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!!