A night at the 'bones

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but that's only because I haven't really been doing awesome stuff lately. However, I never did fill ya'll in on the most recent awesome thing I did...which happened almost two weeks ago now and has ALREADY been mentioned here by 'Wrence. SO...I drove back from NYC pretty early on the Saturday after Christmas and hollered at 'Wrence on the way. It was decided that we would eat and drink things while sitting near each other that night. The venue was to be determined, but the intent was clear. On this night, awesomeness would be given free reign. It was eventually decided, after not too much deliberation, that we would be spending our time at RedBones BBQ in Davis Square...this place puts nipples on the proverbial Tits. 'Wrence and I have taken our frustrations out on this place before and had decided that it was once again time to let shit fly.

After a very successful execution of the trick*, 'Wrence and I took the T to Davis and promptly arrived to Redbies to find the place not-too-packed. Despite some upstairs availability, we opted to examine the downstairs, dubbed UnderBones by some. Dimly lit and pretty wide-open...UnderBones feels a bit cavernous and homey...just the place for eating massive quantities of meat and drinking far-too much booze. On to the action...the beverables were duly noted by myself on my phone for posterity's sake...there is no way, under other circumstances that I would be able to recall them all. Or even one of them for that matter. They are as follows:

Ry

1. Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
2. Lagunitas Brown Sugga
3. Rogue Mocha Porter
4. Smutty IPA
5. Stoudt's Pils

'Wrence

1. Six Point Bengali Tiger IPA
2. Weihenstephaner (which, after ordered, provided a good 5 minutes of conversation)
3. Founder's Backwoods Bastard
4. Goulden Draak
5. Sierra Nevada Celebration
6. Clipper City Winter

Now, I admit, things got hazy at the end, and I may have misattributed a couple of those, but you get the idea. Not included was the goddamn shot of tequila 'Wrence made me have somewhere in the middle.

As far as mangibles, we started things off with some collards and catfingers, both old standards. 'Wrence attempted to have the brisket, but that was out for the night, and was forced to change his order to ribs of some type (i think). As for myself, I had a full order of Memphis ribs...I think. See I usually get a combo of Memphis and St. Louis and then always like one more than the other and have to do it all over again the next time. This time I threw caution to the wind and just ordered one type...and it turned out to be the one I like better. I now I still can't fucking remember which one it is for sure. Oh well, I have never been opposed to experimentation by eating.

The night got hazy and we rode the T home. However, we thought it might be a good idea to take some pictures of each other on the T. We probably looked like a real happy couple of gay dudes. See for yourself.

Just another night for the dudes (that was the name on our tab this time I think).

&Ry

Blind Pig & New Routines

After all the traveling I did in the last 5 weeks, it was nice to have a weekend to relax in Philly (yea, I just said that). Saturday included a weird pattern and some very welcome happenstance.

First, I ended up covering for someone at work and had to come into the brewery for tours Saturday afternoon. I don't mind doing this at all, in fact I actually really enjoy it. Anyway, that morning I was thinking of calling up Snotty as I hadn't heard from him since like July; on my way out to the brewery he actually called me. Vague plans were made to meet up later for beers. I had a few errands to take care of before tours started, and while I was driving around swearing at New Jersey traffic I realized that each of the other 2 times I worked tours at the brewery I ended up meeting Snotty afterward at Justin's Restaurant. (1) (2) Since we are both piss-poor foodies, we ended up back at the Key this time as well. 3 for 3 for me. Also, now that I think of it, I ended up writing about each visit on here as well, so that's part of the routine now as well I guess.

This visit was another delight for the face, as Monkey sent us out a few special dishes he had prepared from a whole suckling pig that he had picked up that day. I never knew someone to confit a pig, and it was HEAVENLY.

OH: the best part - when I first arrived and started perusing the beer list I came across Port Brewing's Hop 15 and quickly ordered one. The bartendress informed me that they unfortunately just kicked that keg, and would be replacing it with "Umm...(she looked down at something written somewhere)....Russian River....Blind- "YES," I emphatically interrupted.

That's right, I was there as they put on a fresh keg of Blind Pig IPA, a beer I brewed back in my apprentice days at the beloved NorCal brewery. See above photo. Me So Happy! I had about 15 of them. I don't think I even bothered to drink anything else the whole night. Damn.

Hope you all are enjoying your September.

Peace

-Wrence

A place in Jersey I actually like

Today was so nice, and my hangover just within range of being manageable, I decided to take the new wheels and get out of the city for a bit.

Yesterday, right after finishing up tours at the brewery, I met up with another Hartwick alum Scott (Snotty) at Justin (Little Monkey Boy)'s restaurant, the Kite and Key. The place is still sort of new I think, and pretty nice. They have a great beer selection, heavily leaning on local stuff just as most of the bars around here tend to. Justin is a french-trained chef who's used to working in fine dining environments, so he's sort of a fish out of water running a pub kitchen, but he's definitely dropping of bit of the haute into this joint. I mean, I've never had oysters with fresh roe; or escargot; or this crazy french thing wherein meat is braised, then pureed in a blender with duck fat added, then molded into little rounds which are then browned in a saute pan (I can't remember the actual term J used when describing this), in a beer bar before. This stuff was off the hook, and I don't even use that phrase. For reals. It also helped that Snottty & I didn't have to pay for any of this stuff. Score.


Then today I headed east into the Jerz and found this nice state park, which turned out to be quite beautiful. It is about halfway to the coast, and the turf there starts to look almost like Cape Cod. They even had white cedar swamps and a cranberry bog like out on the Cape...well done, Jersey. It turns out that this whole part of the State is actually some kind of National Reserve, so there is not much in the way of houses, shopping centers, or other typical crap like that which seems to be everywhere you look in the state. There are some nice hiking/biking trails which I hit up, and a few ponds for submerging yourself. I'll definitely be back here often this summer. Oh, and since I was all the way out there I continued east after this until I hit ocean.

So now I am feeling the effects of all this activity and sinking deeper and deeper into a comatose haze which I am certain will envelope me completely for the next 12 hours or so. Work tomorrow doesn't start for me until 1 so I plan on chillaxing like you read about until then.

Peace

-Wrence

Still in California

First and foremost, I guess I should welcome back RyToy, but I won't....at least not until he gets up a few more posts. Don't get me wrong, I love an occasional update from the Toymeister, but I learned to stop getting my hopes up about them becoming more habitual. (RyToy, in case you missed what I just threw down, it indeed was the gauntlet.)
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Anyway, things are wrapping up for me out here in Cali, as preposterously impossible that is to believe. 5 weeks is a long time, but it's also a short time. Damn, that last sentence sucked. It was like something George Bush would say. I apologize.

So I just bought a plane ticket which will have me touching the tarmack at Logan around 11pm Christmas eve night. Talk about your dramatic movie moment! I think I will carry a large stuffed bear under my arm, with bow, because for some reason that just seems like what one is supposed to be carrying when getting off a plane on Christmas eve night. Oh, and I'll be running, too (I don't know why).
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While things have been mega busy here, I DID finally get time to go out & explore a bit. This past weekend I rented a car & drove down to San Fran to see DG & Junior, and possibly some of my Oakland peeps (time permitting). On the way, I stopped in a town called Novato and had lunch and some beer samples at a brewery called Moylan's.

I remembered trying their beer before somewhere and I remember really liking it. There are a TON of great breweries out near me (Marin, Lagunitas, Bear Republic, etc) but Moylan's was on the way to SF and I heard that the food was good.

The food was good. That's all I'm going to say.

At any rate, I got down to SF and to DG's new house that afternoon & we hit up a nice neighborhood pub for a pint. Later we met up with some of his buddies, where they have a nice garage band-style setup with a digitial recorder, so we jammed pretty solidly and laid down some sleek tracks. It was good to play some instruments again...each person could play each instrument (drums, keys, bass, guitar) to some degree so there was a lot of switching around & whatnot.

Afterward, DG & I hit up the famous Toronado, perhaps the most renowned beer bar on the left coast. It was cool. The draft list was strong, about 30-40 handles, and naturally was focused on local California beer. They had some stuff we get back east, and some stuff we don't, and plenty of stuff from the brewery I'm working at now. Also, it should be noted that the prices were awesome and totally unexpected. A place like that back in Boston would have charged a good 20-30% more, easily.

One thing that's different about San Fran is that none of the bars serve food. Back in Boston you pretty much HAVE to have a kitchen if you expect to have a successful pub. BUT: to their credit, SFers have logically placed kick-awesome food joints right next door to their bars. Next to the Toronado is a sausage that joint was so awesome I almost punched DG in the knockwurst.

We ended up back in the Mission, perhaps my favorite neighborhood in American in which to party (though probably not to live). We continued to get progressively more hammered, attracting an odd assortment of strangers who wanted to party with us. Maybe it was my hat, maybe it was DG's smart-ass mouth, maybe it was the fancy absynthe-pourer-thingy; I am not sure. There were crazy people everywhere. Junior showed up with some of his peeps and the night gets extremely blurry. Luckily there was a disposable camera in my hand and I am sure I clicked the button a few times. When I get home, get them developed and scanned, I'll post some up here.

On Sunday I had some time to drive over to Oakland and meet Brian & Smitty, my old bandmates, who are both working musicians in the Bay Area now. It was good catching up.
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So now it's Wednesday, I've finished another 12 hour double-brew day, and I'm still recovering from my hangover due to the brewery's Christmas party Monday night, which was off both the hook, cuff, and charts. It was pretty wild, actually. They have some very, um.....free-spirited girls working there. I am relaxing tonight while watching the Patrick Stewart version of "Christmas Carol." SCORE!

So until next time, Peace!

'Wrence

Sunday in Northampton

Took a drive out west on what could have been the nicest day of the Fall.....truly remarkable.

With a few of the Greeks on board, we toured the Mass Pike and the picaresque town of Northampton, the liberal's liberal. We hit the Northampton Brewery, a decent pub. It looked like they are brewing 7 or 10bbl batches. They were pouring 8 offerings so we got two sets of samplers, getting one of each beer on the table, which was a nice way to do it. All the beers were solid, especially their "lighter" ones. When progressing to the hoppier Pale Ales or the Brown and the Porter, the beers became less than inspiring, but solid, none-the-less. The two critiques I have regarding the beers were: 1) they were all basically the same color. THIS COLOR...for reals. I mean, make your blondes blonde and make your browns brown, for shit's sake. 2) All of the beer styles were very.....umm...traditional in nature (read: generic). I would have liked to have seen at least ONE beer with some interesting ingredients or a new take on a style. In other words, I didn't get the sense of any personality coming from the brewer with this basic a lineup.

The highlight was the Dirty Truth, a beautiful, somewhat new beer bar on Main street. I'd been wanting to try this place since they first opened, and I was definitely impressed. Lots of room, cool lighting, great colors & design in general, and about 40 taps or so. The mac & cheese was straight dope.

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Today I gave notice at my job of the last 7 years...here we go

-'Wrence

Week day Beer having

A tale of two nights and two bars in an otherwise slow and sleepy week

Tuesday night was cask night at CBC. This week, the new IPA, Red God, was on cask. It was presented "straight up" -and by that I mean it was not dry-hopped. I would have preferred some more of that awesome fresh hop aroma in this brew, but it was delicious none the less. A very malty, rich, ruby red double IPA, and the hopping is all about balance here. It weighs in at 8.5% abv (IBUage unknown as Will generally doesn't bother with the calculations). When I had this brew a few weeks ago (when it had first come out on tap) it had a more pronounced hop character; it seems to have mellowed a bit and dry hopping would have definitely racheted it up another notch or two, but damn this is a stellar brew. Also that night I had their Spring Training IPA, a great expression of the style, with a lighter body and color than its big brother; and finally their award winning amber, always a favorite of mine.

Then last night I ended up out again - rare for me these days indeed. The venue was the venerated old Bukowski's Tavern on Cambridge Street (above pic). This place gets a lot of flack these days from the beer geeks, and to be fair the place has changed a lot over the 3 years I've been going there. The prices are sky-high and the pours are generally in the 12 to 14 ounce range, even for the normal strength beer. The music selection has gone down a steep hill since Max & the Gang left to open Deep Ellum, but it still holds a place in my heart as this is one of the places I "cut my teeth" so to speak, when I really started to get into this whole beer thing. Plus, the people that hang out there are more chill, more tattooed, and not so much into the beer snobery as those that you can get at say, The Public House, for example. I had the Opa Opa IPA, which was so good I almost can't believe it was brewed in Massachusetts (that's not a slam, Bay Staters). Followed it up with the Southampton "Secret Ale;" its only secret being that it was a modest expression of a Dusseldorf Altbier, but very drinkable and a welcome session ale among the bigger boys on Buk's tap list.

Sorry for the dry nature of this morning's post...it's been a rough week and I think I need to sleep for a solid day or four. Let's hope RyToy comes through for us all in the meantime.

From dream-land (my cubicle, pre-9am),

'Wrence

Cask Ales and Galvanized Nails

I'm down in NYC this weekend for Mother's Day and my cousin's First Communion party today. Took the bus down from Boston...took for fucking ever due to the usual Friday traffic and the fact that we are apparently got the remnants of the Myanmar cyclone or something. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a petite blonde on the bus ride. As she was bending over to get something out of her bag when we got on I scoped a little boobage down her tank top. Yeah I know it's creepy and I am sure Angie wouldn't approve, but what was I going to do? LOOK AWAY?!?!?! Hardly. In any event the trip took five hours and I arrived at Port Authority with a robust thirst.Headed up to my buddy John's place on the Upper West side. He's getting married soon and his engagement party is today, so he couldn't go all out last night but we crushed some beers just the same. Started out with a couple of Boggs before we headed over to a place called George Keeley's on Amsterdam and 83rd.

Keeley's is a legit NYC bar. Dark and wooden throughout. A few tables line the side wall and the bar stretches an impressive length on the opposite wall. It has a couple of TVs and an always occupied dartboard. Standard I guess, but the beer selection is anything but typical. Every time I get down to the city I try to hit this place up. The beer list is always changing and they always have some good shit on tap without fail. I went to High School with the kid who manages the place and he seems to have developed the same kind of affinity for beers as I have. I took a picture of the blackboard with my phone cam which explains the shitty quality.

I noticed on another board that they were offering Blue Point's Spring Fling or something like that on cask....so I jumped at the chance. I have had Blue Point's Toasted Lager and their Hoptical Illusion Pale Ale and have been very impressed in the past. Always feels good to support the local booze peddlers. It was nice and fresh tasting, very clean...a good pale ale. Not an overwhelming hop presence, but there was definitely a decent amount of nice floral hop aroma and a smooth citrusy bitterness that I enjoyed thoroughly. I easily could have drank these all night, but there were a few other offerings on tap that I wanted to try.
Next up, I think, I had a Red Rocket Ale from Bear Republic, which was also quite tasty. Dark and somewhat sweet it had a very complex flavor profile that was just delicious, if a little bit on the heavier side of things. I may have had something else after this that has slipped my mind at this point. All I know is that soon after the Red Rocket I made the mistake of telling John's roommate Sean to grab me "whatever that Rogue beer they have on tap is." I have had Rogue's stuff before and have always been pretty cool with it. What I did not realize was that this particular Rogue offering was the brewery's attempt at a Chipotle beer. THIS SHIT WAS VILE!!! It had a slightly discernible smoky aroma which I found fine, since I have had and made beers employed smoked malt before. I was anticipating something similar. Then I tasted it and all I can describe it as was this disgustingly overwhelming mishmash of jalapeno pepper and feet...shit covered dog feet even. It was repulsive....I never throw beer away or let it go to waste, but that pint sat there the rest of the night taunting me with its obnoxious nastiness. I switched to the safer Dogfish 60 which did me fine the rest of the night as it always does. I am pissed that I didn't take a peek at the beer list sooner because I would have obviously tried the Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold...FOR THE NAME ALONE!
All in all a solid night though and a worthwhile bar to drink at...which is all you can really ask for I think.

&Ry

Trivia Night in Southie

Spent Wednesday night this week having dinner, beer-having, and playing barroom trivia at this place. It has a high propensity for douchebaggery, especially on the weekends, but the trivia crowd tends to be a bit more chill. I went with my girlfriend Angie, her sister and her sister's new/old boyfriend. The Sox were on so people were watching that and the Celtics were playing game 5 against the Hawks as well, so there were plenty of people there for that. We had to wait a bit for a table but once we did I was quite pleased when I realized that in my immediate field of vision were no less than 11 televisions, all tuned to the same thing. I felt kinda like a fly or something.

Anyway, while we were waiting for a table, a few Coors Light girls who were walking around gave us free beers...all we had to do was take a picture. I guess I felt a little self-conscious since they appeared to be in their underwear and I was fully dressed. I am not usually a fan of fermented corn syrup, but when in Rome I suppose. Particularly discomforting about Coors Light is its attempt to insult my intelligence with it's label that changes colors. The label itself specifically says "When the mountains turn blue, your beer is as cold as the Rockies."

I mean, I get what they're saying...when the label turns blue your beer is cold. I am not silly enough to think that the label knows exactly what the temperature in the Rockies is at any given time. I mean, the Rockies are huge, they could be a huge range of temperatures. Anyway, my REAL problem is this: if you put a piss warm bottle of beer in a bucket of ice, that label is gonna turn blue long before the piss inside is even close to being far enough away from 98.6 degrees to drink it. Am I being nitpicky here? Anyway, about 15 minutes later, the same girls walked around giving away t-shirts to anyone drinking Coors Lights....us included. I was having a hard time telling whether they knew they had already given us the beers for free and they just didn't care or if they were really that vapid. Either way you slice it, my laundry schedule just got extended one more day...but for the record I opt for vapid.

Luckily, the Beer Garden has a halfway decent selection of some more craft-y beers. I indulged in bottles of Lagunitas IPA as well as a Rogue Dead Guy as we racked up point after point in trivia, eventually coming away with a victory and a $35 gift cert. I have to say though, the doorman helped us out by telling us what movie Reginald VelJohnson (the dad from Family matters) played a cop in...it was Die Hard. It did take us at least four or five repetitions of him saying Die Haaaahd before I realized that he was actually speaking English, but we were grateful for the help nonetheless. All in all a good night that more or less paid for itself which is about as much as you can ask for from a place with that many TV screens.

&Ry

CBC Anniversary party

So our "readers" in the Boston/C-town area may know about this, the 19th anniversary of Cambridge Brewing Company. They will have a good 19 beers on tap all weekend; the list was just finalized:

Cambridge Brewing Company’s
19th Anniversary Beer Menu
19 Years = 19 Beers
(Ok, maybe 24 but who’s counting?)

1 Regatta Golden - Kölschbier – 4.2%
2 Cambridge Amber – 4.7%
3 Tall Tale Pale Ale – 5.9%
4 Charles River Porter – 6.0%
5 Spring Training I.P.A. – 6.3%
6 Bitchin’ Bitter – 4.0%
7 Golden Ring – Abbey Pale Ale – 6.0%
8 Cerise Cassée 2008 – Barrel-fermented Sour Ale with Cherries – 7.75%
9 Barrel-aged 2007 Blunderbuss – American Barleywine - 11.75%
10 CBC HefeWeizen – Unfiltered German-style Wheat Beer - 5.5%
11 Big Man Ale – ‘Nuff Said – 6.8%
12 * Red God 2006- More Than Enough Said – 8.4%
13 * LuvBuzz Espresso Stout - Stout with Organic Coffee - 6.1%
14 * Late Harvest I.P.A. 2007* - 6.5%
15 Cask-conditioned Tall Tale Pale Ale with Cascade Dryhops– 6.0%
16 Tripel Threat 2007 – Belgian Special Strong Ale – 9.5%
17 * Arquebus 2007 - Chardonnay Barrel-aged Summer Barleywine – 10.75%
18 Bannatyne’s Scotch Ale – The Brewdaddy Special – 9.2%
19 * The Wind Cried Mari 2006– Unhopped Heather Ale – 5.0%

* will be replaced by:
12 Red God 2008 – 8.5%
13 Cherry Stout – Stout Aged With Organic Montmorency Cherries – 6.3%
14 Om – Barrel-aged Liquid Enlightenment – 9.4%
17 Biere de Miel 2007 – Belgian-style Blonde Ale with Cambridge Honey - 8.8%
19 Weekapaug Gruit – Unhopped Herbal Beer – 6.0%

I may have just drooled on my space-bar

-'Wrence

A few words on "Bros11"

Yea, the name…it’s weird, I know.

So, after about a hundred years of talking about starting up a “web-log” without actually doing anything about it, something had to give. Ry & I were planning on having some beers this past weekend, since it had been so long, and decided that we would have to devote a portion of said meeting for discussing “blog strategy.”

The place was Deep Ellum, a favorite bar of ours. If you haven’t been, definitely check it out; it is owned/operated/staffed by a couple really cool guys and some nice/cute girls. The beers are excellent, the cocktails are excellent, and the food is mangiable as all get-out. It’s the kind bar that will have the Sox game showing on television, but Pavement will still be blaring on the sound system. Nicely. I would almost consider moving back to Allston just knowing this place exists.

Typical us, we spent an unfortunate total of 8 seconds talking about the blog. It went something like this:

Ry: “So, why are you so hesitant to start up this beast?”

Me: “I’m just worried that it might suck…that would…suck.”

Ry: “Yea…”

(bartender arrives)

Me: “Yea, I’ll have the De Ranke XX, please!”

(discussion over)

The one thing that DID come out of this evening of drunkery was the following: when the lights came on at the end of the night, and we grabbed our tab, we noticed that Casey the bartender had put down “Bros 11” at the top, where one's name would usually be. We (RyToy) found this particularly amusing, and decided to run with it.

So, let’s just call this “stupid decision #1 of our blog” -No?

More to come….

‘Wrence