Let the games begin…

Well, it’s New Years Eve and every year we throw a party for the Goof Troop and normally a few oddballs that are tag alongs, but every year its been a good party and everyone enjoys themselves. So last year we tried “Feats of Strength” from Festivus, we had the milk jug test, the hand in ice water, the standing on one foot the longest and then we also had unlabeled food that people had to eat a spoonful of if they drew that car. It was nothing too serious, it was spicy Vienna sausages, lamb baby food, etc. Just things that you wouldn’t normally eat but might make you gag a little. Well that turned out to be a hit, so this year we will be following up the “Feats of Strength” with “Eating Around The World”. (I basically hit the international food aisle at Wegmans to buy things that I’m sure none of us have tried.)

So this year we will have a few rounds of “Eating Around The World” I have 8 items, possibly 9 if Dinker provides something that he had mentioned. I split them into two groups of four and labeled the bottom of each with a number 1-4. I figure the game will go like this, a Goof Trooper will roll until he/she gets a 1 or a 2, that will decide which group they will be tasting, then they will roll again until they get a number 1 – 4, and this will determine what their “prize” will be.

On to the “prizes”:

Group 1:

In this group we Pulpo or Octopus in Olive Oil, Sardines in spicy oil, Potted Meat (**made with Beef and Chicken, mmmmmmm my mouth is watering, two of my favorites in one item, if only they threw in some bacon.), and finally some Vegemite from the land down under.

Group 2:

In this group, we have Roasted Eel from Japan, some Spotted Dick from England, (I’m pretty sure Cpt. Insano already has Spotted Dick, but that’s another story), Marmite from the land down the under, and finally Shrimp Flavored Chips (probably the most mild of all the prizes) which surprisingly is a product of the USA.

So this should be fun, there will be plenty of pictures from “Eating Around The World” as well as the rest of the night. So depending how well I feel tomorrow I’ll be posting.

Good Night and Happy New Year!!

The Drunken Bicycle Story

Today has been a good day. It’s the last day of work before the holiday and this is the Winemaking/Lab department’s “Christmas Party”, so everyone brings in a dish to pass and it is an all day feeding frenzy while we work. People from all of the other departments come up to the lab and grab food, everyone is in a good mood and smiling. There is good natured joking and holiday spirit fills the air, it really reminds me of all of the holiday parties that you used to see on those cheesy sitcoms. You know the ones, they are warm hearted and Steve Urkel comes on the screen does something idiotic and wishes you a Merry Christmas, it’s about that level, it’s not a real cool one like the John McClain Nakatomi Plaza Die Hard Christmas party, but anyway I digress.


So everyone is having a good time and in the merriment a guy I work with says, “Hey, tell the bicycle story!”. A few years ago I was joking around and being my normal wise ass self and I let slip my bicycle story, probably not the best story to tell at work, but hey it’s really not that bad. So here we go:

***Small disclaimer- This story isn’t as funny as it could be if you can’t see all of the hand motions and inflection in my voice, not that I’m a comedian or anything but you know what I mean.

It was my senior year of college, I was living in my own apartment in downtown Canandaigua. Well, there is a great little pub, well it used to be a great little pub I haven’t been there in many years, in Canandaigua called The Pickering Pub. Now the Pickering had a great deal on Wednesday nights, it was $1 drafts all night long. So you could go and get drunk on ten bucks, it was awesome. Now I lived all the way at the south end of Main St. and The Pickering Pub was about halfway up Main St., and there were a good many cops in between me and the pub so I didn’t want to drive. I was too lazy to walk so I had to come up with something else, and then it hit me. My neighbor had a bike, I could borrow that and ride up and back and everything is right with the world.

So I pound on my neighbor’s wall and get his blessing to borrow his bike. I’m golden now, I’m off and riding up to the pub. So I sit at the pub and have a few rounds with my friends and next thing I know it’s last call. So I’m a little tipsy, but I know I’m not driving, so I’m smiling. I go out unlatch the 10 speed cruiser and I’m off and rolling. I’m riding on the sidewalk, being careful to stay out of the road, but I’m happy and smiling so I start weaving a little bit, then a little more, then finally I’m doing big S’s on the sidewalk. It’s 2 AM, so there is no one out walking the sidewalk is mine, so what the hell, right?

I continue riding and I’m thinking about all of the fun conversations I’ve had and I hear sirens back up the street behind me. I’m thinking probably some dope is getting a DWI and I keep riding. Now the siren is getting louder and louder and I see the flashing lights, but hey I’m on a bike, they’re not stopping me. Then I feel a spotlight on my back, and I hear over a bull horn:

HEY, you on the bike, pull over!

What, you have to be kidding me, so I keep riding.

Hey You on the bike pull over!

I look behind me and sure enough they are talking to me, so I push the brakes and stand there on the bike until the cop comes up to me. Then I look him right in the eye and say in my best drunkenese “Can I help you Occifer?”, Yep, that’s right I called him Occifer.

Now he’s pissed, and he starts to ask for my license AND registration before he catches himself and just asks for my license. Of course, I’m not helping matters by laughing at him and offering him my library card as my registration.

So now I get the riot act, How many drinks have you had? Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What would happen if you rode out into traffic? Blah, blah, blah. Finally I’ve had enough and I ask him are you going to charge me for riding my bicycle with NO motor? I hear his partner snickering from the side of the patrol car, now he gets even more pissed and tells me that he’s not charging me but I have to get off the bike and walk it the rest of the way home. I politely give him my best “Thank you Occifer, you have a nice night Occifer” and he shoves my license and library card back into my hands and heads back to the car, the whole time I can still hear his partner laughing at how pissed he is.

So he gets back into the patrol car and sits there and waits for me, I get off the bike and start walking beside it. I get about half a block away and I hear him start up his car and then in an instant I see him drive by me giving me the stink eye the whole way. I wait for him to get out of sight, then I’m back on my bike, making big loopy sidewalk S’s the whole way home.

So that’s the bicycle story. Since I shared it once I figured what the hell I would share it with you. Everybody loves a good drunk story, right?

A Beery Merry Christmas!

I normally brew up a dark beer or two for the colder months. Normally they are higher alcohol and they just seem to go better on a cold night in front of the fire. About a year ago I gave a couple of bottles of Porter to a co worker for her husband and her brother to try. I was honing in my Porter recipe and I wanted opinions from people that drank dark beer. It turned out that they both loved it and I was a very happy camper.

Well, this year she asked me if I had any Porter again and she would pay me for some. She said that her husband and brother have everything they needed for Christmas and there was nothing that they really wanted, so she wanted to get them something they would enjoy. Lucky for her I did have my Porter and it was just finishing up and ready to be bottled, so I told her that I would help and I didn’t want any money. I was just happy that someone thought that much of my beer that they would give it as a gift.

Being the holiday season I was in a giving mood, so I figured I would dress up the bottles with a simple label. A simple label for a quality beer, so I  came up with these.

Her husband plays banjo in an old timey folk band, so I just did a quick label of a banjo and named it “Ol’ Naps Sittin’ & Pickin’ Porter”, then her brother is into wood working so the mallet and chisel just fit and “Ol’ Naps Wood Worker’s Porter” made the label.

Now I know that they aren’t fantastic but I thought it was a nice touch to a simple gift. What do you think?

Sierra Nevada: 30th Anniversary Grand Cru

I had to stop into Wegman’s on my lunch yesterday to pick up apple juice and spaghetti sauce. So as I was wandering the aisles I came across a special find. Sierra Nevada’s 30th Anniversary Grand Cru. Normally I’m not a huge fan of Sierra Nevada, I know I know tons of people love it, but it just isn’t to my taste most of the time. However this bottle caught my eye, as it was a big beer at 9.2% alcohol, and it was a melding of three of their beers: oak aged Big Foot, Celebration Ale, and “fresh” Pale Ale. So I figured what the hell and threw the bottle in the basket. So here we go:

It poured a nice deep amber color that reminded me of amber jewelry and it had a full thick head. The head lasted through the whole beer lacing down the sides of the glass.

The initial aroma was all hops and that makes sense because on the label they said it was “generously dry hopped”. The the hops continued into the first sip. The first taste was very IPA’ish (Yes, that’s my new word). There was a lot of bitterness and hoppiness that was mixed with a softer wood notes. I did pick up the slight oak character but I didn’t taste any of the other flavors typically associated with beer aged in bourbon barrels. The beer was slightly “hot” from the alcohol in it, but all of the other flavors were in enough of a balance that the alcohol didn’t overpower the taste.

Overall, it was a very good beer and a great entry for Sierra Nevada. Like I said before, I’m not a SN fan, but this was one damn good beer. It is definitely a sipping beer because of all of the heavier flavors and the alcohol, more than one of these and you might be down for the count, but its definitely worth picking up a bottle if you have a chance.

Keep ‘em tippin’!!

Naked Dove Brewing Company

A new microbrewery opened up near me in Canandaigua, its actually funny because the building its in was vacant for a few years and every time I drove by I would say to L Bird “You know that would be a perfect place for a brewery.” Well it appears that I was not alone in that thought. So last  Saturday, L Bird, Dinker and his Old Lady went to the Naked Dove to check it out.
We went in and did a tasting and took the tour. I had the camera with me but I was too wrapped up in the beer and the tour that I forgot to take any pictures. I know I’m a dork, right? But anyway, I just hit some of the highlights of the tour. There are 3 guys who own it, Dave, Don, and Ken and the name Naked Dove is an anagram of their three names. They currently have a 15 barrel brewhouse and a mixture of 15 and 30 barrel fermenters. They are putting their beers into half kegs with plans to sell to the bars. They have big plans to expand up to 60 barrel fermenters and had a 16 stem filler sitting in the back waiting to be put together so they can start to bottle their beer. The tour is definitely worth taking, there was much much more, but I didn’t want to bother you with all of the details that I find absolutely intriguing but you might not find them so interesting.
So back to the tasting, it was $3 for a flight of 3 beers but you got a souvenir glass and a $2 discount on any merchandise. I knew I was going to get a pint glass and a growler so it really was $1 for the flight. I was very impressed with their tasting glasses, they were huge.
 
I know it looks tiny in my giant hand (inside joke), but it really is a big tasting glass. The flight was an Amber Ale, an IPA, and a Porter. All three beers were good beers. The Amber Ale was sweet at the first sip, Dinker noted the honey flavor first and as soon as he said  it, it was all I could taste. It was a all around good beer, the honey/sweetness was a nice compliment to the malt. The IPA was not a traditional IPA that I’m used to. It was packed with hop aroma, but the normal hop bitterness doesn’t smack you in the face like most IPAs I have had. The bitterness was there and got stronger the more you tasted it, but it wasn’t right up front. I thought this was a different but a good take on an IPA. Then the Porter was last, and Porter is my favorite style so I was very pleasantly surprised by theirs. It was very good, full of malty notes and coffee flavors.
Overall the beers are very good, they are nothing that is big, bold and new, but they are definitely high quality samples that will do well in the market. The experience was great, getting to do the tasting with the brewmaster and getting a tour made Naked Dove Brewing Company an instant favorite of mine. I’m sure I’ll be stopping by many, many more times.
Here’s another picture to show how big the tasting glasses are and some of my new swag.

So if you are in the Canandaigua area, you should definitely stop by and check them out. If you not going to stop by, you should at least check out their facebook page here. But until then support your local brewers and drink local! Enjoy!!!