BEERGRIMAGE Chapter I
A few years ago I spent some time in a funny little country called Denmark. I studied there for several months alongside some of the biggest tools The Land of Milk & Honey has to offer. These are the kinds of people that think it a great idea to say the following:
“Aw, yeah bro, you know, I got off the plane and I went and got a Döner kebab (editor’s note: he pronounces it “dooner”) because that’s just what I do!”
So immediately I pledged not to let myself be cornered again by one of these worthless clumps of flesh with flapping eviscerations for mouths. Luckily I did meet a handful of legitimate human beings while I was there and to this day I hold them very close to my charcoal heart (it filters the ice-water running through my veins).
And so three of us recently decided to meet up in Southern California for a reunion and make a trip up the cost visiting wineries and microbreweries along the way. Little did we know at the time that gas was going to be almost $5 a gallon and that most of California would be turned into a goddamn fire-pit. Not that either of these factors would have deterred us from undertaking this Quest for Beer…
Anyhow, I flew out of Pittsburgh on July 4th without much problem. The only thing noteworthy was how I am still shocked that people sometimes still dress up like they are going to the prom when they fly. There was one woman waiting in line with me that looked like she was going to a J-Lo video shoot and/or a convention for fuckers who think they’re better than everyone who prefers to fly in comfort. My layover was in Atlanta whose airport is a hive of Popeyes and drones trying to sell you credit cards and cell phones. Some man proclaimed that I looked like the kinda guy who needs a credit card. I told him he kinda looked like a hungover Orlando Jones and he made this face 
On my flight, I was almost promoted to business class because one of my flight attendants thought my Vanilla Muffins pin was “cute.” It didn’t happen and I was left wondering what might have been if I had explained to her the basic tenets of Sugar Oi. Greg’s wife Karine was kind enough to pick me up from LAX (not pronounced Lacrosse, even as a joke) while he and Michael watched fireworks. Now I may appear in print that I am a joyless man, but I assure you I am even more loveless in person. While I don’t necessarily hate fireworks, I do utterly despise them so much that I wince with nausea at the mere thought of them. I think a lot of it has to do with the time my dad went down south and bought a bunch of crazy fireworks that PA residents are not allowed to enjoy. Anyhow, the display was going fine until one of them tipped over, pointed directly in our direction, and started shooting screaming rockets at us. We can make the argument that this is probably the root of my deep loathing of fireworks, but honestly they are more like sharks or bears or light-bulbs. I hate and fear what I do not understand. But quite frankly I do not want to understand any of that shit and would much rather stew in my stinky stew of hate and stupidity.
So it was with great sadness that I learned that my friends had opted to go watch fireworks instead of picking me up from the airport. I spent my plane ride thinking about how I would have to murder Greg and Michael in the Redwood Forest and leave their corpses to be eaten by bears and/or Bigfoot. Luckily for them, Greg’s uncle handed Karine and I drogas for no good reason when we got to his place and my murderous plot was forgotten in a haze of fireworks.
So lighting off fireworks under the influence of drogas is probably not the best way of getting over your fear of them. Especially if they are all labeled with images raging gorillas and other bloodthirsty beasts–KING KONG EXPLODER. FIERY TIGER FOUNTAIN. INSANE DEMON SNAKE MADE OF FIRE AND SHOOTING ROCKETS AT YOU IN YOUR DRUGGED OUT STUPOR. Later I ate a cold hamburger and convinced myself it was totally raw and full of E. Coli.
The next day we went out for Dim Sum for breakfast. Even though I was familiar with Dim Sum before, it never really seemed like a “breakfast” thing to me. Actually, it still doesn’t. Call me old fashioned fuddy duddy (go ahead motherfucker, just try), but weird dumplings of pork, beef, and weird sea-meat does are not usually categorized as breakfast in my brain. It’s a good thing that I am rather indiscriminate in regards to the disgusting things I’m willing to consume at any hour of the day or else I would have thrown a big stupid fit in the car (because of withdraw from the drogas).
From there we headed for Escondido to visit Stone Brewery. No members of DisreantiyouthhellchristbastardassmanX were sighted, but it was not a total loss. The brewery itself is very modern despite a bunch of boulders strewn about. The outside beer garden was fairly impressive, but also extremely hot. We opted to sit in the shade at the outdoor bar. From there I got the following:
The Duchesse is a Flemish Red Ale. It’s fairly sweet, but finishes with that weird sour taste that my comrades didn’t enjoy too much. On the other hand, I got really excited when I saw it on draft.
Next I had the Stone Smoked Porter. There may be some people in this fucked up world that might think that drinking such a heavy brew on a hot day is not “appropriate.” My answer to those people is that I am a grown man and can drink whatever I want. I would have just as soon drank a cup of molasses if the idea had tickled me just right.
This Smoked Porter is much more drinkable than the Rauchbiers that it’s influenced by. The smokiness is kind of hidden behind all the normal flavors you’d come to expect from a porter in 2008 (vanilla, chocolate, coffee, toffee, blah blah blah blah), but overall I found this a little lighter than I expected.
Overall, Stone’s was a pretty great experience. Everything I had anticipated and even a little bit more. The only downside is most of their merchandising strikes me as the kind of stuff yuppie beer drinkers tend to thrown in your face to let you know they are hip to beer.
Congratulations. You drink beer.
Next we drove over to Vista to visit Green Flash. After Stone’s, I was expecting a similar brew-pub setting, but this is not the case. Green Flash is kind of just a warehouse with a bunch of huge fermentors, mash tuns, and kettles. Very bare bones and utilitarian. There was a table set up for people to get 4 oz samples for 25 cents each. I tried the Belgian Triple because I’ve had their IPA before. It should be said that on this trip I was trying to steer clear of a lot of IPAs. While I enjoy the style, I’m by no means a “hophead.” Far too often do breweries just decide to dump pound after pound of hops into the kettle without balancing it with anything else. The result is too often something that tastes like industrial cleaner instead of beer.
Anyhow, the Triple was pretty fantastic. I was expecting to gag on the sweetness kind of like when you go to a birthday party and you try to sneak a whole handful of icing from the cake without anyone knowing. Then you wanna barf because it’s just too much. Yes. Exactly like that. I think this comes from what you’d call “residual sugars,” which this did not have much of.
Next I had “Le Freak,” another Belgian. They called it a “strong ale” I think, but this was much more like a Belgian IPA than anything. Again, this surprised me, especially because it was supposedly 9% abv, but didn’t contain any of the bite I’d expect. It went down smooooooth and all that other flowery stuff you read in beer reviews.
After Green Flash I was pretty drunk and I vaguely remember heading towards the coast for Pizza Port. If I had been a little more in control of my facilities and was not afraid that a giant globule of drool would leave my mouth as soon as I opened it to blabber on about something, I probably would have gone on and on about how cool the place was. In retrospect, it was kind of a gaudy in the way that every restaurant by the beach has to decorate itself in as much sea paraphernalia as possible. You know–nets, surf boards, etc., etc. Regardless, the pizza was pretty awesome considering it was West Coast pizza and the Pale Ale was a Pale Ale.
After this we had back to LA and hit up some party in a swanky downtown hotel where I was told a member of Crom was in the room with me. Later we had Michael impersonate a guest at the hotel (”Jimmy”) which allowed us to access the rooftop party. It looked suspiciously like high school so we escaped without harm. Some people in the lobby got turned away and asked us, “was it cool?!!?” Also, someone tried to sell Greg some bootleg DVD’s of what I imagine were some kind of underground “fight club.” I imagine this because he asked Greg, “Hey man, do you like fights?” I thought I was going to have to brawl in an elevator. Which would have been, like, so LA, man.
Anyhow, there was a giant foot in the tub and I sat on it.
Coming soon: Wine Country, Swimming in “The Red Triangle,” Burritos, Bigfoot, Forest Fires, and more Beer!