This is part three of seven days of beer-themed Halloween costumes. Today’s theme is costumes that don’t necessarily fit into a specific category, like the rest do. So I put them into this catch-all Miscellany. Enjoy

 
Beer Pong

The Olde Tyme Tavern Serving Wench
 

The Olde Tyme Tavern Serving Wench 2
 

 
Breathalyzer

This one strikes me as one of those t-shirts with the stupid saying that’s marginally funny the first time you read it but then you’re stuck seeing it for the rest of the time you’re around the person, and it grows increasingly unfunny as time marches on. Same thing here, it initially evinces a little chuckle, then you realize it’s somewhat offensive and disgusting, really. Then on top of that, there’s not one, but two of them.

 
Breathalyzer No. 2

 
Frank the Tank Beer Belly

If that’s not disgusting enough, I also discovered that there’s a real beer belly, similar to a camel pak, but in belly shape so you can hide it under your shirt. Beer Belly even has its own website.

How creepy is that?

This is part two of seven days of beer-themed Halloween costumes. Today’s theme is kegs. Enjoy

 
Beer Keg

Kegger
 

 
Coors Beer Keg

 
The Beer Keg Hat

I know I tend to be in the minority in my take of whenever beer is featured on national network shows, because I feel that when it’s not done well, more often than not, the poor information spread out to unsuspecting viewers does more damage than if they’d heard nothing about beer during their morning coffee break. Yes, I know I should be thrilled that mainstream media has deigned to cover beer at all, but until they learn to get it right, it’s hard for me to be a cheerleader for bad journalism. A case in point is the Today Show yesterday did a segment entitled “Best Microbrews For Fall.”

They start out by saying, to explain why they’re doing the segment, “it’s October, so why not hold our Oktoberfest right here.” Well, for starters, Oktoberfest officially ended October 5, over a week before this was broadcast. The reason that most people think Oktoberfest takes place the entire month of October is because of shoddy work like this. Here was an opportunity to educate and instead they simply passed along the wrong information most people believe. Could it really have been so hard to check out when Oktoberfest took place?

Then they introduced their guest, Ray Ilse, as the editor of Food & Wine magazine. Yup, you read that correctly. The editor of Food & Wine magazine was their guest to talk about beer. But if he’s the editor, that must be a recent promotion. He’s not listed on the magazine’s website. That distinction goes to Editor in Chief Dana Cowin. Other editors listed on the masthead include Managing Editor Mary Ellen Ward, Executive Editor Pamela Kaufman, Executive Food Editor Tina Ujlaki and Executive Wine Editor Lettie Teague. Notice there’s no beer editor, of course. So maybe that’s Ray’s title, but a search reveals that of his last thirty articles for Food & Wine, twenty-nine were about wine and only one even mentions beer, an interview from last year with “California-based chef and beer provocateur Sang Yoon” who brought up beer and presumably changed the focus of the original article. So that’s their beer expert.

Maybe it’s a little self-serving, but would it be too much to ask that they contacted someone from one of the dozen or more beer magazines when doing a story on beer? Is that really too much to expect, for chrissakes? They’re not having car mechanics on to talk about new surgical procedures, are they? No, you want a medical expert, you get a doctor. You want a beer expert, you get … a wine writer?

First, they launch in to him being there to talk about them new fangled “microbrews,” a term no one in the beer industry uses anymore, except perhaps to describe “a brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels (17,600 hectoliters) of beer per year,” which is the specific definition. But if you’re around beer people these days, hearing someone say microbrews is like catching a person dropping “groovy” into the conversation.

After some less than witty banter, the first beer they try is Ayinger Oktober Fest-Marzen. Now, I’ve been to the Ayinger Brewery in Bavaria, but I wasn’t aware it was considered a “microbrewery.” Last year, they produced 140,000 hectoliters of beer and originally opened in 1878, but I’m pretty sure in any case they’d be considered an import beer owing to the fact that they brew in, well, Germany. If nothing else, when talking about “microbrews,” most people in the U.S. will assume a U.S. media outlet is talking about American beers.

Other beers they tasted included Smuttynose Pumpkin Beer, Lindemans Pomme Lambic (another imported beer), Rogue Dead Guy, Hobgoblin (sigh, yes, another import), and Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock. That means nearly half of the “microbrews” featured on the show were imports.

To add insult to injury, at one point they pull out from beneath the table one of those construction hats with two Harpoon Winter Warmers in each side and a tube leading down to your mouth so you can drink the beer on the go or at, as Ray Isle suggests, a baseball game. Now that’s a great way to highlight beer’s sophistication. After at least trying to say that “microbrewed” beer is more flavorful, they lost all credibility by dragging out this gadget. What an insult to the beer community.

At the end, Isle offers one of the Today Show hosts another taste of the Harpoon Winter Warmer in a proper glass, and he declines, saying “you know what, I’ve probably had enough beer so far.” After initially saying how excited he was about beer being on the show, literally seven tiny sips of beer — it couldn’t have been more than a few ounces total — was too much for him. I guess all that flavor got to him. Oh, and one last thing. The music that ends the segment is Cream’s Strange Brew. Please tell me how that was appropriate?

You can see the entire horror show below, it’s only a little under four minutes, but it’s excruciating for me to watch them torment and torture the beer. This may the scariest thing I’ll see for Halloween this year, and it’s certainly a doozy. What a travesty.

I saw these the other week. Meredith, the better half of Chris Nelson, the Beer Geek, had a few pair she’d gotten from Michelle Venzke.

You may recall that back in June, when Widmer Brothers Brewing first announced their fitting promotion for Brother’s Day to be held August 11, that I — calendar geek that I am — quibbled over the choice of date. Well all of that vanished today, when I learned that the Widmers got both a state and City of Portland proclamation declaring August 11 to be Brother’s Day. That’s really all it takes to make a new holiday legitimate.

Whereas, the Widmer brothers, who are proud representatives of the state and its flourishing craft beer movement, seek to honor brothers everywhere by sponsoring this occasion;

Widmer Brothers’ website has a separate section set aside for Brother’s Day, where you can upload your photo and send an e-card to your bro. For every e-card sent, Kurt and Rob will donate a dollar to the Columbia Northwest chapter of Big Brothers and Big Sisters. So what are you waiting for, it’s a worthy cause and it’s free to you. Give your siblings some love.

Kurt and Rob Widmer in the early 1980s, from the cover of the most recent Beer Northwest.

Welcome to the anniversary of our 18th Session a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday. This month our theme is celebratory anniversary beers, brought to us by our host, The Barley Blog, under the title “Happy Anniversary.”

Use this as an excuse to celebrate. Open a limited release anniversary beer from your favorite brewer. Enjoy that special beer you normally only open on your wedding anniversary or birthday. Either way, tell us about it. Why is it a beer you may only drink once a year? Why is that brewery’s annual release the one you selected?

Seasonals, by contrast, are more organic and the climate conditions have more or less been the same (or changed very slowly) for centuries allowing the traditions that surrounded them to be adopted over a long period of time. We didn’t have to force ourselves to remember that in spring temperatures grow warmer and in fall they grow colder. The physical evidence is unmistakable. The rhythm of the seasons continues whether we take any notice or not.

And there are still several nations today that still use the Julian calendar. Both of these calendars, are, of course, based on the Christian religion. There is also a separate Muslim calendar, Hebrew calendar, Hindu calendar and Chinese calendar to name a very few. There are literally dozens and dozens of very different calendar systems in use today all over the world. People have, from time to time, tried to suggest adopting a “world calendar” in various guises in order to standardize time but it’s never quite caught on. More’s the pity.

In addition to today’s Session, it’s also Swiss Confederation Day, National Non-Parent Day, National Raspberry Cream Pie Day, and Lammas Day, to name a few holidays taking place. It’s also the birthday of Herman Melville, Francis Scott Key and Jerry Garcia, among others. Today in 1876, Colorado became a state. Three years before, in 1873, the first San Francisco Cable Car began operating. MTV debuted in 1981 and Anne Frank made her last diary entry today in 1944.

But by far the most common anniversaries, for beer at least, are the annual celebration that they’re still in business. Usually these start around year 5, the fifth or Quinquennial anniversary. With modern craft brewing only around thirty years old (New Albion incorporated in 1976, and started brewing in 1977), five years is a fair amount of time and worth celebrating. Ten (Decennial), fifteen (Quindecennial) and twenty (Vigintennial) even more so. As the craft segment matures, there are many more breweries hitting milestones and creating special beers to commemorate them. And frankly that’s great news for all of us, because usually anniversary beers are brewed to showcase the talents of the brewery and/or the brewer. Whether deliciously delicate or radically extreme, anniversary beers hew to no style but the imagination of their creator. To my mind, that’s the most exciting aspect of anniversary beers. They’re rarely what you expect them to be. The only categories they can often be put in are the catch-all varieties like “experimental,” “strong” or something like that. And the success of them moves the bar for all beers, allowing innovation to trickle down into everyday beers, too.

But there are also anniversary beers commemorating more unusual things, too. Lagunitas Brewing, for example, is putting out a new beer on the 40th anniversary of each of Frank Zappa’s albums. So far, the first four have been released with no plans to stop. And beginning in 2001, Stone Brewing took the idea of Bonza Bottler Day one step farther, releasing a special beer once a year on the day that all three — month, day and year — are the same. The last one was 7.7.07 (my daughter’s birthday) and the next release will be 8.8.08. Sadly, I have none left from my own birthday release back on 3.3.03. This type of anniversary beer I find the most engaging because invariably it was inspired by something the brewery really believed in or thought would be a lot of fun to do. It’s no small amount of effort to conceive, brew and package a new beer so to do so is as deliberate an act as I can imagine. These are the anniversary beers that really make me sit up and take notice.

The beer itself is made with 2-row, rye ale malt, torrified rye, crystal rye 75, crystal malt 65, wheat, kiln amber, caramel 70 and spiced with Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe, Crystal, Chinook, Amarillo and Centennial hops, and dry hopped with Amarillo and Crystal. Or as the label puts it: “Brewed with an obscene amount of malt & hops.” He’Brew described their inspiration thusly:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Shmaltz Brewing Co. is proud to introduce Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. Brewed with an obscene amount of malts and hops. Shocking flavors – far beyond contemporary community standards. We cooked up the straight dope for the growing minions of our nation’s Radical Beer junkies. Judges may not be able to define “Radical Beer,” but you’ll damn well know it when you taste it. Bruce died, officially declared a pauper by the State of California, personally broken and financially bankrupt simply for challenging America’s moral hypocrisies with words. The memorial playbill read: “Yes, we killed him. Because he picked on the wrong god.” -Directed by, the Courts, the Cops, the Church… and his own self-destructive super ego. Like Noah lying naked and loaded in his tent after the apocalyptic deluge: a witness, a patron saint, a father of what was to come. Sick, Dirty, Prophetic Lenny: a scapegoat, a martyr, a supreme inspiration.

The beer is a beautiful copper penny color, with streaks of red in the light. Topped by a very thick tan head, it has bready aromas with herbal, hoppy notes. The mouthfeel is surprisingly creamy, almost buttery. It’s well-balanced with great interplay between candy sweet malt and dry, fruity hops. As it says in the name, it’s both bitter and sweet and the balance of power between these competing tastes is what gives the RIPA its soul. The finish is dry and long, and the high alcohol becomes apparent as the warmth likewise lingers in the aftertaste. A wonderful beer, and worthy of commemorating the rye … er, wry wit of Lenny Bruce’s life.

A final quote from Lenny Bruce:

“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it … try to fake three laughs in an hour—ha ha ha ha ha—they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.”

To which I’d also add that beer may also be an art form that can’t be faked. Happy Anniversary.

I got an e-mail press release yesterday from Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, Oregon, about their latest promotion, and it’s so fitting for them that it’s a wonder they didn’t think of it sooner. There are a few brothers working together in the beer industry, but none more visibly than Kurt and Rob. So they’re promoting Brother’s Day, which they say is August 11, and are inviting people to send e-cards to their brothers — for free — and then for each one sent they will donate one dollar to their local chapter of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. How perfect is that?

Given my personality, you probably think I’m an only child. And you’d be right … sort of. I was raised as an only child, but I actually have a half-brother and a half-sister, too. I just didn’t grow up with them, so I don’t have that sibling dynamic. My biological father was married three times, and had one child from each marriage, spreading that seed around. I’ve met them both a few times, and even used to trade Christmas cards with my brother Mark, when he was living in Georgia. But the last few got returned and I have no idea where he is these days, and no way to find out. Perhaps I should use the excuse of Brother’s Day to try to find him again.

My only quibble is that, as far as I can tell (warning: holiday geek info coming), May 24 is really Brother’s Day, at least according to the gold standard for holidays, Chase’s Calendar of Events. They list Brother’s Day as having been created in 2001 by C. Daniel Rhodes of Alabama. You can find a couple of references on the web to it being August 11, too, but none with any supporting information. In the end, I have no real problem with them using August 11, but just wanted to set the record straight. In case you were curious, Sister’s Day is the first Sunday in August, which this year will be August 3.

Kurt and Rob Widmer at GABF in 2002, shortly after they won Brewery of the Year.