Brew School Part II

Slowly but surely time keeps moving along. Seven weeks in Chicago seemed like a long time. To be honest, the first 4-5 weeks did seem to drag on. Now, here I am, packing up my suitcase, trying to get the next five weeks of my life back into that one red suitcase. I have a little extra room now thankfully. I mailed quite a bit back home and blew out a pair of shoes. Gina also took some stuff back home for me that I didn't end up using. It's amazing how little you actually need (provided you have an on site washer and dryer.

Tomorrow night at 10pm Chicago time, the class and I will get on a Lufthansa jet to fly off to somewhere that I have never been. It would be one thing if I were there for a vacation, but somehow I have to find my way the Doemen's Academy on Monday with no time to wander around lost. Thank goodness for wifi at the hotel where I am staying. Hotel is kind of a loose term apparently. It's more of a hostel (www.euro-youth-hotel.com) with some private rooms. It was one of the least expensive options, and, at this point, that's what I am going for!

The best part of going to Germany is that I get to see the wife again. It's been awhile. The last time I saw her was about a month ago. I miss her quite a lot actually. We have a couple trips planned in the region as well. Bamberg, Fussen, and the Rhine River Valley are the main destinations that we plan to hit while she is there. I know that I am there for school, but why waste the weekends thinking about school when we could be out exploring a country that we never get back to see again?

I realize, for better or worse, that I have not written a whole lot about actual brewing school. Honestly, I probably would have bored most of you to sleep. There is only so much enzymatic activity, secondary yeast flavor compounds, and bottling line descriptions a reader can take before they want to take out their own eyes with a fork. That being said, I am going to actually talk about school.

I won't bore you all with the in depth details as most of them would not apply to even the most excited homebrewer. There were definitely some ups and downs. Most of this had to do with instruction more than subject matter however. Of course, how exciting can class be when you are talking about pipe welds and condensation recovery systems? I can answer that. It isn't, but it actually is all really important. No, the ups and downs were due to the instructors. We had some absolutely fantastic instructors. John Mallett, Bell's Brewery's production manager, taught two separate courses. Some instructors just have a way of getting people to learn. He was one of them. No matter what he taught, dull or interesting, he was able to relate it to us as students. The parts that John taught us are the parts that I know the most about now. Additionally, we had Dr. Graeme Walker, basically a professor of yeast. Since the yeast science and yeast handling was probably the most important part of school, it was good to have such a fantastic instructor. He had a sence of humor about the entire process. It was great in that it helped keep us engaged.

I am not really sure what my point was there. I have just been thinking about everything that we have been through in these past seven weeks. Was this money, effort and time really worth it? I would have to say, the good instruction really made it worthwhile. Between that and my previous training at GoodLife, I think that I could step into a brewery and not be completely lost. I would say that it was worth it so far.

That being said, the best is yet to come. The time in Munich starts tomorrow. This is supposed to be the best part of the school. The rumor is that it is a lot more hands on. We are supposed to actually get to brew, work in the lab, and learn to bottle. However, I am nervous. I was just getting used to Chicago. Getting around was not the chore that it once was. I could navigate the train system, find my way around downtown, and even walk to just about anywhere (I walked about 27 miles this week!) Well, I will have all of three weeks to get the hang of finding bars in Munich and wandering home. At least I know that I am staying near the main station. I have something to aim for late at night!

Anyway, beginning tomorrow evening (3/24) I will be turning my phone off. I really don't need to incur several hundred dollars in random charges while I am there. So, if anyone needs to get a hold of me, TOUGH! Kidding of course. You can always get me on Facebook or e-mail.

Wish me luck! I will continue to update the blog as best I can. Until next time...Prost!!!

Officially Finished the Associates Program! Only 6 Weeks to Go!

<--Yes, that's green beer.

Yes, this is weird art -->

...And the tests finally end! Well, they do for now anyway. I still have a big one after three weeks of hands on training in Germany, but I don't want to think about that now. We are on to the Business of Brewing class. It's kind of like Monopoly meets Dungeons & Dragons with beer, but with much harder math. They also wouldn't let me be the little iron or the racecar. The instructor just sort of look at me with disdain when I asked if I could. Some people have no sense of humor! Actually, it is pretty interesting. The instructor made the whole thing up himself. Why he wouldn't have cool game pieces is beyond me. We are using crappy plastic poker chips instead. I think I will reinvent the game for prison. Maybe I could use cigarettes as game pieces to trade for my toilet hooch. (Maybe not...)

So, before I recap my St. Patrick's Day for your entertainment, I need say something. Drivers in Chicago are terrible. I saw a guy almost get hit because someone decided to be the third car through the red light! That's very common. Light turns red, three cars speed through. How there aren't more accidents I will never know. No one stops for pedestrian, EVER! If I am at a crosswalk where there is no stoplight, drivers will continue to go until I am actually in the street. Then, they will pull up to you and wait very annoyed until you pass. Usually there is some tire screeching as they pull away. Occasionally, there is a honk. I have never been around more inconsiderate drivers in my life. New York, even Los Angeles, the drivers are more considerate. And this is starting to extend to the train! I had to shove a guy into a pole to get off the train because he refused to get out of my way as I tried to make my way around him to get off. A couple weeks back, I had to hockey check someone into the train door to get out because she was in too big of a hurry to wait for me to get off before she got on. I am glad that I went to all those punk shows in high school and college. Moshing taught me something after all. Things are really slow in Bend (too slow for me sometimes). However, I am really learning to appreciate that. Hopefully, Munich will be better.

I digress. So, St. Patty's! Somehow my housemates convinced me that it would be a good idea to go to an all you can eat & drink party starting at 8am. Let me tell you, it is never a good idea to start drinking that early. (One should wait until at least 10am, and that's only okay if you are camping!) We were a little late getting there, so I didn't actually start drinking until 8:30. Things were going well, mostly because they had bacon for breakfast. I made sure that I ate about 6 pounds of that washed down with some wonderful green Bud Light. Ya know, green Bud Light tastes just like regular Bud Light-like slightly dirty water. The downhill slide began when the shots came out. 9am Jameson shots! Again, too early!

The party ended with a fairly buzzed step outside into a blinding and warm day. I figured that we would go home, sober up, and head back out that evening. I was informed that: "that isn't how they roll in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day." Hmmm...silly me. And we went to another bar. Then we went to another bar. Finally, by about 2pm, we settled in at a restaurant for some much needed food. We sat outside for an hour easily soaking up the sun, cramming massive quantities of food into our faces, and sucking down water. It was a really nice break.

And a break it was. The decision was made to go to a karaoke bar. When I heard that, I thought about jumping into traffic so that an ambulance would pick me up and take me elsewhere. I loathe karaoke. I managed to convince one housemate that we needed to go home. Once we got there, we sat out on the back patio, split a Mission St. Anniversary Ale, and enjoyed the sunshine. It had apparently snowed last St. Patty's. It was 80 this year! Eventually, the other friends and housemates made it back.

After a brief rest, we headed out to have dinner and more drinks at The Bad Apple, a great craft beer bar down the road. They also sell a burger called Elvis's Last Supper. It has bacon and peanut butter. Everyone told me how great it was. For some reason, I decided not to get it. Don't get me wrong. I love peanut butter. I love bacon. But, some foods were not meant to touch. I think those were the two. One nice thing about the bar was that they had Racer 5 from Bear Republic on draft. I really miss great IPA's like we have in Oregon and NorCal. It was good to taste one of those again.

I had invited a friend from class to come out to dinner with us. As he was paying his bar tab, a couple people started chatting him up. Turns out they were from Seattle on vacation to see how Chicago party's. Being from the Pacific Northwest too, they invited us to hang out with them. The rest of my group headed home, so the classmate (lets call him Al) and I went with them. They proceeded to buy us drinks until about 2:00am. It was about that time that I lost Al (still don't know where he went, though I know he was in class today so no one murdered him). I was sitting by myself finishing my last beer wondering where everyone went (outside was the answer...) when a rather large hispanic fellow walked away from his friends to talk to me. He was not rude or threatening, but he did want me to know that I "creeped him out." It felt a little like the scene in the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars where the guy confronted Luke. My expectation was that he was going to tell me that he was wanted on three system and that I had better be careful. So, I was alone in a locals bar "creeping out" large hispanic people and did not have any Jedi back up. Departure Time!!

Still wonder what happened to Al...

One other really great thing that I got to do this week as part of class was a food and beer pairing class. Author and brewery owner Randy Mosher (brewing nerds know who he is), was the instructor. I actually got a lot out of it. We sampled several beers with different cheeses (some of them were scary!) and desserts (not scary!). They were not all great together, but I really have a better respect for the marriage of flavors between food and beer. Here, let me quickly dispell a rumor while I am at it. IPA and bitter beers don't pair well with spicy foods. That is, unless you really want the spicy foods to taste spicier! However, if you don't already, I highly recommend trying to pair food and beers together. They may not all work, but it's fun to figure that out!

Alright, if can remember all of them...Beers of the Week!

Bell's Two Hearted Ale: This was one of those beers that I had heard a lot about, so I needed to try it. They don't claim that it's an IPA, but it is rather bitter with some hop flavor. It did have a nice hoppy aroma as well. I am glad that I was finally able to try it, but it still does not compare to home.

Founder's Centennial IPA: An IPA made solely with Centennial hops. It was not bad, but I found it rather one dimensional. Imagine that! One hop, one dimension.

Old Style: Fizzy Yellow Beer from Milwaukie, WI. This was another one that I had to try. I don't think that we can get it back home. It tastes like you would expect...yellow and fizzy.

New Glarus Fat Squirrel: Fairly basic amber ale. It tastes pretty much like an average amber ale...not a style that I would choose to make or drink. Most of them are just kind of bland to me.

Life's Soundtrack of the week:

Brewing Network (it makes shoving people on trains easier)

Every Time I Die

Pearl Jam (No Code is a great album!!)

Parkway Drive (can you say speedwalk home?!)

Miles Davis (Best. Study. Music. Ever!)

Cheers ya'll! I will be home in less than 6 weeks! I am over halfway there...

Only two more weeks until Germany!

First of all, I never thought this blog would be anything, but a way for me to keep some friends and family updated on this journey. I am at 1200 views in just over 5 weeks. For that, I just want to say thanks to everybody who has read it or passed it on to someone else. It's pretty great to get the support from everyone. So again, thanks!

Now, I wish that I could entertain everyone with some story about getting black out drunk again, but alas, I took it a little easier this week. Feeling as aweful as I did on Sunday kind of made me reconsider how I was spending my time. That, and St. Patrick's Day is this Saturday. I didn't want to ruin myself for the alleged debauchery that takes place here in Chi-Town on that day.

Anyway, on with the story of week 5...
School was...well...let's say it was not as attention grabbing as the first four weeks. We actually spent 3 hours talking about inspecting and cleaning returnable bottles. That would be okay, but here in the U.S. we don't use returnable bottles!!! I guess I will be prepared if I ever go to work in Europe or Austrailia or where ever the hell they use returnables. The main portion of the week was on bottling, canning, and kegging. Not a particularly interesting topic, but reasonable valuable nonetheless. It's good to be well rounded. I think they are trying to get us exposure to everything. It helps with getting jobs as well as if any of us were ever to open our own brewery. And, as it turns out, the brewery where I am hoping to work when I get back (it will remain nameless as I am not 100% sure they will be able to hire me...) is talking about getting a small canning line and bottling line. I was actually able to go into a local brewery here in Chicago and talk to their packaging manager about the canning line that is being considered. It was nice being able to know what I am talking about!

That brings me to my next thought...The brewery where I went to speak about the canning line was Half Acre. I spoke about them a few times before. I went in on Saturday doubting that anyone would be able to talk to me. Not only did I get to speak to the head of that department, they kept giving me free beer and a free pint glass. I could not believe how nice and how accomodating they were. They were very open and honest. In fact, the comraderie between small breweries here in Chicago is really something to marvel about. I really hope to make it back to Bend and experience the same thing. I didn't intern long enough to find out if that is what it's like, but I really hope that it is.

Prior to the trip to Half Acre, a couple classmates and I took a tour of Metropolitan Brewing. (www.metrobrewing.com) Again, an absolutely fantastic group of folks work there! I knew that they would be awesome when they were playing an obscure French heavy metal band while everyone on the tour was milling about and chatting. The head brewer was a Siebel graduate (there seems to be a lot of those around nowadays). They are a production only brewery that specializes in German-style beers. Their Kolsch and Alt beers were especially good. For those who are not from Chicago and are reading this, you may have trouble getting any of their beer. In fact, you are going to have to come to Chicago to get it. They distribute to Chicago and...Chicago. It's great that they sell their beer well enough here in town that they don't need to distribute elsewhere yet.

My Friday was interesting. After ditching the "Plastic Beer Bottle" lecture, (really? Is that really where big breweries are going?) I headed out to Whole Foods. It's the third largest Whole Foods in the country. The main reason that we went to Whole Foods is the bar. It possesses one of the hidden gems here in Chicago. To illustrate, I purchase a PINT of Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Noir for $5. To get any beer in Chicago for less than $6 is a feat in itself. To get a pint of a barrel aged sour beer for $5 is either a mistake or a phenomenon! There also have $2 cans and bottles. These are the same beers that most bars had for at least $5. Even better, you can take that beer and wander around with them while shopping. Brilliant!! (Evan! Time to get that in Bend.)

After the drink there, I wandered a couple miles over to the home the blogger for www.girlslikebeertoo.net. Jessica, her friend Chris, her husband Chris (that was nice for me since I am terrible with names), and I headed over to the Maproom. The Maproom is one of the more well known bars in the beer geek community here in Chicago. They have a pretty epic taplist of hard to find local beers as well as Belgian, English, and German imports. The crowd, even as early as it was, was rather horrific. I made friends with everyone rather quickly as we were all pretty much playing footsy at our tiny table.

A couple tasty beverages were consumed, then we headed to Piece Pizza & Brewery again. By the way, if I didn't mention it before, Piece is awesome! What's better than great pizza and great beer?! After a couple more drinks and me slinging ice at one of my classmates I saw walking to the restroom (probably should have apologized to the couple that I hit behind him...), the pizza arrived. I have never had pizza with an alfredo sauce, bacon, and mashed potatoes, but it was pretty darned tasty! It was no pepperoni and banana peppers like last time, but it hit the spot. While we were there, I started chatting up the couple sitting next to us. The guy was wearing a Fresno sweatshirt. Being from the Central Valley of California myself, I had to start a conversation. In a very odd, but not really surprising turn of events, his wife is a relative of the people that own Lutzer's Deli in Bend. I am firmly convinced that the world actually does revolve around Bend. Seemingly everyone knows someone from there!

It was decided that we would head back to Chris and Jess's house for some homebrew and cellar beers. I poured a delicious Irish Red from their kegerator followed by a dry stout. Both were very tasty. I brought over my New Glarus Cherry Belgian to share with some fellow beer lovers. We cracked that and drank it like it was soda. That beer goes down frighteningly easy. After that, to my surprise and pleasure, they took out a bottle of 2010 Three Floyd's Dark Lord. That beer is sold only one day out of the year. It's so popular that you actually have to buy raffle tickets just to be able to purchase a few bottles! (more on Dark Lord later!)

This is an odd highlight, but I thought it was cool so you have to read it! Jess asked me what I thought of Chicago. I was telling her that one thing that I love about the city is that there are no shortage of crazy people to entertain me. I went on to tell her about the nut-job that told me he could smell shapes. Without missing a beat, her husband says: "Oh yeah, that called synesthesia." Apparently it's a real thing (Porcupine Tree even wrote a song about it)! It has something to do with wires getting crossed in the brain that confuses sences. It's the same thing that happens with people who claim that they see color and waves coming from musical instruments. What an educational experience. I wondered if maybe I was misjudging the populace. Then I got on a bus at 1 am... At the stop after where I got on, a man clad in a cold weather mask (it was about 45 degrees) and a black fuzzy jacket with a matching purse got on. Nope, there are plenty of crazy people.

Sunday was the first really nice day that I have seen here. It was about 60, sunny, and not very windy. Tyler (a room mate), Dave (last week's drinking partner), and I headed out to downtown and to what I was told would be a "brewfest". I really wanted to try some Intelligentsia coffee and go to a free museum before I left. I think we all could have not gone to the museum and still been just as happy as we are now. However, Intelligentsia was pretty phenomenal. To get away with chargin $20 for 12 oz of whole bean coffee, it had better be good! It was a luxury that I could afford, but it was tempting. I will be going back there again before I leave.

We headed off to the "brewfest." I was informed that it would be under the Chicago stop on the Brown Line train. We were a bit confounded when we got there and saw no outdoor venue. Actually, we saw a Starbucks and some homeless people and not much else. As it turned out, the brewfest was at a bar. Essentially, they had 28 local beers on draft and were selling them for $4 a pint. The place was empty. I was supposed to meet Jess and her husband there at 4. We got there just after 1. It actually turned out to be pretty cool. I got to meet some other Chicago beer bloggers, a couple guys opening a brewery soon, and the owner of Metropolitan again. Six hours and ? number of beers later, I headed home.

Beers of the Week:

I counted up every new thing that I had this week. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20. Some of these were only tastes, but to me, it counts! I won't be writing about all of them...sorry!

Three Floyd's Dark Lord 2010: Russian Imperial Stout aged with happiness...a huge vanilla/chocolate dark bomb of a brew. Apparently, it had aged very well. I recommend trying it if you can.

5 Rabbits Cervesaria -5 Vultures: They call it a Oaxacan Style Dark Beer. Whatever it is, it tastes fantastic. It has just a bit of ancho chile flavor, but it is balanced nicely by a sweet malty backbone. It's really easy to drink and really good!

Three Floyd's/Piece Collaboration - Ham on Rye: As much as I thought that I wasn't going like this smoked rye beer, I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted like someone gave me a beer and made me drink it with bacon under my nose. I ended up having two!

Those were my favorites. And that's all you get for now!

Life's Soundtrack:

Eluveitie (a Swiss folk metal band that sings about half of their songs in an ancient dead language)
Porcupine Tree (Chris was nice enough to burn me the two albums that I didn't have)
I discovered more Brewing Network podcasts!
Angels & Airwaves (I am almost embarassed to admit that, but I love those guys)
Every Time I Die (crazy offensive rock/metal hybrid)
Iron Maiden (need I say more?)

Alright! Thanks again for reading.
Be ready for a post-St. Patty's Day blog. I have a ticket to an all you can drink party that starts at 8am and ends at noon. It should be an interesting one!

Cheers!!

It's Been a Month!

Basically, I only have two weeks left of the constant studying. This is an exciting prospect. Making it even more exciting is that fact that the most difficult week is behind us. Last week was almost all microbiology. Even the school's Vice President said that it was an extremely difficult section. The shear number of hours that I spent trying to memorize which bacteria are anaerobic/aerobic, lactic acid producing, CO2 producing, or Gram Stain Positive was mind boggling. I don't hold a lot of hope for another perfect score on the test, but I feel like I did well.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on your perception) we were given reprieve yesterday (Friday). We had a class on the purpose of tasting panels. That was obviously followed by tasting. Which, was followed by drinking. (There is a difference, ya know!) We had a blind test to see if we could tell the difference between Budweiser and Bud Light. There were two cups of Bud and one of Bud Light. You may think that this is an easy task, but the class was split in thirds. Only 13 of the 46 people in the class actually "guessed" correctly. I was not one of them. AB did a good job at making a light beer taste as bad as their regular beer.


Our second test was to blind taste two beers and say which one we liked more. I chose the first beer (along with about 60% of the class) because the second one had a harsh lingering bitterness. Well, it turned out that the second beer was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. The first beer was Sierra as well, but it was spiked with diacetyl (a flavor compound released by yeast during fermentation that tastes like buttered popcorn at high doses). You can take away what you would like from that test, but I found that I liked the beer with the "off-flavor" more than the regular version.

After class, we got a tour of Half Acre Brewery (http://www.halfacrebeer.com/). The folks there were most accomodating, especially to a group of almost 50 already slightly toasted brewing students. They gave us each glasses and basically as much beer as we could consume in the hour that we were there. It was quite an interesting place. There is a tasting room up front with the brewery in back. Half Acre is about an 8 person operation with a 15-barrel system (which is quite small), about a dozen fermenters and bright tanks, a keg maching, a canning line, and a bottling line for specialty beers. It was quite the operation. They were extremely busy. Their hope is to do 15000 barrels of production in the very near future. On a system that size, that number will be quite a feat. In fact, they are going to have to do almost three batches of beer a day for the whole year! They were a good group of folks, so I wish them the best.

The night ended (for me anyway) at The Fountainhead (http://www.fountainheadchicago.com/) again. This is one of the only bars that I have cared to frequent. To get an idea why, take a peek at their beer list. Many of my classmates followed as well. One thing that I love about going to this school is that I can just chat with anyone. Most of us have similar stories and we all love beer. I spent a majority of the night talking to a guy from San Luis Obispo, CA who lives next door to Matt Brindelson Firestone's Brewmaster (also a Siebel grad). Obviously, he has a job when he gets back from Germany. I really do wish that I had more time to spend with all the people with whom I go to class.

As many left to go find other watering holes, I decided to stick around and have another drink. At this point, Ray Daniels (one of our instructors and author of Designing Great Beers) showed up with his girlfriend. I really enjoy talking to people away from their place of work. Ray and Keith (the school's VP) are both really nice guys, but when you get people away from being your teacher or supervisor, you really get to know them. It was really interesting to hear that everyone is as afraid of Rick Santorum as I am. I also got to pick the brains of people who are already deep in the industry. Ray's girlfriend works for Lagunitas. It was a very fun and educational experience. The hope that I can have a few nights of that kind is one reason why I decided to go to brewing school.

Update: Blogspot erased half of this post yesterday. I decided to give myself the rest of the day off from writing on Saturday and finish today. Perhaps that was good. I spent much of the second half of Saturday wandering the streets of Chicago with some classmates looking for bars. We found them. Maybe all of them...

The day started at 2:00pm at Piece Pizzeria & Brewery (http://www.piecechicago.com/). They have won numerous awards for their beers. If awards were given for pizza, theirs would win that too. "Connecticut" style pizza is what they make, whatever that is. Thin crusted pizza in Chicago would seem sinful, but it blows everything else here that I have had away. The beer there varied in style from a double IPA to a Belgian strong golden to a number of German-style beers. Everyone was very impressed with the food and drinks.

We wandered to a number of other spots, but the night started getting a bit blurry at a place called The Boiler Room. These guys have a brilliant plan. They are cash only, but, because they understand that no one wants to use an ATM and incur the charges, they offer you a free shot of Jameson with the ATM receipt. That was very unnecessary at that point in the evening, but I didn't want to turn down something free in a city that charges 11.5% sales tax. It's a rare thing. The coolest part of the bar was the men's restroom graffiti. The wall was virtually covered in permanent marker drawings of "Butt" themed art work (read: poorly drawn). We had the "Butt-ler", a drawing of a man in a tux holding a plate of drinks coming out of a butt. We had the "Pabst-Butt-Ribbon", a butt with a ribbon on it. And finally, the "Buttasaurus Rex", a T-Rex emerging from a...wait for it...butt!

Staggering on, a classmate named Dave from Portland and I went to his apartment. Things become rather hazy at this point. We had a beer. At some point there, his room mate's cat scratched the hell out of my hand. I don't remember it happening, but there was a cat there. I have a really creepy photo of it on my phone that I don't remember taking.

It was decided that we would head to Goose Island Wrigleyville. Dave really needed to meet Barry. Gina and I met Barry at Goose last weekend. He is an Irish golf pro at a country club north of Chicago. Apparently, his Saturday schedule includes drinking as much as possible at Goose before his friend picks him up and takes him downtown. The man is a talker. He bought us drinks and regaled us with stories of inbred country Irish folk from back home. Sadly, he left after only about an hour of Dave and I arriving. It was still a very interesting hour.

I vaguely remember walking the near two miles back home in the 25 degree night. Dave told me this morning that he doesn't remember how he got home. This morning I decided to check my phone for missed calls or texts. What I found were some very random pictures (like that of the cat) and some extremely random texts that I had sent (sorry Curt!). I actually sent this text to my wife: "I need to borrow your platypus. So I took your favorite tree." Not only do I not remember texting that, I don't have a clue why I would have sent it. But, it is really funny!

Today I took a very hungover stroll through an amazing cemetary. It may seem creepy, but it is one of the only places that multiple people told me that I can't miss. On a gray day like today, a cemetary seemed like a good trip. Indeed, it was amazing. Giant headstones, pillars tombs, and intricately adorned mausoleums were scattered all over the area. Never have I been to a cemetary that had a tomb that likely cost more than my house. The creepiest part is that they apparently have a resident coyote. I snapped a couple pictures of it before it ran off, but it was always in the back of my mind. As odd as this may seem to say, I think that I will go back before I leave. It was a very peaceful and tranquil spot in a very bustling city.

Beers of the Week:

What I really wanted was the GoodLife 29er India Brown Ale. It was just released and I have heard good things already.

Bell's Kalamazoo Stout: Good! Dry and roasty, it is one of the better stouts that I have had. Bravo Bell's.

Revolution Brewing's Eugene: This was supposed to be one of THE beers to get in Chicago. For me, it was only ok. It was really sweet and malty. It seemed a little out of character for a porter, but it was definitely drinkable.

Piece Brewery's Golden Arm: I have really gotten into Kolsch recently. I jumped at the opportunity to try this award winner. I was not let down. It was light and refreshing, but still had enough kick to let you know that you are drinking a beer.

Piece Brewery's Cap n kickass: I'll admit...I got it for the name. It was between that and the Moose Knuckle barleywine (they were out of the Camel Toe. No really, they were). They claimed it was somewhere between IPA and Imperial IPA. I'd say that it accurate. It would fit in well in Bend or Portland. Another impressive effort from the Piece folks.

New Glarus Cherry Belgian: Holy Cherry!!! It tasted like a cherry Jolly Rancher. I have no idea how much cherry they would have to add to that beer to get it to taste that much like cherry. That was impressive!

Life's Soundtrack:

Blind Pilot (thanks for keeping me company on the way home last night)
Junior Kimbrough
Pearl Jam (of course)
R.L. Burnside
Tyler Stenson (helped me through some grueling studying)
Bon Iver
The Devil Wears Prada (the metal band, not the soundtrack!)
Porcupine Tree

Take care everyone! See you Oregon folks in two months. GoodLife, save me some IBA. I will be home soon!