THE SEARCH FOR THE ELUSIVE HOT CHICK of my dreams is at hand!

Criteria :

1. Must be pretty/hot/cute
2. Has a nice ass
3. Has big boobs
4. Tall (around 5'4" - 5'9")
5. Age (22-30)
6. Residency ( around Metro Manila)

Willing to hangout anytime, anywhere, must like smoking, beer, sisig, crispy pata, liempo, a red bull addict, alcoholic and an overall asshole... but we got plans... plans for WORLD DOMINATION!

PUSSY LIBERATION FRONT and the RELEASE THE TWINS FOUNDATION!!

either be the girlfriend or fuck buddy either way if you're interested comment on this post! and EMAIL your resumes with HOT PIC at gasolineboy11@gmail.com

ALSO introducing my other sites

welcome to the BlackOPStocino - 5AM project (still under construction -- so don't expect to see content as of now)

1. http://5amtravel.blogspot.com/ - travels, places around the philippines (tourist spots,bars,clubs, gimik spots)
2. http://5amfoodmaster.blogspot.com/ (restaurants, foods, recipes)
3. http://fooldriven.blogspot.com/ ( all about cars and the likes)
4. http://healthytool.blogspot.com/ (health, fitness, girly stuff, manly stuff)
5. http://gameadik.blogspot.com/ (all about games, PC games, PS3 games, XBOX360 games,PS2 games, Online Games, PSP games, DS games, Wii Games)
6. http://tekigeek.blogspot.com/ (all about tech, could be new consoles, cellphones, media players, cameras, PC software , PC hardware, electronic gadgets,comics,)

Birra Bavaria: Life is? Cosé`la vita?

When you get to the city-downtown you get the feeling that the city was designed by a five year old kid who had too much coloured vax on his hands. Small houses, with different heights and different colors crammed into each other make you feel like your in some sort of fairytale:

For a better view of the city you have to climb into the "black tower", that's 225 very narrow stairs, you actually have to be quite an athlete to make it to the top... but it does worth the effort:

Besides the small houses, the black tower and the city hall there's actually not much else to see, maybe the spring well and the city hall.

Next stop: The Budweiser Beer Factory... you can actually visit the factory, watch the entire brewing process from malting to bottling... plus you get to drink beer directly from the factory cellars kept at 2° C) :

Malting

Bottling

You might say... oh, well... This town doesn't seem so exciting... why go there ? Well maybe this will convince you:

"Chaser, Bob?" Steve asked cheerily?

"Yeah but she got away!" Bob quipped.

The lads quietly poured and quaffed a couple of 7 oz'ers and Steve ordered another jug.

"Ah , thats put a lining on the ol' stomach" commented Steve, producing a 1.25 litre bottle of Coffee Wine from his pocket with the smooth aplomb of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. McCabe's jacket seemed to have endless pockets, each one deeper than a Rockefeller's or a Kennedy's , thought Bob.

"Glad I'm not a Kennedy!" said Steve between deep gulps, effortlessly reading Bob's thoughts. The two pals were symapatico and had discovered their predilection for knowing the other's thoughts long ago and it was as natural as - "Yoghurt icecream!" yelled Bob to the barman, "and make it runny!". The barman, accustomed to the lads sometimes unusual requests, poured a frozen yoghurt into a glass and put it under the Bain-marie.

"Whats that you're putting the yoghurt under?" said Bob, nonchalantly serving up the first line of the joke so Steve could slam back the punchline to the hapless barman's inevitable response.

"Why its a Bain-Marie" replied the barman, dead on cue.

"I know its a-bain-Marie, but what-a is it now?!!" yelled Steve in his best faux-Godfather Italian accent.

Appreciating the unselfish set-up, Steve mixed Bob a Yoko (a cloudy concoction of yoghurt and Coffee Wine, with a dash of beer thrown in for good measure). "The beer makes it a Rusty Yoko", Steve noted adroitly. Bob whipped out his notebook and wrote:

The beer makes it a rusty Yoko
Curdled, like a year-old Cocoa

A grunt came from the booth in the corner. Looking over, the boys noticed Shane McGowan and Georgie Best collapsed under the table, snoring and holding their heads.

"Lightweights!" they said simultaneously, fist-bumping each other in acknowledgment of the mind-meld.

Steve recalled the first time the mind-meld had occurred, in an undisclosed Dental School in South Dunedin where the lads found themselves trapped Prisoner-style in the laughing-gas* room with the spigot hissing. Instantly, the lads threw themselves to the floor in order to ensure not a molecule was wasted and within minutes, McCabe was proclaiming "My voice is melting! Bob, post-haste, perform the Vulcan Voice Meld!"

From that moment on, the two found themselves bound together inseparably, and it was said that they were "at least twice as funny" after that time.

* Nitrous Oxide discoverer [Joseph] Priestley describes the preparation of "nitrous air diminished" by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid in Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775). Priestley was delighted with his discovery: "I have now discovered an air five or six times as good as common air... nothing I ever did has surprised me more, or is more satisfactory."

Axemen Fan Fiction posted by Sciatic Bevel Mettle

On a brighter note: Dexter rocks & my Czechvar (or Budvar, if you will...and you will) is good. And I got my $10 check for jury (see September 22 entry)!

"Save the planet. It's the only one with beer."

As good a reason as any in my book :-)

Though the idea of a swinging gut is not unheard of at a sporting event, I'm afraid that the plastic nozzle coming out of the "polyurethane bladder" kinda sorta gives it away?  Maybe? However stealthily it is concealed under a t-shirt.  There's nothing as unsexy as giving the impression you are sucking fluids out of a catheter.

Now the WineRack?  That's just genius.

The Beerbelly [site]

During my most recent visit to Fort Collins, CO, I made another pilgrimage to New Belgium Brewery.  Once again, I was more than impressed.  Each visit brings fun, laughs and great beer.

I was fortunate to find a stool at the bar and took a seat.  The brewery was crowded this Friday evening, filled with friends meeting up after work for a tasting to kick off the weekend.

My favorite New Belgium beers are Fat Tire and 1554.  When I visit the brewery, I enjoy sampling rare brews, typically ones that are only available for purchase in growlers and brewed for a limited time.

Trippel:  Belgian Style Ale and popular brew.
Old Cherry:  Small batch ale brewed with juice of real cherries.
Loose Lips:  Ben's Saison, winning brew of the employee contest.
Giddy Up:  An espresso ale, probably my favorite of the evening.

Follow Your Folly

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a big fan of wheat beer. Appalachian’s Water Gap Wheat is no exception.

I simply don’t get it. Why ‘wheat’ beer? Why not corn beer, or oat beer, or for that matter, okra beer? Tomato Beer? Now your talk’in pard! If you like beer and you like tomato juice, then you’ll love red-beer!! No sh-t!!!

Seriously, I don’t get the concept of wheat beer. Why did anyone think they could (or needed to) take the ‘elixir of the gods’ and attempt to improve on it by adding wheat. Like one of my favorite blog sites is fond of saying, “It’s a Mystery To Me! (http://itsamysterytome.wordpress.com/)”

The tip-off comes early with most of these brews – if served with a wedge of lemon or wedge of orange or a wedge of any fruit – you are navigating into uncharted beer-waters.

When looking at their website (http://www.abcbrew.com/index_flash.htm), it appears they may be one of the many American upscale pubs that have decided to dabble in micro-brewing, in an attempt to mimic European beers. In my humble opinion, most fall far short of European’s finest. Why settle for an imitation when you can experience a Peroni or Carlsberg or Fuller’s ESB (Extra Special Bitter) or Harp or Bass?

I’m not going to condemn Appalachian’s entire line on this one sampling. As I type this, I have a bottle of their Susquehanna Stout chillin’-in-the-frig. Watch this blog for a report once I pop the cap…

Drink (at least) 1 for me…

Woody

No sh-t! I can now say I've tasted every imaginable beer flavor. Can you say, “Brooklyn Brewery’s ‘Post Road Pumpkin Ale’?”

I’m quoting here, “hundreds of pounds of pumpkins are blended into the mash of each batch, creating a beer with an orange amber color, warm pumpkin aroma…”

Now don’t get me wrong, I consider myself open minded with many things in this life. I’ve migrated from hating Mexican Food to becoming a connoisseur. Drifted towards many fish dishes. Ditto for cottage cheese. Mega dittos for Gin & Tonic and Bloody Marys. I’ve fallen madly in love with beers from Venezuela (Polar), The Philippines (Sam Miguel), Australia (Victoria Bitters), and Czechoslovakia (Czechvar). But pumpkin flavored beer?  That’s probably something we should have NOT inherited from the early American colonialists. What’s next? Beer flavored pie for ‘Turkey Day’? Pumpkin belongs in breads and pies not a 12-ounce brown bottle.

Boys, I’d suggest you focus on the Brooklyn Pilsner and Brooklyn Brown Ale (http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/).

Cheers,

Woody

Now that we have that out of the way, allow me a moment or two of your time to explain why.

Though many a learned person has dissmissed the theories of Dr. Freud as nasally obsessed tomfoolery, the notion of the Id remains an alluring one. Imagine your inner being, driven by the pleasure principle, met at every turn by the arbitrary and domineering Super Ego, ruining all its fun. Whether we can ever silence this subconscious, primal scream remains unseen to all but the individual. More likely, it is either modified (in which case, we grow up to be alien to ourselves) or, it is repressed (in which case, we grow up to be grow up to be Civilization's Discontents, to use Freud's terminology).

In the end, I think people end up being disappointed when they realize that life is its own reward. I would cautiously suggest that Bill Gates lives the same life of any man who benefits from his own merits; only the tax bracket is different. If the "poorer" man concentrated more on the life he has, compared to nothing, he would be less likely to hate his life because of what he doesn't have and more likely to love it through appreciation of what he does.

No man can be happy when his family is starving but not buying into every stupid fad that crosses your line of sight buys a lot of food. Also, the ridiculous fortunes of those he enviesare built upon his buying their useless products to service his lifestyle, not his life.

I still defend the Id because the Id is about thought, desire, and action, not "stuff"; primal desire shouldn't have anything to do with a PSP or the jewelled sneakers some crack whore socialite wears in her latest softcore porn music video.

"More! More! More!" is the new life mantra. Want becomes need and anything with intrinsic value falls by the weigh-side and chokes on its own last breaths in a roadside ditch, sitting shiva with the other animals that couldn't navigate the new super highway.

My Id screams for freedom from all of this. It desires the simplicity it once knew. The Super Ego grows exponentially. The middle man, my Ego, is content that life is its own reward. I only wish, dream of a time when it is again the life not found in a crack whore socialite's latest softcore porn music video. I'd like to live in that world.

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day

The first Saturday in November (November 1, 2008) is the annual "Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day"!

This is an international event celebrated to teach the homebrewing hobby to the public and introduce individuals to the local homebrew shops and clubs.

Last year there were over 1900 participants brewing over 1970 gallons at 152 sites around the world.

In 1979, the American Homebrewers Association originally claimed National Homebrew Day to be the first Saturday in May.  On May 7, 1988, Congress officially recognized National Homebrew Day.  Homebrewers around the world use the day to celebrate beer and brewing and attract attention to their hobby.

For example, American Homebrewers Association Big Brew festivities are designed to celebrate and publicize National Homebrew Day and the homebrewing hobby.

Stirring the Brew Pot

For information on how to participate in this year's Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day Event and to view the registered sites, go to www.beertown.org.

Fruits of my Labors!

-Party with old men and expensive liquor in the hooker bar around the corner

PS EDIT:
does this make sense to anyone, it's not finished or anything.

I am counting down the days to P-town, hopefully the weather will be like this (dont worry I'll get my run in early...maybe not I forgot there is this delicious brew down there called Lost Sailor, I may have to sleep in) gawd Im hungry, I cooked up some mushrooms with garlic this afternoon...mmmm mushrooms..no, must stay focused beer

After many a ferocious debate over which beer truly was third best, it has been put to the public vote. Only one beer can (and will) win, but the battle for second, third, fourth and fifth rages on.

To keep track of the tumultuous voting, a complicated spreadsheet has been designed which automatically tallies votes. It can be downloaded here.

The polls opened just over 36 hours ago. Eight votes have been cast so far. Thirteen lagers have had votes placed for them. Bringing up the rear are three 4% lagers. No surprises there.

Further analysis shows Stella Artois is far and away the leader - as is expected; it is the UK market leader. In second is Becks, another popular beer. Perhaps riding on the back of the ludicrous Tesco offer, Carlsberg Export is in third, with Heineken and Grolsch - the two Dutch lagers - just one point behind.

It is all to play for, and the playing field can change dramatically as the votes come flying in.

How to place your vote

Sign up the Facebook Group and place your vote in the discussion comments.

Godspeed, men. Godspeed.

What??  You guys haven't seen the classic 1986 film Highlander?!?! Ok, it's a stretch for a blog title but whatever. Thank you to our friend Introverted One for suggesting we try this beer. He gets props for suggesting a great one!

The smell was amazing.  It smelled like roasted malty joy, or as Brian would say "it smells really good." Really nice head (foamy goodness) on this beer as well.

This beer is the next level of "the better beer that is easy to drink." We say that because of this, it blends what some might think of as bitter (hops) with a sweet flavor that makes it really drinkable.  So if you've never had an amber ale this is a great place to start.

Highland Brewery is amazing. It's in Asheville, NC. Brian was just in Asheville on vacation and drank Gaelic Ale straight from the Blue Ridge Mountains. Josh is pissed at Brian for not taking him along on his vacation but Brian actually went on vacation to get away from Josh so it would  have been really weird if he were there.  We digress.

Highland brewing has several fantastic beers.  We know you can find it at 12 South Taproom as well at many fine retail establishments. If you know of other places it's available, let us know! We will definitely be trying more!

GRADE : A

Customer:  Dude, can you spot me 86 cents?  I'll bring it back.

Hmmm 1) I've never seen this guy before (he's not a regular) and 2) those are out of state plates on his car and 3) he's paying in change, though there's green in his wallet.  Ergo, I'll never see him again.

Cashier:  Man, I don't have any cash on me.

Customer:  But I dont have enough money.

This is why we retain control of cigarettes and beer until we have the money.  The customer has made two attempts to get his hands on the beer my fingers are firmly controlling.

Cashier:  I'm sorry, partner, the price is $1.89.

Muct more often than not, the customer will leave angry and never spend the bills sticking out of his wallet.

We make a lot of "return the beer" trips to the cooler.

The day started off with the first lecture of my last module in this semester. I'm glad it was at the end of the week, because if it were in the beginning, I'd have been very discouraged. When the lecturer entered the room (she was one of two, as we later found out. Three of my modules are 'team-taught'), I first thought she seemed pretty cool; she wore a smart black blouse/suit-pants outfit with a silver, Arabian-looking necklace and green Converses, which I found pretty funky fresh lol. My opinion of her, however, changed when she opened her mouth. Don't get me wrong; she was very friendly and was much more outgoing than the other the lecturers, yet she was also the least reassuring.

She started the lecture with little introduction and kept progressively using bigger and bigger words, throwing  hints of theory and references to concepts here and there like we were all magically on the same page as her. I'm not complaining because I didn't understand something. In fact, I felt lucky to have the training, background and interest in some of the stuff she was referring to; I just felt it was quite arrogant of her to not even try to tailor her lecture to her actual class. Couldn't she see the faces in front of her were 99% Chinese? I seriously doubt any of them had an idea what she was talking about (but hey, I may be wrong). She tried to do that once, unsuccessfully in my opinion, when she said "oh all my references are so North American" (she seemed Canadian to me) when she mentioned Fox News and PBS. So what did she do? Change it to BBC and Channel 5... *womp* wow thanks that makes it soooo much more relevant to us now.

Again, I had no trouble following her (even though I was glad I had done a lot of reading for that lecture before hand. I'm not sure how much I would have grasped otherwise). I just couldn't help comparing her to the lecturer we had on Thursday that seemed very sensitive to who he was actually lecturing to. He went so far as to qualify the fact that his course is grounded in the democratic tradition because since all the readings are in English, they were written with that system in mind, "but that doesn't that other systems aren't important". It may sound excessive, but at least he was acknowledging the fact that his class was almost entirely made up of citizens of the People's Republic of China.

Anyway, I was glad that the other lecturer was also present. I liked his approach much more. Trying to explain the significance of (British) Cultural Studies in intellectual history, he called those who developed it "magpies" that went around picking up shiny objects from here and there to take back to their nests (the point being that CS was an innovative fusion of neo-Marxism and European language theory). Jumping off his thought, the other lecturer urged us to do the same in our essays, so I wrote this in my notebook in big letters:

BE MAGPIES

But enough about school. The rest of the day was going quietly with nothing really planned. I had icecream again at Baskin Robin's (one scoop Hokey Pokey, one scoop Caramel Waffle). The most interesting part of the day was going to be trying out a strawberry beer called Fruli...

Yup Claire and I were feeling adventurous. No it wasn't good. But thankfully that wasn't the most intersting thing we did.

Earlier that night I had bumped into Sophia, who I hadn't seen since that first night out at The Parody. She told me she was going to the foam party, and I said I wasn't... Maybe it was the influence of the Fruli, but 40 minutes before the party started, I changed my mind. I asked Claire if she was 'upferrit', and we decide what the heck, why not. So I rushed back to The Grange and wore something I wouldn't mind getting wet, while Claire did the same at Freemen's. We met up later and paid at the door (I actually bought mine off this girl who had to leave. I figured I was "paying it forward", seeing how someone had bought my pub crawl t-shirt before).

The event was quite fun, but was slightly marred by the fact that people insisted on walking around (i.e. pushing people to get to and fro). It's odd, because we attended last week's event too, and there was a different attitude altogether. I guess the Ministry of Sound crowd is more sophisticated that the fans of foam lol.

The guest singer was supposed to be Fatman Scoop, but he had pulled out a few weeks ago, so we had Taio Cruz instead, who wasn't bad I guess.

And then came the foam... lol

Overall, it was a fun night. I enjoyed being spontaneous, and all the soap and stickiness was a nice childish end to my first week of studies.

"Done! Done! On to the next one, done - I'm done! Now it's on to the next!"

We kicked off our 4 days of fun at the Falling Rock taphouse as soon as we got off the plane.  They were serving "experimental" Avery beers, which of course meant that most of them were right up my alley: sour, barrel aged, and/or super-hoppy.  There were many beautiful beers we drank that night but the one that truly stood head and shoulders above the rest was the Avery Oaked Beast.  This is a 16+% whiskey barrel aged strong dark Belgian-style beer.  I wasn't taking notes that night, but I think the Avery website description of it pretty much sums it up:

"The Beast is a seducer - accommodating, complicated, powerful, dark and created to last the ages. With a deep burgundy color and aromas of honey, nutmeg, mandarin orange and pineapple, this massive and challenging brew has flavors akin to a beautiful Caribbean rum. Dates, plums, raisins and molasses are dominant in a rich vinous texture. Cellarable for 10+ years."

I believe I told Adam Avery when I ran into at the first session last night that it was "life changing".  This stuff is dangerous.  I wanted to keep sipping it all night long, but knew that at over 16% there'd be no way I'd wake up the next day able to join the festivities if I did.  As it was, I had about a glass and a half (they were small, maybe 5 oz glasses) over the course of the evening.

The bar itself was a lot of fun as well.  They have the best collection of empty bottles that I have ever seen, with five rows of bottles lining the walls all the way around the room.  Our waitress was attentive all night, and except for the 20 minutes right after 9pm, when the Avery beers first went on tap and the crowd went into a frenzy, she checked back in on us all night long.  The best part was that we had a table in the back, where it was surprisingly uncrowded despite the hordes of people out on the patio.  Over the course of the night, different groups of friends came and went, such that we ended up staying until it closed at 2am without even realizing 6 hours had passed.  I even got to reconnect with my college roommate, Rosie, and to introduce her IPA-loving friend Josh to Pliny the Elder for the first time.

The next day, we returned to Falling Rock for the SF Beer Week event.  This is going to be an incredible collection of beer dinners, tastings, festivals, and more, taking place February 6^th to 15^th in and around San Francisco.  Check out the website and email me if you have questions about attending or hosting an event!  (I'm helping the events' directors keep track of the participating venues.)  In an effort to pace ourselves, we stuck to half pints of low ABV beers, and we did just fine despite inadvertently staying for hours again.  Falling Rock during GABF is like a beer geek black hole.  You get sucked in and can never get out.  We met up with Des, one of the event producers for London's recent Beer Exposed.  I had met him at the GBBF and had hoped we'd run into each other here.  We also ran into Chris & Merideth from The Beer Geek and Matt from the Flavor Architects, a group producing beer events in San Francisco.

We finally pulled ourselves away, intending to head back to the hotel, but instead found ourselves sidling on over to Great Divide Brewing Company.  We ran into Des and two of his friends again.  They all live in the UK, and we ended up spending a long time trading notes on which American beers were available over there, how the distribution systems differ, which beers they should try to taste while they are here, etc.  My sister was very "enthusiastic" at this point, as both of us tend to go into talking overdrive mode while tipsy, and promised Des' friend Ken about 18 times that she'd trade him Seattle rarities for some of his British beers.

And then, it was time for the main event.  We had intended to get in line an hour early, but our trip over to Great Divide had cost us a lot of time, so we only got there 30 minutes before the doors opened.  Already there was a line thousands of people long that snaked at least half-way, and probably closer to three quarters of the way, around the building.  It was unbelievable.  I was a little concerned about how rowdy the crowd would be when I noticed that many of them had pretzel necklaces.  While I do think it's a clever idea in terms of staging off hunger and extreme drunkenness, the pretzel neclace also tends to be worn most often by drunken fratboy types.  It turns out I was right and wrong.  On one hand, there didn't seem to be any big flare-ups.  I saw no fights and no one dangerously drunk.  On the other hand, the group cheers that erupt whenever someone drops his or her glass started far earlier and with greater frequency than just about any other beer festival I've been to.  My sister and I were discussing this over pizza with another festival-goer we had just met when the lady across the table butted in and said, "You know, it's tradition.  They're cheering because someone dropped their glass."  No sh*t, lady.  We know why they're cheering.  It doesn't make it any less obnoxious though, to have to stop your conversation every 2 minutes when the roar gets too deafening to hear the person next to you.

The first night was a bit of a frenzy.  We were in a hurry to hit some hot spots before they ran out of their good stuff.  First on our list was New Glarus, for having a great reputation, and for being located in the midwest nowhere near anywhere I am likely to visit any time soon.  Allie and Melissa readily agreed to this plan after hearing that New Glarus would be serving a raspberry beer.  I didn't take tasting notes on any of the beers last night (we tried nearly 40 of them), but I do have thoughts on the New Glarus ones since they were our first and most anticipated.  And my thoughts are this: I fully believe that what we tasted were great examples of fruit beers, but they just too much fruit for me.  I got the Belgian Red, which tasted intensely of dried sour cherries.  I appreciate how "true" the cherry flavor was, as well as the complexity and boldness of the overall flavor profile, and still be thinking while drinking it, "I am just not a fruit beer kind of person."  Allie and Melissa, and the rest of the GABF attendees it seemed, loved both the Belgian Red and the Raspberry Tart, so I think I'm out here a

I had a great time a while later speaking to Megan Parisi, the lead brewer for Cambridge Brewing Company.  When I was in college, my favorite local restaurant/pub was Cambridge Common and whenever we'd go there I'd almost always get one of the Cambridge Brewing Company beers.  In September and October, they make an amazing pumpkin ale that blows most others I've had out of the water.  Their booth at the festival had some great, creative brews (What in the world is a summer barleywine? Luckily, Megan answered this for me) that I had never seen at Cambridge Common back when I was last there a couple years ago.  Megan clued me in to a Pink Boots Society meeting supposedly taking place starting at 10am today at Wynkoop.  I haven't been able to find any information about this meeting online, but I'm going to go check it out anyway.

We also had a great time finally catching up with The Bruery guys in person.  I've been following them since Patrick Rue, the brewer/owner, emailed me about one of the tastings I was running.  This was back right after they opened, and I noticed the link to his website at the bottom of his email.  Ever since then, I've only heard great things about their beer from friends in Southern California and have been doing my best to get my hands on them.  Since then, I've been able to try a few of them, but there were even more here at GABF.  My favorites were the Maple Belgian Brown and the Saison.  City Beer Store has a very small number of their bottles right now, so get on over there if you're in the SF Bay Area and want to try them.

I always rave about Lost Abbey on this site and GABF was no different.  These guys could have brought their regular line-up and still had one of the longest lines in the convention center, but they went all the way and brought out the top shelf stuff.  With Brandy Barrel Angel's Share, Isabelle Proximus, Red Poppy, Brouwer's Imagination, and others on hand, it was a bit of a mob scene near their booth, especially since they were only a few spots down from Russian River, which was inspiring a similar frenzy with Supplication, Consecration, Blind Pig, and others.

The highlight of the night for Melissa might have been the stop at Lawson's Finest Liquids.  This is a brand new brewery in Vermont, Melissa's home state.  The owner, Sean Lawson, was very happy to talk to us and by the time we left the booth, he had promised Melissa one of only 60 bottles he has of his Maple Tripel.

For Allie, the night was overwhelmingly colored by the seemingly magnetic power of her Magic Hat t-shirt.  There must have been at least 30 people who stopped her that night to rave, "Magic Hat!!! Yeah!" or "Go Vermont!!" or "Are those guys here?? I love their beer!!"  We couldn't go ten steps without a new person coming up to talk to her about her shirt.  All I can say is, the Magic Hat folks have an incredibly enthusiastic following and are probably missing out on a big opportunity by not coming to GABF since it seemed like half the convention center desperately wished they were here.

Finally, late in evening we ran into Dick Cantwell, owner/brewer for Elysian in Seattle.  We love their beers and Allie and Melissa had spoken to him at the WABL Oktoberfest, telling him that we'd be attending their Great Pumpkin Beer Festival, happening next weekend.  In the interim, in Bend, we were struck by the brilliant idea to "commission" pumpkin knit caps from our mom, the owner of Manhattan Beach Knitting Company, a yarn store.  She whipped them up in no time, and now we've got three wacky orange and green caps waiting for us to take them out for their big night at the festival.  When we saw Dick at GABF, we couldn't help but blurt out this plan.  His joking response: "I want one too!  If not, I'm stealing one of yours!"  Luckily, our mom kindly agreed to make up one more, as long as we'll trade her computer help in return.

So, in finale, here's the list of what we tried last night, in the approximate order in which we drank them.  This list reflects my own, Allie's, and Melissa's choices, since we shared most of them.  I've bolded my favorites of the night.  I know I'm missing a one or two of which I took only a sip, but I got almost all of them:

• New Glarus Belgian Red
• New Glarus Raspberry Tart
• Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga Saison
• Goose Island Brewpub Debbie's Little Helper Imperial Red
• Goose Island Brewery Juliet (Rye in cabernet barrel)
• Lawson's Finest Liquids Maple Nipple (Maple Triple)
• The Bruery Saison Rue
• The Bruery Autumn Maple Belgian Brown
• Clipper City Small Craft Warning Pilsner Bock
• DOG Brewing Black Dog
• DOG Brewing Blueberry
• Lost Abbey Brandy Barrel Angel's Share
• Lost Abbey Isabelle Proximus
• Adirondack Spiced Ale
• Terrapin Oak Aged Rye Squared
• Sweetwater Spiced Blueberry
• Sweetwater IPA
• Grand Teton Black Cauldron Imperial Stout
• Dogfish Head 120 Minute Imperial IPA
• Dogfish Head Theobroma
• Dogfish Head Sahtea
• Pro-Am Triple Rock & Nate Smith North Oakland Imperial IPA
• Pro-Am Elysian & Ken Reister After The Supernova Imperial Stout
• Pro-Am Pizza Port & Julian Shrago Imperial Stout
• Redstone Apricot Nectar Mead
• Cambridge Brewing Company Arquebus Summer Barleywine
• Cambridge Brewing Company Cerise Cassee
• Cambridge Brewing Company Heather Ale
• Allagash Curieux
• Blue Moon Peanut Butter Ale
• Tommyknocker Coco Porter
• Tommyknocker Oaked Butthead
• Tommyknocker Maple Nut Brown
• Mammoth 365 IPA
• Maui Coconut Porter
• Maui Coconut Rum Porter
• Mateveza Yerba Mate Ale
• Alpine Pure Hoppiness
• Baron Doppelbock
• Avery Ale to the Chief

[Full US story: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A53016 ]

Quotes:

"It's probably been blessed more times than every other beer we carry, combined," says De Jong of Cask Distributors."  Despite that holy connection, the name and devilish look of the logo has cost De Jong a client in two Mt. Pleasant Piggly Wiggly stores. Almost immediately after it hit the shelves last spring, a customer complaint prompted the store manager at the Seaside Farms and Hwy. 17 N. locations to remove the beer from the shelves.

"We're not in the business of offending anybody. If I make one sale on that six-pack and then it offends 10 other people, it definitely was not worth my investment," says Bill Trull, general manager at the stores. "We're in the Deep South. We have to be careful of what we put in front of families," Trull says."

"In Houston, a church group gathered in front of the display at a grocery store and refused to leave until the manager removed it, threatening a church-wide boycott of the store. And Satan's importer, Texas-based Noble Union Trading, is currently unable to sell the brand anywhere in the state of Florida, after the state's alcohol authority sent an undercover, underage person to purchase beer, and he chose Satan. While the investigation is underway (three months thus far), the importer has been banned from the state.

"There is a Bible-thumping crusader behind every tree," says Charlotte Rowell, the owner of Noble Union. We feel very strongly about enforcement of underage consumption laws and responsible drinking. But what I do have a hard time tolerating is the intolerance of religion. Were this to be taken to a legal battle, we would certainly win the right to keep our beers in the market.""

An anonymous (but quite angry) Belgian source suggested replacing the labels with "Christian virginity beer", with an endorsement by (the now found guilty of power abuse) religious-nightmarish fruitcake and Republican US vice-presidential candidate WMD Sarah Palin.

The world economy is crashing to the floor, panic reigns, so what does redneck America? Boycott a "Satan" beer from Belgium. Pathetic.

What's happening in the US South? (and increasingly, in many US states) With the US presidential candidates  falling over each other, pointing fingers while exclaiming "religious fanatics are an ominous threat" (with that finger pointed straight towards the Middle East) the US bible belt has been radicalizing fast, with Bible-thumping crusaders making the US South a much scarier place than many countries I visited on any vacation. Do you feel these US religious extremists are endangering your constitutional (US)/ or legal (non-US) rights?

At first.

I was totally prepared for the drunken stick figure sorority girls with bleach blonde hair crying on the stairs of The Swamp. I was prepared for the drunken 18-year-old frat guys spilling cheap beer on my (awesome) shoes. And, I was prepared to have to shove my way through a mass of people, the likes of which normally make me feel clausterphobic. What I was not prepared for was the staff.

First, as I go down to the ladies room (where some girl was playing Bathroom Nazi -- if you didn't leap into a stall the second someone flushed, she would scream "Come ON, ladies! Let's move it!" I had a horrible volleyball flashback -- kind of my 'Nam), I was about to step in line when this ENORMOUS bouncer type takes two hands and shoves me back. Seriously. Another bouncer type was next to him and obviously saw the rage bubbling up inside me, which was held back just until my utter disbelief melted away, and apologized, explaining that a waitress was coming through. I calmly explained to him that, in some cultures, words are used before large men shove women in high heels. There might have been a series of F-bombs in there. I can't be sure.

Before I even made it back to my table, I was standing near a chair, minding my own business, when this waitress -- she must have been 5 feet tall carrying a tray that was 6 feet wide -- came up to me, looked me in the eye, and, in the voice of Lucifer, screamed, "MOOOOVE!." Seriously?

I started to respond, because I was more angry than I can even type, and another girl there tried to explain to me that she had been a waitress there before, and "Excuse me" just doesn't really cut it. And, it was then that I realized that I'm old and cranky and this shit is best left to 18 year olds who don't know how to kickbox. Because if I hadn't been wearing a dress and hot shoes, someone might have gone home with a serious injury.

Oh, and also? My head is POUNDING today, because the only way Jared knew to keep me from going on a bloody rampage was to keep bringing me beer. And in a couple of hours, it'll be time to start tailgating. If you're out there, and you see a girl in an orange dress sitting down, yelling at all the young people to get off her damn lawn, come on over and say hello, because that'll definitely be me.

Imong gi-gisi ang akong kasing-kasing
Imong gilud-an ang akong aping
Imong gi-insulto ang akong pagkatawo

Ug imong gibato ang akong garbo
Imo ‘kong  gigapos ug gipasakitan
Nagtuo ko ang tanan tinoud
Puros raman diay binuang

Ug karon imong gipanghimuslan ang akong pagkamahuyang
Nakamat-ngon ko’g buot
Bayot Boang

Imong gipaka-uwawan ang akong pagka-ako
Ug giyatakan sa atubangan sa mga tawo
Imong giyab-an ug beer ang akong nawong
Ug gibiyaan sa kalsada kay nanimaho na

Imo ‘kong gisunog ug gipasagdan
Nagtuo ko ang tanan tinoud
Puros raman diay binuang

Ug karon imong gipanghimuslan ang akong pagkamahuyang
Karon nakat-on na
Bayot Boang

Oo, Usa ko ka-bayot…
Usa ka-bayot nga nagpakabuang sa usa ka-butang nga akong gi-ampo na unta akong maangkon
Pero nasayop ko…
Nabuta ko sa imong bakak
Busa tawga ko’g Bayot Baong

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