Strange Brewfest 2012 starts tomorrow!!

Strange Brewfest Numero Ocho starts tomorrow (Friday, January 27th through Sunday, January 29th) in gorgeous Port Townsend, WA. Head out to the peninsula for a weekend full of mouth hole weirdness and crazy good times. The festivities go on through the weekend but I recommend stopping by early on, so you don't miss out on anything interesting.

Most of the attending breweries don't announce which beers they are bringing to this fest so it's always a fun surprise upon arrival to see what the options are. However, it does mean there is no color-coded excel spreadsheet of beer drinking priority to make. This is one of my most favorite festivals of the year so I'll just have to let my palate lead the way when I arrive on Saturday.

For more information on the festival, check out their website here. If you poke around on the site a bit, you may come across some stunningly loverly pictures of the 2011 event (and even one of me!), all taken by MGD himself. I just found them all on the site today when I was constructing this blog so it gave me a total happy. My stud muffin is such a stud muffin.

For a first hand account of the phenomenaltasticmarvelous time MGD & myself had at last year's Strange Brew, check out my 2011 write up.

still being stuhrange,

the pissed liBEERian

photo by MGD

West Coast road trip is half full!

I currently find myself sipping on a taster flight of beers at Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company in Buellton, CA. Which also happens to be the Home of Split Pea Soup. Which also happens to deserve capital letters. Totally rad. This gem of a tasting room has met us with open arms (READ: Drinking yummy beer next to a firey flame thing that is currently keeping me cozy warm) after an eventful day.

After flying from Seattle to Tucson to meet MGD, we've traveled approx. 669 aleventure filled miles. That number doesn't account for the massive amounts of driving around in circles we did in LA because I can't make my phone's navigation app obey me. Jedi Mind Trick... -3. But whatever. My only jobs during this trip were to bitch minimally about everything and navigate. I'll try to work harder on the navigation part for next time.

Here's our travel line up thus far with much more planned before we roll back into T Town Tacoma...

Arizona
-Sun Up Brewing Company (Phoenix)
-4 Peaks Brewery (Tempe)
-Trident Grill (in Tucson and a TOTAL Redskins bar. Eek of happiness!)
-1702 (Tucson, pizza & craft beer greatness)
-Grimaldi's Pizza (Tucson)
-1702 [Tucson, yes AGAIN. We had the best time EVA the night before (not to mention the couple times MGD went there before I arrived) & were craving a repeat.]
-In-N-Out (Yuma)

California
-Alpine Brewing Co (Alpine)
-Alesmith (San Diego, thanks for posting about your week long renovation closure on the website! Or not...)
-Green Flash (San Diego)
-Lost Abbey (San Marcos, please don't ask how long I spent searching in the barrel room for a numbered barrel with '253' on it.)
-Pizza Port (Carlsbad)
-Pizza Port Bottle Shop (Carlsbad)
-Renaissance Hotel (Los Angeles, full of scantily clad Asian women & the swankiest lodgings I've had the pleasure of staying in. Thanks for making me feel super fat and super normal LA, as always!)
-Fogo De Chao (Beverly Hills. They serve meat on giant skewers so it's rad but all I had was a mojito)
-Los Angeles Police Department (LA. Don't fret, it was just a short jaunt.)
-Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (Simi Valley)

...and that brings us up to date as we are currently sitting in Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co. Ta Da! And just think! There is so very much more to share with you later. Like details. About beer.

On the effing road again

(but, um, YAY! 'cause I'm keeping the bitching to a minimum)

(mostly)

the pissed liBEERian

January's Tap Night Tacoma & Science Cafe

Tap Night Tacoma

Looks like Tacoma will be tapping into some great stuff this January! I'm personally stoked about the Rich Brewery Old Slug Porter and the E-9 Meridian Dry Hop Tacoma Brew. 

Make it down to one of the following places for a pint of cask ale on Monday, January 9th. Drink Local. Do what I say.

All casks will be tapped at 6p sharp and here's the lineup:

Red Hot - Pike Brewing India Pale Ale

Parkway - American Brewing Breakaway IPA

Doyle's - Rich Brewery Old Slug Porter

Swiss - Port Townsend Hop Diggidy IPA

Engine House No. 9 - E-9 Meridian Dry Hop Tacoma Brew

Science Café

(Alternate title I just made up: "Why it's cool to be a nerd: beer & science.")

The Physics of Music: Using Light to Study Sound
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - 6:30 p.m. - Swiss Pub

From clarinets and violins, to drums and cymbals, vibrations create the complex sounds that we hear from musical instruments. At the January Tacoma Science Café, join the University of Puget Sound's Rand Worland, Ph.D., to discover how he uses lasers to produce images of these vibrations and how differences in vibrations alter how we perceive sounds.

The Swiss Pub is located at 1904 Jefferson Avenue, Tacoma, WA 98402.

Science Café is a recurring monthly event in Tacoma and parts of Seattle. You can learn more about it here and see if there are some topics coming up that you'd be interested in traveling to Seattle for.
You know, if that's your thang.


the pissed liBEERian

California: Watch out, here I come!

Right when I was just starting to feel recovered from all the holiday madness and my birthday weekend spent in Portland sipping on suds, I find myself gearing up for some more beer related travel.

In less than a week I will be soaring the friendly skies down to Arizona and meeting up with MGD. We'll be doing family stuff for a couple days then making our way over to San Diego in the Land Rover. Stopping for a night then up to LA for an evening and onto the San Fran/Monterey Bay area for another night or two. Then home. Boo. (My life is really stinkin' rough sometimes, seriously) However, I did plan for plenty of time off of my paid slavery so we could take our sweet ass time making our way back north. Plus we have a Beer Share Potluck to be at the following Friday with our promised growlers of Cali brewed beer to share.

We have a small agenda of beer & brewery related stuff mixed in with other touristy things. I don't want to come back from another vacay where someone asks me what I did during my time off and my only answers are beer related. Like I said: Touristy. Things. But I am hoping to get some suggestions for MUST DO beer things along the way, there are way too many options! Here's what we are planning on so far...

Pizza Port (Carlsbad)
Stone Brewing
Green Flash (apparently we are REALLY going to GF, I wrote it twice on this small list and didn't realize until proofreading)
Russian River
Berryessa (former brewer at Snipes Mountain Brewing, Chris Miller, said to stop in and say hello to him at Berryessa, can't wait!)

Most of you already know there are a crapton of other breweries in California but I don't want to be running around like a banana with it's peel peeled off trying to hit a bunch that might not be worth the effort (I used the standard chicken reference initially but then thought a banana was more vegetarian friendly. Plus the image of a peeled banana with legs made me laugh a bit but now the more I think about it, it scares me...). Getting some help deciding on 'must see' places would be super appreciated!!! Like is it really worth it to stop by Lagunitas or 21st Ammendment, maybe Pizza Orgasmica & Brewing Company or Mammoth?

Tell me, tell me, tell me!!! Where would you go if given free reign or what would make our 1st aAleventure of 2012 absolutely unforgettable?

If our rig breaks down anywhere along the way

it had better be near

Disneyland's California Adventure,

where this girl can drink & play!

the pissed liBEERian

(I spent more time looking up banana pictures than I did writing this post)

The Tax System Explained In Beer

I had a friend email this to me recently and gotta say, totally love it. Plus everything makes more sense when you put it into 'beer' terms!!

THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100....

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this... 

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. 
So, that's what they decided to do.. 

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80. 

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? 

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. 

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving). 

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. 
 "I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,"but he got $10!" 

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!" 

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" 

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!" 

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. 
 The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! 
 And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

the pissed liBEERian