I don't like no Week sauce on my wings!

Sho shorry guys, starting the weekly events on a Tuesday... epic failure on my part. However, if you didn't already know that the awesomest thing going on for Monday was Tap Night Tacoma; you may have other issues...

Here's what's coming up for 12/14 thru 12/19...

Tuesday 12/14: 7 Seas Brewing 'Santa's Smokin' Holiday Winter Warmer' Release Party @ CROWNBAR in Tacoma. There will be other 7 Seas beers available, holiday giveaways (SWAG!!!) and jolly Santa himself. 6p-9p (although Mike Runion from 7 Seas said he'd be there all night!)

Wednesday 12/15: Give a Pint, Get a Pint hosted by Cascade Regional Blood Services @ The Hub in Tacoma. 12:30-2:30p Give some blood and get a coupon for a free brew (I'll even throw in some good karma for ya...)

Thursday 12/16: Dogfish Head Beer Night @ the Parkway Tavern in Tacoma. 6-9p and cross your fingers that they'll have the Bitches Brew on tap... I'll be there (hopefully with an entourage of ale minions) giving away some of my personally made DFHead swag, in the small profound way in which I do things. :)  
AND Help fill the glass boot ALL WEEK at The Red Hot for United Way of Pierce County's Season of Caring. They're donating $1 from every pint.

Saturday 12/18: Christmas Beer & Cookie tasting @ 99 Bottles in Federal Way. 10a-12p. $2.50 for some beer and cookies... it's either going to be fabulous or disgusting. Either way, I'm glad they are doing it!

Sunday 12/19: Not sure what everyone ELSE is doing this day but here are my ale related plans:

12-3p... I'll be doing a Sensory Beer tasting at an up and coming (hopefully soon to be open!) Tacoma brewery; Wingman Brewers Brewery. This entails: Spiking beer with various flavors in order to learn how to identify off flavors in beer. (I'm takin' my knowledge n' shit to a whole new level!) After this sensory tasting we will have a more informal tasting using BJCP scoring for fun and practice.

4p and on... Another fabulous Literature & Libations meet up. This time we'll be chillin' at the Powerhouse Brewery in Puyallup. A quick note on what L&L even is: "We are the lazy man's book club. We don't read the same book at a time; we probably won't discuss the books we are reading; however, there is a good chance we will chat and drink and read and be very happy doing all of it at the same time."
Feel free to come out if you are interested in joining the fun, everyone is welcome if they don't suck! Ie. No Jerks. Stolen from The Red Hot.

If you are not invited to or attending any of these Sunday events, you could always hit up a 253 local for some football and beer. The Harmon Tap Room has football, pinball, good food, pool and WTF Sundays! where your entire bill (including beer!) is half off.

Have a good one!

the pissed liBEERian

Full Sail Night @ Parkway Tavern. Now in possession of a joint custody Session Beanie!

Time to tweek thangs...

Wednesday Sept. 22nd

Hitting up E9 for dinner tonight!! Took myself out on a date because I'm awesome and independent like that. Plus no one could meet up til later and I needed some vittles.

Enjoyed some Seamstress Union on tap to go with my fish sammy and TATER TOTZ!! holy gawd, lurv the death out of those little things. Per pissed liBEERian SOP, got in a pretty heated debate about Dogfish Head beer with my bar mates, but as always... I came out on top @ the end of it. Pretty stellar for a girl who labels herself as a bottom, eh? Let's face it, I know a thing or two about the awesome that is Dogfish Head beer. I did introduce some newbies to the greatness that is SU and they were compliant. However, how militant can one be when flat on the floor with a bar stool pressed into their neck while I'm sitting on it with a cute smile and saying "Here, try this." Lucky for them, they enjoyed it and I'm slowly learning that drinking solo in public is not for me, I need babysitting or at least semi-attentive supervision.

Dinner. Drinks. Moving on to...

The RedHot's Farewell to Summer Beer and Ice Cream Social

I already penned (typed... whatever) a post about the Red Hot and this particular event, a Red Hot affair in the 253, so I won't bore you with reiterating all I had to say about it. Here's the lineup for this fun event: Unibroue La Terrible (sans ice cream), Schooner Exact Gutter Punk'n w/ vanilla ice cream, Boundary Bay ESB, Sum-a-Dis Pilsner by Double Moutain & Ommegang Rare Vos.

Thursday Sept. 23rd

Top of Tacoma with MGD, Basil & TPG3

Back @ the old stompin' grounds for an entertaining evening in a 253 locale. Enjoyed some Schooner Exact 3 Grid & a Mocha Death by Iron Horse Brewery. IH somehow concocted a beer that tastes like amazing cold coffee minus the alcohol. Perfect breakfast drink, thanks Iron Horse for making my hungover mornings bearable and tasty-licious!!

** for those of you wondering... yes I drank on Friday, but it was just Shocktop **

Saturday Sept. 25th

BJ's in Southcenter with Miss Massey to soothe the sore and achy mess that was my body after the Weekend Warrior Workout.

Imbibed some Boulevard Single Wide IPA to accompany my grilled shrimp tacos and avocado rolls. Dee. Lish. Us. Had tasted Single Wide in the bottle a month or so ago with MGD, and it was mutually agreed upon that hitting some up on tap could be possibly most magical. This little happy mobile dwelling ale delivered like a manufactured home with a foundation. So I had multiple of course. My thoughts on the beer: a light amber pour with a thick head. lightly carbonated and smooth with a lacy after-coating. As you can see, scientific terms are my specialty.

Single Wide IPA in the gorgeous wknd sunshine.

After sharing a crazy morning workout and a day full of errands, two small appetizers to share on top of 2 big beers, made afternoon shopping extremely entertaining. Think trying on fur coats & granny sweaters over our clothes and buying hideous silk paisley luggage at a low low price of "we can't find the tag on this so can you just pay us to take it since it's so damn fugly?". Lots 'o laffs to be had that day.

later that night...

Hit up Puget Sound Pizza w/ MGD for some artichoke topped pie, super sucky service & Sierra Nevada Hop Harvest Nitro. It may or may not have gone unnoticed but I didn't scrape a single topping or piece of anything off my pizza, but it's worth mentioning now. Still trying to earn some star stickers on my 'eat pizza like a normal human being' chart so that I can win a trip to NYC. Not to mention, while reading the 'I saw you' section in the Seattle Stranger, I'm pretty sure I was mentioned in there twice. That makes for a darn stellar dinner in my book.

Aaaaaand since we can't do anything half assed, onto the PARKWAY we go!!!

Before mentioning any ales we consumed it has to be said that a Tap Night Tacoma poster was already up for display so I took a pikshur for easy referencing later. Fist bump of excitement, then blew it up. & I'm pretty sure there was a good 30m where I waxed poetic about the loss of Pluto as an official planet in our solar system. Thanks for listening, I wasn't drunk. Just deliriously tired. Runneth of the mouth hole syndrome begins.

We partook in all of the following ales: Left Hand Sawtooth Pale ale, Beer Valley Leafer Madness, Mad River Rorschach Wheat Wine. (whoa!!)

Sunday Sept. 26th

Literature & Libations book club meet up @ Parkway Tavern

Peeps in attendance were Basil, Laura, MGD and myself with a late edition of TPG3

Decent turn out of my peeps and we actually did a ton of reading, it was great and felt promising for the future of our little club. Literature on the menu for that evening was 'Gregor the Overlander' & 'He says Beer, She says Wine'. Damn we're productive & nerdy; at least it was rounded out by a Yankee game later in the afternoon. During our 8hr stint in our corner booth we had some/much of the following:

Rude Parrot IPA (my notes since I don't have a ratebeer.com account: golden pour with a medium lace and small head. tangy taste in the middle with a tart but yummy finish)

Elysian Men's Room Original Red

Issaquah Pumpkin Frog

Lips of Faith/New Belgium Sah ti

Russian River Damnation

Full Sail Lupulin Fresh Hop

L&L Admin... representing hardcore!

Basil sitll smiling among the mess

The scene unfolds...

Rude Parrot IPA & an effective bargaining chip.

As you can imagine, 8 hours spent in a bar can create a lot of hilarity but there is only one pied piper in this blog so I will leave you with a lesson that was hard learned (and earned) on my part. When soaking and stripping the label off of a beer bottle, the next step is to press it flat while it dries. Check. Usually... doing this in a book or magazine is ideal. This book SHALL NOT be a library book! Nor shall it be a library book about BEER. The inevitable will happen: when you are reading it at an L&L meeting, paraphrasing notes for ultimate beer knowledge retain-ment... all of sudden you look down and declare "what the balls is all this water damage doing in this book??!!" as your perfectly dried and pressed beer label flutters into your lap. Awesome. I should know better, considering where I work, but in my defense I did wrap it in a paper towel first. 

Best leave such heavy lifting to the professionals. I can't peel a label on a bottle but I sure know how to open one... with the proper tools. Some of us were meant for greatness, others will find their own path.

My misguided attempt to handle a label removal myself...

& hereby vowing to stick to what I know, bottle opening.

Oh what a world, what a world when kissing one's muscular bicep becomes the height of fashion.
So very truly yours,

the pissed liBEERian

P.S. Due to some of my friends current state's, I have been doing some thinking. Let's all say a small prayer that I don't get pregnant or have some infection requiring antibiotics... the blog will suffer and so shall you my dear readers. ;)

A week in the life... Take 1.

To me, a week begins on a Monday. Lunes. Poniedzialek. Lundi. I don't get those people who think it starts on Sunday. Is it a religious thing? Or an attempt to make Monday into Day 2 of the work week, in order to hate it a little bit less? I personally love Mondays, fresh start & new adventures to be had.

I am trying to keep tabs on all the beer that I drink, yet find it hard to really sink my teeth into sites like ratebeer.com. I think because I suck at defining beers beyond "balls to the wall, hells yeah this is good!" and that really gets in the way of my quest to appear smarter than I am. I'm slowly learning some super sexy descriptive terminology that I can use (somewhat correctly) though. What it means to be floral, sour, lacey, what is fresh & not from a keg.

I'm sure this plight will either scare me into becoming a card carrying member of AA (sorry, guess that's coin carrying depending on how long you stick with it) or at least make me go back to calorie counting. I just don't want to forget anything that goes into my mouth! As I prefer not to harass my loyal readers with a daily update, I plan to compile libations during the week and post it on the day of rest. Keeping in mind that I may at some point experience a week where I drink nothing at all... yeah, anywaaaaaays.

There are particular elements I find important in all beer drinkage that I will try to include so that you can really get a grasp on what my mental/emotional/physical state was at the time of ingestion:
-what I drank
-what I thought of what I drank (messy analogies and adjectives will be thrown around)
-where I drank
-possible food pairings
-possible friend pairings
-and the oh so important: how I felt about it as a whole package.

Or it will be just a list of what I drank and when. Because I'm lazy and it's a pain to type a lot through my phone while @ a bar and having fun. So we are off and running, here goes Week 1.

Tuesday 8/17

Ale - Dogfish Head Theobroma (Very different than I imagined it would be. Imagined it would be spicy/sweet and possibly thick, much like DFH's Sah'tea. Yet it was a mild and a very tasty ale, totally worth the hoarding of a few weeks awaiting MGD's return) & SE's Seamstress Union (uno Growler to share, usual awesomeness that it is. Currently trying to seek a balance between enjoying til the last drop/drinking it as fast as I can so I have a reason to go back to the tasting room/not hoarding it because it will go bad... so I was informed.)

Location/Person enjoyed with - MGD's house. Okayokayokay, his bed. That's where we like to drink while watching movies. Plus dude was all laid up with issues o' de spine. Poor guy. Kept him nicely stocked with ale though, to help ease the suffering. I'm a good nurse like dat. Watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Time Travelers Wife (thnx babe) & fell asleep to some episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

Food - Hummus Plate x 2 from the Top of Tacoma. Very tasty combo of hummus, onions, grilled pita, tomatoes, cucumbers & kalamata olives. With a side of super sexy breath.
Wrap Up - Chill night in general, good for a Tuesday. I tend to not have a lot of down time during the week, especially if I'm at my own home. It was nice to eat, drink, kick back in some 600tc business and do just about nothing for a bit. The food was just what my body wanted (light and satisfying) and the beer found a happy home in there too.

SE's Seamstress Union sighting!! On tap @ Top of Tacoma. Too bad my to go Hummus Platterz were ready to go when I arrived so I couldn't stay for fresh pintliness. If the SU isn't enough to bring me back later this week, the new treasures in the vending machine are.

Wednesday 8/18

Ale - Schooner Exact Seamstress Union raspberry wheat (uno pint)

Location - @ home, on my couch. listening to country music with my roomie and getting overly annoyed with Facebook's photo editing/organizing

Nomz - enjoyed with a faux chicken burger

411 - Tasted excellent but I have a sneaking suspicion it's what kept me up til 2a. I think if I drink beer @ night, I need to drink to excess for a restful nights sleep. Lesson learned.

Thursday 8/19

Ale - SE's SU (2-3 pints, I honestly can't remember because I didn't pay)

Location & Fwends - Top of Tacoma Bar. Decided to hit it up post workout with my buddy JoLyn for general SU consumage and local paper reading (dammit fucking Stranger not having the "I saw you" section). Was pleasantly surprised to see MGD saving our fave corner booth when I showed up. Score! (BTW, great prices on pints @ Tops. $3.00 and it wasn't even happy hour)

Nomz - decided that I had already had hummus and Boca burger within a week @ the Top, I should get the only other thing I eat there, a caprese salad. Note: Tops has uh-maze-ing food, I'm just a weirdo who doesn't eat meat. It's limiting. Can I get some basil with a side of mozzarella and tomato? Yummy! Oh... and one single salt & vinegar chip. Yep, still gross. Confirmed. Jo almost gave me her pickle, I asked for it and she lovingly turned her plate in my direction. I inquired if she liked pickles and she revealed that she loves them, but would let me have hers. True friend right there, what a sexy bitch.

The Haps - Usual good antics @ Tops. Overly drunk people made of pure muscle being boisterous and entertaining. Since MGD & I had bugged the owner/employees about obtaining some Seamstress Union for us... it felt amazing to go and pay homage to their greatness. Tops and SE, you rock! Oh and it's worth mentioning that the vending machine is full of awesomeness again. Think KitKats & Pregnancy Tests. PBR 40oz beer koozies &  huge temporary tattoos of '253' in scrolly pretty red letters. Which I know own at the low low cost of $4.00.

Friday 8/20 

(btw... it's hitting me as I review my week in drinking that I drink a lot. Maybe not a ton at once, but often. No worries, I'm sure week 1 is just extra exciting...)

Afternoon - Captain of solo mission

Ale - SE Seamstress Union, 2 pints. Trying to finish off my growler so I have a reason to head back to SE.

Location - My bed @ home, sitting around all dressed up and nowhere to go while listening to music and eating grapes. I would have eaten more if I had known that was going to be all I had for dinner. Waiting around, doot dee doot.

This is a two parter so hang tight.

Evening - Private Beerfest #4 @ MGD's house.  

Ale -Dogfish Head Punkin ale, Spanish Peaks Honey Raspberry ale, Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron (bought this ale to round out my DFH cap collection but the ale was darn tasty), Rogue Brutal IPA, Dick's Silk Lady, Houblon Chouffee Dobbelen IPA Trippel

Location & Partner in Crime - MGD's casa, mostly in the cucina. After tasting #5 or so, moved to the living room because standing was becoming difficult. Threw on some Bob Marley, lounged back in my favorite chair looking cute in my new sundress, and let the night progress to where all private beerfest adventures end up. Use your imagination. 'nuff said. However I will say that Friday night was a first for me. I have never been reprimanded for not drinking enough or keeping up. Sweet nothings of "Drink your beer!!" came at me multiple times. Not sure why but it was kinda hot. Promises to drink faster next time, although I was 2 pints deep at the beginning and skipped dinner. Just sayin'.

Saturday 8/21
Ale - SE Seamstress Union, Growler finish off
Location - @ home watching Unforgiven

Sunday 8/22
Ale - lotsa Seamstress Union, by the pitcher.
Locations - Top of Tacoma Bar for the 2nd meetup of my shuper shweet book club: Literature & Libations.
(we meet up every 2 wks to read our own books & share suggestions, drink coffee/ale/etc depending on the location of choice. Totally chillaxed time with fun people. A great time to be had by all, come check it out! We will be posting our next meetup soon. 6 members in attendance and counting... not too shabby as we have doubled our members from round 1)

There is my week in review, holy cow it was a fun one...
the pissed liBEERian