Bristol Brewing May Blowout

This Sunday, May 4, Bristol Brewing Company will be open for a special occasion down here in Colorado Springs. From 1 - 4pm they'll have some kick ass apateasers from the Margarita at Pine Creek, live music by Woodworks, and they'll be donating a buck for every pint poured to the Colorado Farm and Art Market.

Here's the real reason I want to go... Skull 'n Bones Aged Wheat.

What's that you say? What about Cinco de Mayo? Well, Bristol will be celebrating that too with the release of their chile beer!

Time flies when you're drinkin' beer!

I've come to a conclusion. There's not enough time in the dang day or enough days in the dang week! From a physical standpoint I don't mind being 41. Age is just a number, and you're only as "old" as you allow yourself to be. But how the hell is it that time continues to speed up at an exponentially greater rate than is humanly conceivable? I feel like I don't have nearly enough time in the day to get everything accomplished.

I mean, there's work to trot off to every stinkin' day. There's dealing with housely chores that spring up frequently and out of the blue. There's a 90-pound Malamute that needs constant attention and taking care of. There's enjoying time with my wife who is a saint for putting up with all my flaws and hobbies. Daily workouts to keep up with - what, you don't think I'm genetically blessed with this "svelte" bod drinking all this beer do you? Speaking of... there's an ocean full of beer to drink and a library of video games to play - and then write about in order to justify all the drinking and game playing. Thank God I don't have any kids! Speaking of...

No doubt you've heard the new radio spot for Kaiser-Permenente's "Thrive" campaign about how being a kid is a busy job, right? Well, being a middle-aged man-child ain't no pint of beer lady! I honestly have no idea where the time goes. Is it leaking from some orifice, or is my mind slipping a tad more then it was a month ago?

Whatever... beer will fix 'er right up. Lots and lots of beer.

So yes, I'm still alive just very, very busy. I think I have a tad too many irons in the fire. We'll see. Hopefully one of those irons will start to burn brightly here soon and I can wallow in a bath of beer (like Zane did when he went to the Czech Republic).

Bit I digress...

For now enjoy the hilarious "Real Men of Genius" audio clips off on the right sidebar. I finally got around to fixing them so they all work now. And I'll be adding lots more soon! Just don't try to download them - because you can't. Last thing I need is a C&D from the Big A-B.

Crawling up from the frothy depths of an oak-aged barrel, eh!

And lo the clouds parted and the light of better beer did shine down upon the Mad Beer Man. A booming voice echoed forth unto the Mad One and didst say: "Go forth and baptize non-better beer drinkers and show them the same light that I have shown unto you."

Like the new banner? Thought it appropriate given the "theme." I have a few other surprises coming down the isle - so stay tuned. Speaking of... the votes are in and the congregates to the beer confessional have made it abundantly clear - ya freakin' hate the whole "Baptist/Baptizer" nickname. "The Mad Beer Man" it is. So say you all!

Sorry for the prolonged absence this week, but I've been insanely busy with that pesky thing known as "real life." Time for a little catch up... hold on!

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The Boulder Strong Ale Festival last weekend was nothing short of kick ass. In fact, I'm pretty sure it registered a 6.5 on the Righteously Awesome scale. There was, to borrow a phrase from Avery's Peter Archer (via John "The Beer Hermit" Morrissey's article in the Denver Post blog "Foam on the Range")... "abundantly ridiculous" amounts of beer there. And all of it was above 8% ABV. I don't need to prattle about this festival since John did such a great job. Clickety-click on the above link and give his article some link love.

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For many beer geeks the movie Strange Brew is a cult classic. It's hard to believe it was released twenty-five years ago (1983). Guess what? Bob and Doug are back! The actors behind the iconic beer swilling brothers - Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis - have signed on with Global TV to make an animated series. The 30 minute show will be set in the fictional Canadian town of Maple Lake and feature the voices of Moranis and Thomas. The two will also serve as executive producers. The series will begin airing next year.

Randy Boswell of the Canwest News Service interviewed Dave Thomas about the show. Give it a read and tell me you aren't as excited as finding a mouse in a bottle of beer!

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Fran and I hit one of our favorite restaurants (we have several here in the Springs) the other night for some after-work imbibing. The Blue Star not only rocks some great cuisine (the Beef Tenders will have you coming back for more!), but they also know how to pour the alcohol.

Aside from mixing up some mean Martinis, they have a stellar selection of whiskey, an amazing wine list (we were with a co-worker from Nashville who has a favorite from a small Napa winery - inexplicably it was ON THEIR WINE LIST!)... and an impressive array of beers.

I partook of a Belgian strong amber ale from Brasserie Caracole. While the ladies sipped their very tasty (for wine) August Briggs Zin, I sucked down two 750s of Caracole. It was fantastic. Click over to Rate Beer or Beer Advocate for the intricate details since I am not "SMRT" (as Homer Simpson would say) enough to delve into the color, body, smell, etc. and so forth.

The best part? The folks at Blue Star treat beer with as much respect as they do the wine. Our waitress brought each bottle to me to make sure it was what I ordered - as they do with wine, popped the cork and poured a sample for me to taste - just like they do with wine. KUDOS to them for bringing beer reverence into the 21st century!!

Zivjeli!

TGIF BeeRoundup Cavalcade of suds!

It's been a beery beery busy week in beer news, so let's get right to it...

The economy is sucktastic all over. Houses are worth less than the cardboard box Billy the Bum is sleeping in under the overpass. Jobs are evaporating faster than bottles of Russian River oak-aged beer, and gas prices continue to break record highs quicker than I can down a pint of German hefe.

But now freshman Democratic Assemblyman Jim Beall (from San Jose) wants to raise the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack. A FRIGGIN SIX PACK! That breaks down to 30 cents per can or bottle. Right now California's tax is 2 cents per can. Lemme whip out my calculator... Holy Horrific Hops! That's an increase of roughly 1,400%!!!! The tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund an assortment of politically correct goodness.

Here's the kicker, straight from this retarded baboons' mouth: "The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just like we've accepted that concept with tobacco," Beall said.

Uh, Beally Boy... what cost? Last I checked there's no such thing as second hand beer head sniffing. And don't get me started on the so called "standards" of drunk driving. The ONLY reason we've "accepted" anything in regards to tobacco is that 1) it's been proven to cause cancer, and 2) second hand smoke from tobacco products has been proven to cause cancer. Last I checked, nothing about beer causes cancer. You're kidding me with this kind of "logic," right? How did you get into office again?

Tell ya what... zip your lip, crawl back into the cave with the rest of your "professional" political bed mates - and SHUT UP! Only come out when you've grown a pair and have been blessed with common sense.

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Corona Beer suffers US sales decline.

Well, that's because Corona "beer" suffers from not having any taste. I'm serious! Hey, I used to love the stuff... before I became baptized in the ways of craft beery goodness.

A few weeks ago Fran and I went to a local (great) Mexican food place. And when you're eating food from a foreign land nothing goes better with it then a tasty adult beverage from that same region. Pacifico, Sol, Corona, etc. It's like having sushi and wanting to have a Sapporo or Asahi to wash down the tasty lil sea morsels. Well, I guzzled a Corona and swore I was drinking colored water. I tried a Sol and Pacifico too, and they were only lightly more flavorful. Much like comparing different varieties of bottled water.

Since The Beerevolution it's no surprise that last year the Mexico City-based Modelo shipped 1.7% less Corona to the U.S. than the previous year. With the economy in the mash tun sales have declined a whopping 5.9% through February 23.

The good news? This hurts Anheuser-Busch, which owns about half of Grupo Modelo. So sorry Charlie!

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It it getting hot in here?

According to some guys that are way smarter then I am over in New Zealand, global warming is going to cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia. Malting barley is a pretty key ingredient of beer. This will create a domino effect and cause the already rising cost of beer to skyrocket. For in the coming decades the steady climate change will hamper barley production - especially in Australia.

So we got the worldwide hop shortage, all the other sad things I rambled on about above, and now we have global warming killing barley. Yup, the end is surely near.

Would someone turn down the damn thermostats already! I need a beer.

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Speaking of... I'll be having several this weekend at the 6th Annual Boulder Strong Ale Festival. My loving wife arranged this trip for my birthday. Is she great or what?! It starts tonight, but we're not going until tomorrow's session. If you're up that way, swing on by Harpo's Sports Grill and toss a few back with us. The Saturday session starts at Noon and runs till 6pm. Cost (at the door only) is $25 per person, but that includes a 16oz. commemorative glass and 16 drink tickets (2oz Pours). These are big beers, everything is above 8%, so it won't take but a few of these bad boys!

Pyramid unveils Crystal Wheat Ale

Apparently this particular Pyramid still has some secrets to reveal.

A news report from The Centre Daily Times states that beginning right now beer lovers in the Pacific Northwest (only) will finally be able to get their beer mitts on Crystal Wheat Ale. Up until right before you read this it's only been available at Pyramid Alehouse's.

Seems this is a kick ass beer because it has won three consecutive medals at the Great American Beer Festival in 2005 (Silver), 2006 (Gold) and 2007 (Gold). Crystal Wheat Ale has an ABV of 5.3% and is made with Mt. Hood, US Tettnang, and US Spalt wheat hops and 2 Row Pale Barley.

According to George Arnold, Master Brew for Pyramid, "... Crystal Wheat has been a well-kept secret for too long."

No kidding. Biiiiig gianormous understatement there, George. I love wheat and hefes, and I'm a big fan of Pyramid. I've been to a few of the Alehouse's in my time (granted, the most recent was in the Sacramento Airport)... and I've never seen this particular Wheat Ale. But bet you me I'll be getting hold of some ASAP!

So... who out there in the Great Northwest - land of heaps o' rain and that big hairy dude with big feet - can help me out with that?!

Set sail for a drinking adventure!

Did you know that "Three Sheets in the Wind" is an old sailing slogan? Well, it is.

In the olden days (back when sailing ships were the main form of transportation) a sheet was actually a rope in sailor-speak. Specifically, it was a rope attached to the bottom corner of a sail. These were pretty important because they helped trim the sail to the wind. If they became loose all manner of bad things would happen as the sail would then flutter about like loose lips and the ship would go all wonky. Ironic then that there's the term "loose lips sinks ships," eh?

Aside from sheets, what else is needed to steer a ship? Sailors. And what do sailors like more then cheap hookers? Cheap alcohol. Imagine if you will sailors on shore leave guzzling up cheap hookers and alcohol, then stumbling back to their ship. See the connection? A ship without it's sheets anchored goes wonky. Sailors staggering back to their ship looks wonkily similar... so the creator of the term compared the two, borrowed the concept of a three-masted sailing ship with three sheets loose, and viola... ya got yourself "three sheets in the wind."

Speaking of Three Sheets...

* History lesson about the three sheets slogan obtained from Pleepleus on the Three Sheets forums.

Straight from the Patriot-Brewer's mouth

You may have heard about the voluntary recall Sam Adams issued yesterday due to bad glass with some of their beer bottles. I just received the following Email from the Boston Beer Company about the recall, which I thought I'd share with you. This is great costumer relations!

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Hello Eli,

As a loyal supporter and fan of our beer, we wanted to get in touch with you about an announcement that we made yesterday. We have announced a cautious, voluntary product recall of some bottles of Samuel Adams. While there is no problem with our beer, we believe a small proportion of bottles from our outside glass supplier could contain some small bits of glass.

The bottles we've identified as being possibly affected are from one glass plant of the five that we get our bottles from. The issue affects less than 25% of our bottled beer and of that amount, we believe far less than 1% of the bottles we're recalling are actually affected. We have no reports of any injury from our drinkers related to this issue. But because the safety of our drinkers is of paramount concern to us, we are being cautious and issuing the recall for all bottles from this glass plant.

But not to worry, this doesn't mean that you have to stop drinking Samuel
Adams! All draft beer is perfectly fine and most of our bottled beer is not in these possibly affected bottles. It's easy to spot the bottles we're recalling: they are all embossed to say "N35" at the base of the bottle below the label (see photo on web site). We are working with our wholesalers and retailers to ensure that the affected bottles are removed from stores quickly.

We wanted to be sure that our loyal Sam fans are aware of the problem and know that we are doing everything we can to address this situation quickly. We are disappointed that because of these bottles supplied to us, we didn't live up to your expectations as a loyal Sam Adams drinker. We believe that we are taking all the right steps to ensure that the bottled Samuel Adams beer out there meets our quality standards and your expectations. If you have any questions about the recall, we created a special web site and a toll-free number 1-888-674-5159 to answer your questions.

As always, we appreciate your support.

Cheers,

Andrew & Bert

Beertastic TGIF Roundup!

That's right, it's time once again for a week's worth o' beery goodness! In this week's thrilling episode see a golfer pray to St. Arnold; a CBE (Chief Beer Officer) look for a guinne pig, er... intern; and who's the fool who follows the fool!?

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Normally I wouldn't talk about golf or golfers in this slice of web-heaven (or any other place for that matter). It's one of those non-sports that I just love to get people worked up about (see this thread on the Aleuminati) . But Roland Thatcher is obviously a different breed of PGA golfer. In what amounts to an unpresedented sponsorship deal (one that involves zero money), Thatcher wears a logo of the St. Arnold Brewing Company on his shirt while walking to retrieve his dimply, white ball in exchange for - here's the good part - all the FREE BEER he can drink!

ESPN called it "...the most unique sponsorship deal in professional golf." Ya think?

Where do I sign up for a sponsorship deal like that? Hell, I'd tattoo ole St. Arnold on my BLEEP for free friggin beer from those guys!

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Think you got what it takes to be the Chief Beer Officer for the Four Points by Sheraton?

You don't. But you can learn by being Scott Kerkmans very own Bierbitzch. I mean his intern. If you recall I rambled about Scott's dream job back in January (he's had it for almost a year now though). Well, the job is so time consuming and overwhelming that he's put out a call for assistance. I'd go, but I already have way too much in my mug at the moment.

So if you're over 21 and have a love for lager this might be your moment to shine. The search is on (it officailly begun on March 26th), but don't think it's all fun and suds. Oh sure, yo uget to suck down vat fulls of great brew (not that mass produced swill the unwashed masses drink), but you will also be learning what's what of the Four Points by Sheraton Best Brews program as well as the expanding craft beer industry and beer business. Since this is an internship... you don't get paid and the position starts in June and comes to sad end in August.

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The Calgary Sun pulled the hops over reader''s eyes on April 1. How? They ran an 'ad' on page 7 of the April 1st edition that promised readers a free sample of a new beer from Big Rock Brewery called Hyde. The catch? They had to clip out a special beer square on the page, drop it into water, refrigerate and enjoy.

Uuuuuuh...

Some people actually fell for it. However, in a move that somewhat reaffirms my faith in humans, a few of the more intelligent, creative types turned the tables on the Sun and sent in reviews of the beer. Touche!

Finally... if you're in our neck of the woods on Monday night, April 7, come on down to Phantom Canyon where we'll be celebrating "75 Years of Beer" (and my birthday)!

Have a great weekend... and Zivjeli!

Want to do a little Hulu?

Time for another Three Sheets update.

Yes, I know... two posts in one day? Bite me. I know we all have ADD, but this one will be a quicky too. Plus, I don't want ya'll to think I'm a shill for the show. Although, I'd gladly sell my alcohol-infused soul to be Zane Lamprey. Or at least his real life (non-stuffed, like Pleepleus) but no less hairy sidekick!

But I digress...

Hulu has the season 3 premiere of Three Sheets up for your viewing pleasure right now. A full week before it airs on MOJO no less!

Yes, it's embedded here as well, but it's not nearly as nice as Hulu's expandable set up. But... if you're too lazy, drunk, or hung over to click any further - I understand. Kick back and watch the hilarious hi-jinks of the Amazing Zane rightcher!

Just don't toss your cookies onto the keyboard.

Your opinion counts

To me.

I need your advice. I'm thinking about changing my nickname. Over on the sidebar you'll find a poll where I've given you three options to choose from. It'll take 2 seconds of your time. So please..."Rock the Vote!"

We now return you to your regularly scheduled beer session already (or should be anyway) in progress.

Mad Beer Man no longer mad about beer!

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO - On Sunday night, March 30, the Beer Geek known as Eli the Mad Beer Man downed a whopping 7 liters of fine German brew. Why would anyone do such a thing?

"It was my duty as a beer lover and party goer to ring in the grand opening of the Edelweiss Rathskeller in style. How could I NOT do my job and live with myself?" the Mad one said.

Das Boooooooooooooooooot!

Included in the astounding 7 liters was equal parts Erdinger and Franziskaner - both glorious elixirs of wiessbier, Eli's favorite. This however is not the first time this Beer Geek has partaken in such voluminous imbibing all in one sitting.

"This is like the third time in the last 6 months or so. Ya, I can drink. No, I'm not an alcoholic... I'm a professional drinker. And like all professionals I'm training for my trip to the 2010 Oktoberfest in Munich. I have to represent! Can't very well go to Europe and look like some damn Yankee wanker now can I?"

While much shock and awe was made by the lively patrons at Edelweiss over the quantity (and the fact that Eli seemed totally coherent and capable of carrying on lengthy conversations about - not much)... a sad and unforeseen development has arisen.

Eli is hanging up his hefty mug o' glory.

"I'm done. Well... at least until the weekend."