Working through the pain
When I was a kid, my dad passed along his insight on how to properly land a devastating right hook, instructing me that the key was to not aim directly at your opponent, but behind your opponent so that you have a target to swing through to, thus fixing the amateur error of pulling your punch before you've done proper damage. Sadly, it's never quite panned out, as I've since spent all my good fistfights busily trying to get a good look at what's exactly behind my opponent's head, so that I can get a good bead on it. Regardless, it's the same theory at work, here, as I try to confound my brain from the "beginning of the a week that's really gonna suck just as much as the next two weeks after that" into thinking that today is actually Saturday, June 7th - the beginning of summer.
Here's some of what's on tap for the next few months, with all the requisite beer affiliations. Please let me know if there's anything I've carelessly omitted, any places you can recommend, etc., etc.!
* San Diego, late June - Ostensibly to introduce my daughter to Posiedon's henchman Shamu, it's a simple cover-up for my annual pilgrimage to the house of Tomme, Pizza Port in Solana Beach. Then we'll certainly make time to check out that stinky fish. After the stinky fish, I'll be ready to blend in with the (anticipated) crowd at the (anticipated) new Toronado in the picturesque 'hood of North Park.
* Flathead Lake, Montana, late July - I recently happened upon a column in New West where Montanan writer Bill Schneider is cataloging all the Big Sky breweries he can manage to visit. Montana was the first place that introduced me to both Fat Tire and Moose Drool in their pre-ubiquity days, so it holds a special place in my craft beer-lovin' heart. Granted, a visit to Flathead Lake Brewing (sorry we can't fill your growlers because we've run out of beer, again) was a grim reminder that not all craft beer is brewed equal, but Glacier Brewing in Polson had some promise. Now I just need to figure out how to launch an evening sortie across the pond to Tamarack Brewing for a little look-see-drink. Either that or I'm commandeering a plane to land on the strip at Lang Creek.
* The Poperinge Hop Festival, Belgium, mid-September - Admittedly, this is likely just a fantasy addition, one that I pencil into the calendar every three years. Personally, I'd like to think Mia would make an excellent satanic ladybug. If I can renegotiate my contract to get paid in Euros from now on, I think there's no holding us back this year.
Interspersed between those events like temporal palate cleansers will be beer. Lots of beer. There will be homebrewing and tastings and trips to great shops and even better bars and a brewery or two and maybe even some restaurants that serve food with their beer (including finally introducing Mia to the Tourist Club, pictured above). I've also got a summer resolution in place to reevaluate, rediscover, and hopefully re-enjoy some of the breweries that make up the great Western canon of craft beer, ones I've regretfully ignored over the past year or two in pursuit of what JJ has coined "novelty drinking" (better known in this house as "Benjamins for Belgians").
Lastly, there's plans in the works to put together an afternoon beer and food pairing in the City with an "American Wild Ale" theme, most likely in late July, date likely to be determined by our success in rounding up the proper bottle list. Let me know if you'd like to be updated on this inaugural Pfiff!-hosted event!
PS - The responses I've gotten to the last post have been truly cockle-warming. The point wasn't so much to massage my already corpulent, tender ego (that's currently the job of my daughter via her endless encore requests for "ABC" on the ukulele) but to discover what about this site was keeping you all around. Thanks for all the great feedback and kind comments!
Labels: beer
posted by Rob at 11:00 AM
3 Comments:
You can obviously count me in on the American Wild Ale tasting. And if Tourist Club is open again, please let me know! It seemed to be closed every weekend this spring.
Just saw your comment on working through the pain from last year...good comments and helpful hints, except the Flathead Lake Brewing comment "not all craft beer is brewed equal"...this is true, but not in the way you presented it: Flathead Lake Brewing has won every award for brewing in the state, beating out all the big guys, and has actually brought home two World Beer Cup awards, which are the most prestigious awards in brewing. As far as "we've run out of beer, again"...well that's just crap, as an employee there, we have never "run out of beer", we have just run low because we sell so much of it to local accounts...so yes, not all craft beer is brewed equal...if it was, Glacier Brewing, Kettlehouse, and some of the other beers you mentioned would be winning international awards and running low on beer as well...
Anyhow, my two cents...keep up the good work...just keep it accurate. :) Cheers!!!
Info (if that is your real name!), I appreciate getting feedback from employees at breweries I've mentioned, and apologize if it seemed I was ragging unfairly on Flathead. My comment about them running out of beer stems from two separate visits I made back in the summer of 2007, when I was refused growler service because as the person working stated, they were "running out of beer". Without speculating further on what was going on at Flathead back in '07, I will say this: A return visit this past summer showed a *very* different brewery, one that had on tap a number of great beers, some fun experiments in the works, and absolutely no problem filling up a number of growlers for me with some excellent sustenance with which to spend my evening staring at the lake. I apologize for not putting that positive update on this post earlier.
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