Today is Sam Calagione’s 43rd birthday. Sam is the owner and marketing genius behind Delaware’s successful Dogfish Head Brewing. Sam’s also a great guy, and a rap singer of sorts, with his duo (along with his head brewer) the Pain Relievaz. See the bottom of this post for a couple videos of him singing after hours at Pike Brewery during the Craft Brewers Conference when it was held in Seattle. Join me in wishing Sam a very happy birthday.
Sam gives the thumbs up behind his booth at the Great American Beer Festival a few years ago.
With Ken Grossman at a Life & Limb collaboration beer dinner.
Priming the Randle with fresh hops at O’Briens Pub in San Diego.
Sam at the Rare Beer Tasting at Wynkoop during GABF 2009.
Rapping at Pike Place in Seattle in 2006.
This first video is “I Got Busy with an A-B Salesgirl,” the Pain Relievaz’ first hit single.
The second video is “West Coast Poseurs,” a smackdown to the hoppy West Coast beer and brewers.
This is one of the coolest, albeit nerdy, songs I’ve heard since Tom Lehrer was doing the Vatican Rag and singing about the Elements. And thanks to Peter H. for sending me the link. It’s a St. Patrick’s Day song by a biologist, known only as Cadamole, who apparently lives in Washington, D.C. He sings about the biology of beer and … well, just listen to it for yourself. Enjoy!
And below are the lyrics so you can sing along:
In the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eleven
On March the seventeenth day
I will raise up a beer and I’ll raise up a cheer
For Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Here’s to brewers yeast, that humblest of all beasts
Producing carbon gas reducing acetaldehyde
But my friends that isn’t all — it makes ethyl alcohol
That is what the yeast excretes and that’s what we imbibe
Anaerobic isolation
Alcoholic fermentation
NADH oxidation
Give me a beer
[CHORUS]
My intestinal wall absorbs that ethanol
And soon it passes through my blood-brain barrier
There’s a girl in the next seat who I didn’t think that sweet
But after a few drinks I want to marry her
I guess it’s not surprising, my dopamine is rising
And my glutamate receptors are all shot
I’d surely be bemoaning all the extra serotonin
But my judgment is impaired and my confidence is not
Allosteric modulation
No Long Term Potentiation
Hastens my inebriation
Give me a beer
[CHORUS]
When ethanol is in me, some shows up in my kidneys
And inhibits vasopressin by degrees
A decrease in aquaporins hinders water re-absorption
And pretty soon I really have to pee
Well my liver breaks it down so my body can rebound
By my store of glycogen is soon depleted
And tomorrow when I’m sober I will also be hungover
Cause I flushed electrolytes that my nerves and muscles needed
Diuretic activation
Urination urination
Urination dehydration
Give me a beer
Thursday’s ad is a recent one for Heineken, in support of a music festival they sponsored, the Heineken Jammin’ Festival in Venice, Italy. I may not like their beer, but they do put out some great advertising. The photo of a band on state from overhead, with the floodlights lighting the crowd makes it look like a pint of dark beer with a nice head and bubbles. Awesome shot.
It’s February, and that means it’s time for the 10th annual Strong Beer Month, once again with six new extreme beers each at 21st Amendment and Magnolia throughout the month, which this year has one more day to help you make it to the finish line. Try them all, and you get to keep the commemorative logo glass. Just collect all 12 punches in your Strong Beer Month ticket before the beer’s all gone.
This year’s theme is the 1978 Who album “Who Are You” featuring Nico “Roger Daltry” Freccia, Ben “John Entwistle” Spencer, Dave “Keith Moon” McLean and Shaun “Peter Townsend” O’Sullivan. Frankly, I think “Moon McLean” might stick as a nickname. Have all twelve strong beers, and you too might start singing “Brew Are You.” I really want to know.
Today is the 37th birthday of Bryan Selders, who until March of this year was lead brewer of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and one-half of the hip hop duo The Pain Relievaz. I first met Bryan at Hop School in Yakima, Washington several years ago and he’s a terrifically talented and fun person. These days he’s working as a web designer at Inclind. Join me in wishing Bryan a very happy birthday.
Bryan with his boss Sam on picture day at the brewery.
Bryan with some of his “fans.”
The cover of the latest CD, Awesome = Yes, the Pain Relievaz Greatest Hits, available nowhere as far as I can tell. But below is Bryan and Sam in the video “Pinchin’ Pennies.”
This sure sounds like a fun new event. The San Francisco Brewers Guild along with City Beer Store and The Bay Bridged is putting on a beer festival and a music festival called The Bay Brewed, which is scheduled to take place on December 3, from 2-7 p.m. at San Francisco’s Verdi Club, located at 2424 Mariposa Street. Here’s some more info from the press release:
Presented in partnership with the City Beer Store and the SF Brewers Guild, a ticket to The Bay Brewed includes unlimited beer tastings from San Francisco Bay Area breweries including 21st Amendment, Anchor Stream, Beach Chalet, Lagunitas, Magnolia, Social Kitchen & Brewery, and Speakeasy, and musical performances from four excellent San Francisco bands: Weekend, Sleepy Sun, Extra Classic, and Terry Malts. Food will be available for purchase courtesy of Rosamunde Sausage Grill.
Christian Cunningham, General Manager of The Bay Bridged, explained the desire to create an event pairing local bands and local craft beers: “San Francisco’s music and beer scenes are both unbeatable when it comes to the talent and creativity of the people involved. The Bay Brewed is our way of bringing together people who like great music and people who like great beer for a unique event that couldn’t happen anywhere but San Francisco.”
Ticket prices are $45 and can be purchased online, or buy them at the door for $55. According to the ticket page, “[y]our ticket purchase includes performances by four great local rock bands — Weekend, Sleepy Sun, Extra Classic, and Terry Malts — and a commemorative mug that gets you unlimited beer tastings all day long from an array of awesome local breweries. In partnership with the City Beer Store and the SF Brewers Guild, you’ll be sampling beer from and meeting the brewers behind 21st Amendment, Anchor Stream, Beach Chalet, Lagunitas, Magnolia, Social Kitchen & Brewery, and Speakeasy, with more still to come.”
Thursday’s ad may in fact not actually be an ad. It could just as easily be sheet music or the Playbill from a show. But the “Prince of Pilsen” sounds like a great title for a musical. I wonder why the woman on the left is dressed like the United States?
The San Francisco-based band The Famous regularly plays the beer circuit and can frequently be seen performing at beer festivals and brewpubs around the Bay Area. They’re a terrific band. I’ve seen them several times, most recently at Vinnie Cilurzo’s 40th birthday party at Russian River Brewing. At Vinnie’s party, The Famous did a song [...]
Another one of my many obsessions is my unabashed love of the Muppets. I came across a new video today of the Muppets covering the LCD Soundsystem song Dance Yrself Clean. In the Video, apparently shot in Brighton, both Cookie Monster and Animal are seen drinking Kronenburg 1664 — hey, they’re both over 21 — [...]
This would make an awesome gift, especially for the person who loves beer and music. Created by designer Sam Gensburg, his Southern Bells six-pack uses an ingenious design that can turn the empty bottles into a makeshift xylophone. Says Inhabitat, “Of the things that you could do with beer bottles, this has got to be [...]
Believe it or not, since 1979, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Illinois has had a musical group, the St. Luke’s Bottle Band. According to their website, the band was “founded by Professor Paul Phillips. Over the past few years the St. Luke’s Bottle Band has been featured on National Public Radio, the NBC Nightly News, [...]
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery today announced the release of Bitches Brew to commemorate the original release of the milestone jazz album, Bitches Brew, by jazz legend Miles Davis. The new beer by Dogfish Head is described as “a bold, dark beer that’s a fusion of three threads imperial stout and one thread honey beer with [...]
I have nothing against wine, I drink it fairly often and am an unabashed cross drinker. But this is still a little odd, to me. The Outside Lands two-day music festival that will take place in Golden Gate Park in mid-August appears to be wine only. And that’s despite having Heineken as one of the [...]
Today work of art is, at least to me, a great example of how varying interests can come together and lead to one thing, in this case the art of Peter Cross, a British illustrator of album covers and children’s books, among others. I first became aware of Peter Cross in the late 1970s. I [...]
Another highlight of The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Festival, held yesterday at Linden Street Brewery in Oakland, was the music. There were some terrific bands playing. But my favorite was, as usual, the down home blues stylings of Tony Magee, owner of Lagunitas Brewing. He taught himself to play just a few years ago and [...]
I confess that I’m not much of a baseball fan. When I was a kid I rooted for the Baltimore Orioles and Brooks Robinson was my favorite player. But since heading west, as a young man, I’ve paid little attention to Major League Baseball. I used to attend Giants’ games at Candlestick with friends, though [...]
I was one of 42 beer writers who contributed to this big 960-page book telling the stories of 1,001 world-famous beers. The book is now available at Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.
