Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Titletown vs. Brooklyn

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vs.

If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you probably already know I’m a huge Green Bay Packers fan. It’s really the only professional sports team I have any loyalty to whatsoever. I have rooted for other teams in other sports, but the Pack has been my number one team since I was literally for years old. So on Sunday, of course, they’re playing the New York Giants in the NFC Conference Championship Game, which will decide which team will play the New England Patriots (probably) in the Super Bowl on February 3.

It’s obviously a big game for both places where the teams are located and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Green Bay Mayor James J. Schmitt have placed a friendly wager with one another on the outcome of the game. The bet has been reported in both New York (in Newsday) and in Green Bay (on WBAY Channel 2).

If the Giants win, Mayor Schmitt will send Bloomberg a gift basket from “World Cheese Champion” U.S. Specialty Cheese, featuring 10 pounds of assorted cheese spreads; 20, 16-ounce aged natural strip steaks from Smithfield Beef; 3 pounds of chocolates from Beertsen’s Candies; and a pair of cheese wedge sunglasses.

If the Packers win, Mayor Bloomberg will send a specially made 10-pound New York-style cheesecake from Carnegie Deli in Manhattan; a case of Brooklyn Lager from Brooklyn Brewery; and 20 pounds of Porterhouse steak from Peter Luger Restaurant in Brooklyn, along with six bottles of Peter Luger steak sauce.

It’s nice to see Brooklyn Lager representing New York, but where’s the Wisconsin beer? Titletown Brewery is right there in town. How about a couple of growlers of Titletown’s Mediator, a Belgian Dopplebock. Hell, my friend Todd Ashman, who’s now with Fifty Fifty Brewing used to be the brewer there. There beers are decent, at least the few I’ve had a GABF. And I love their name.

If not Titletown, even though it seems the most appropriate, there are even three other breweries in Green Bay. There’s Green By Brewing, with their Hinterland Beer, also on Dousman, and then there are two Legends Brewhouse & Eatery locations.

In the end, it probably won’t matter because hopefully Green Bay will win the game and Mayor Schmitt (with his great beery name) won’t have to pay up at all, instead receiving a nice care package from New York City. Fingers crossed.

The Titletown Brewery on Dousman Street is located in an old Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Depot.

 

Gone To the Dogs?

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There was a goofy little item in today’s Taipei Times entitled Dog Brought Into Vet After Having One Too Many concerning Dingo, a Labrador from Austria, that could scarcely stand and smelled “like a beer hall.” His owner took him to see the vet and found he was drunk, not as it turned out, however, from drinking. What happened is the dog ate some fresh yeast dough that he stole off his master’s kitchen table. Apparently “[a]lcohol had formed inside his stomach as a result of the fermentation process. That left poor old Dingo drunk.”

Curiously, while looking for the drinking dog icon above, I came across an AP story from almost a year ago about a pet shop owner in the Netherlands who designed a beer specifically for his dog.

From the AP story:

[The pet shop owner] consigned a local brewery to make and bottle the nonalcoholic beer, branded as Kwispelbier. It was introduced to the market last week and advertised it as “a beer for your best friend.”

“Kwispel” is the Dutch word for wagging a tail.

The beer is fit for human consumption, Berenden said. But at euro1.65 ($2.14) a bottle, it’s about four times more expensive than a Heineken.

Apparently it’s also made with beer extract. Yum.

 

A Tip For Jesus

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You just can’t make this stuff up. According to today’s Salt Lake Tribune, two men, apparently dying for a beer, walked into what I assume was a convenience or similar type store and asked to buy a six-pack. Unfortunately, this was after 1:00 a.m. — when in Utah it’s ridiculously not legal to buy alcohol — and were told “no” by the clerk manning the store on the late shift. Undaunted, the pair asked if they could steal it. The clerk replied. “Yes, but Jesus is watching.” So the two men produced a gun and took the beer, but left a $9 tip on the counter, enough money to cover the cost of the six-pack. But according to sheriff’s deputies, the men are still suspects in a robbery, since they took the beer from the store during the prohibited time frame. It seems that despite having paid for it, technically, they still stole the beer.

 

Bibbity Bobbity Bacon

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Let me warn you at the outset that this post has absolutely nothing to do with beer at all, apart from the fact that the link was sent to me by a brewer friend. (Thanks Melissa). She shares my love of and devotion to all things bacon and thought I’d find this video funny. As she promised, it’s freakin’ hilarious. This is stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan talking about his own love for bacon. It’s amazing that anyone could riff for that long on bacon. To keep up with the world of bacon, check out I Heart Bacon or Bacon Unwrapped.

 

Rhinodrinking

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While researching an article on beer aromas last night, I stumbled upon this disturbing little gem from RU Tube, which looks to be the Russian YouTube. Since I don’t want to be the only one with this image burned into my psyche, I thought I’d share it. Take a look — press play — you know you want to.

 

 

Making Fun of WWII

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I hope my British friends and colleagues will forgive me for not noticing this before, because it’s been apparently going on for years now, but the folks at Shepherd Neame have been advertising their Spitfire Ale with a humorous campaign making fun of Wold War 2. Since the beer was named after the famous British military fighter plane, it does make sense. And if you think war isn’t something to be made fun of, all I can do is point you to Hogan’s Heroes and Roberto Benigi’s Life is Beautiful. Anyway, I thought they were humorous enough to share. Here’s a few of my favorites below, but there are many, many more at the Spitfire website.

 

 

 

 

Prosit, Proshit, Oh Shit!

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My friend and colleague Rick Sellers from Pacific Brew News sent me this photo, which originated, as far as we can tell, from either Should I Drink That? or Home Brew Talk. I thought it was funny enough to share. I’m not sure if it was taken in Germany or not, but people do clink their mugs pretty hard there. More than a few times I was actually worried something like this might happen. Apparently it does. And as an amateur photographer, this is the kind of shot that luck brings you maybe once in a lifetime. How excited must the photographer have been to get this shot? Prosit indeed.
 

For the original (and much larger) photo, click on the picture.
 

D Is For Drunk

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Back in the early 1990s, I wrote a book on bars in the county where I was living at the time, The Bars of Santa Clara County, A Beer Drinker’s Guide to Silicon Valley. In addition to the reviews of over 500 bars, I included several appendices, one of which was a collection of slang terms for being drunk. It’s amazing just how many of these there are, especially when viewed historically as our language has changed and evolved. I finally got around to converting the original list and thought today the most appropriate time to publish it again online. I have nearly 3,000 colloquialisms listed alphabetically. Please have a look and let me know if there are any you know of that I’m missing. I’ll give credit to you for any I don’t have listed when I add new submissions. Please let me any and all information you have about it, such as if it’s local, regional, etc. and where geographically it’s used, it’s origin (if you know) and stuff like that. Just post a comment or send me an e-mail with any new drunk words you know. Thanks, and happy new year.

D is for Drunk

 

The Beer Label Dog

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This is pretty cool. I stumbled upon this doing some random searching. You’ve probably seen those mosaic photo posters where tiny photos are used to create another photo along the lines of pointillist painting. The one below is an example from a software website for Mazaika, a program that facilitates making mosaic photographs. This photo of a dog is made using nothing but beer labels. Clicking on the thumbnail below will allow you to see a much larger version of the photos where you can better see the individual beer labels.