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…
It is really strange how the world works sometimes…At our recent talk to the Rotary Club of Monterey Pacific, we tried to encourage people to be outgoing in their travel because you never know who you will meet. Our point about that was (and is) that you may never see the people you meet again, but at least in that moment, they were part of an experience you will always remember. And, if you are lucky, they may actually become your friends.
Well, we received an e-mail from the Rambling Gnome this morning! Here is a picture of him in front of the Vatican. He is now living in Tuscany and is the “watchdog – of – the -plants – that – never – seem – to – get – enough – water.” For me, it came as a great surprise and also a great relief to hear from him. You see, that night I thought in our drunken revelry, we were part of the Rambling Gnome getting lost forever. He had already been around Europe with his two traveling companions and I have always felt bad that he was swiped on our watch. I have yet to hear back about his adventures immediately following our meeting, but I am very happy to hear he is safe in Italy! I look forward to finding out where he went that night and how he came to be in Italy, especially since it has been 2 years since we saw him last!
So, the moral of the story is that when Chris and I are rambling on about this or that, before you zone out thinking we are just talking out our ass again, keep in mind that the Rambling Gnome managed to ramble his way back into our life. See, we do actually have some good points to make and making new friends is one of them!
If you have watched the latest episode of beergeekTV, you saw us march in the kazoo parade from the brewer’s breakfast to the opening of Oregon Brewer’s Festival. 
Well, last night officially marked the end of our Oktoberfest season. And, the end of wearing my dirndle until next year. Last weekend we had a great time at the Tyrolean Inn’s Oktoberfest celebration, drinking litres of beer and having fun conversation with our friends. I also got an opportunity to talk with Chuck and Whitney, the owners of the Tyrolean. They are a fun and interesting couple that represent the best of Santa Cruz mountain folk. The only bummer of the evening was that it was a bit chilly out and try as I might, I eventually had to change out of my dress and into something warmer. I kept thinking that I just needed to drink more beer and then it wouldn’t matter, but two and a half litres later, I was still cold!
Yesterday, however, I managed to wear my dress all day long. First, we participated in the Carmel birthday/Halloween parade with the Carmel Dachshund Club. It’s always a fun group and seeing all the wieners scurrying around is a real hoot! Luckily, only one poor wiener was dressed as a hot dog.