stocked with easy drinking micro brews to appeal to a large population of college students.

For a full list of the beers Jackie O’s keeps on tap, see the bottom of the post.

Slideshow: Bars and their taps

Bars and beers: what each bar has on tap

Broney’s

• Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat
• Hoegaarden
• Left Hand Sawtooth Ale
• Lagunitas Brown Shugga
• Great Lakes Christmas Ale
• Brooklyn IPA
• Brekenridge Christmas Ale
• Brekenridge Vanilla Porter
• Samuel Adams Winter Lager
• Bud Light
• Stella Artois
• Blue Moon
• Coors Light
• Leffe Blonde
• Smithwicks
• Guinness
• Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA

Casa Nueva

• Thirsty Dog Siberian Night
• Jackie O’s Barking Pumpkin
• Buckeye Brewing Old Mammoth Stout
• Great Lakes Christmas Ale
• Great Lakes Dotrmunder Gold
• Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald
• Marietta Raspberry Wheat
• Marietta IPA

Jackie O’s

• Razz Wheat
• Firefly Amber
• Mystic Mama IPA
• Barking Pumpkin
• Chunga’s Old Bruin
• Lagunita’s Brown Shugga
• Avery Dugana
• Dogfish Head Festina Peche
• Green Flash Trippel
• Celebration Ale
• Bell’s Third Coast Ale
• Bell’s Double Cream Stout
• Bell’s Expedition Stout
• La Chouffe
• New Holland Fire Circle
• Weyerbacher Pumpkin

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.

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?