There are certain tenets and beliefs that are essential to being a beer geek. One of the most important tenets, I think, is to “abstain from drinking at events or functions rather than drinking crappy beer.”
Several years back at the Holiday Bowl (the one we got blown out by Texas Tech instead of playing in the Rose Bowl), we attended the Cal Alumni tailgate and had paid extra money to have beer included. Even after my putting on the form “please have good beer” our choices at the event were the full range of Miller products… Miller, Miller MGD and Miller Lite. Suffice to say, we didn’t have any beer which in the end probably was a good thing. We had just returned from Europe the day prior and I was nodding off at the tailgate party at 4:30 in the afternoon.
Which brings us to this past Friday. One of our good friends, Matt Luke, was being inducted into the Cal Sports Hall of Fame and he invited us to attend the dinner; an invitation we gladly accepted.
But both Merideth and I were really worried what beer we were going to be able to get at the hosted bar. So, with certain amount of dread we walked up to the bar and, at first, it wasn’t looking good; there weren’t any bottles of beer displayed. So, Merideth cautiously asked the bartender what the beer choices were… and on this day, the beer gods were smiling upon us… Trumer Pils was our lone beer choice.
But in the few seconds it took to take the bottle from the bartender to when I started pouring the beer into my cup, I must have done something to anger the beer gods. The plastic cup I was given had a hole in the bottom so beer dripped all over my nice wool vest which made me look like a lush… I just get there and I am spilling beer all over myself.
→ This is my favorite time of the beer year… Holiday beer season. It is just getting into full swing and I am frantically seeking out new holiday beers to try. So far I have tried the holiday offerings from Avery, Marin Brewing, Full Sail and, of course, my absolute favorites, Sierra Nevada Celebration and Anchor X-mas. Following the theme of angering the beer gods, Barclays didn’t have Anchor x-mas on tap this past weekend so I have only have tried the bottled version. And since we live in the beer backwater, no one around here will have it on draught…
I am so excited about writing this post as this means that our trip to Europe in December is a done deal and planning is almost finished. The weather aside, Europe is a special place during the holiday season and we are very pleased to be going back.