Growing up in the beautiful beer paradise of the Northwest, and even worse turning 21 and going to College in Portland Oregon simply sealed my fate. And you know what I love it. I love the fact that I could go to any number of brew pubs and ale houses and know that there would be at a minimum 15 beers on tap. I love that I could go to a different one every night for two weeks and never repeat one unless I wanted to. I also love turning my nose up at shitty beers and calling out watered down barely alcoholic water to be exactly what it is.
I realized that I like and love a few things in this world very very much. Three of these are Beer, Bourbon, and writing, the rest you either know, or I do not think at this time you need to know. Writing may seem to be a strange passion for those of you who know me. Several of you are probably looking around rather confused because when it comes to the mechanics of writing such as spelling and grammar I am a train wreck. But I like to think that I am good at stringing together the words of this mess that is the English language into some rather eloquent and descriptive verse. So have decided that now that I have been uprooted from my brewed beverage paradise and dropped smack dab in the middle of a beer purgatory I will combine these loves and start to chronicle my experiences with the beers I encounter as I crisscross the greatest country in the world, and even wander off to the domains of lesser peoples.
When it comes to beer I am very opinionated. If I like it I like it and if I hate it I might give it a second try but no more than that. There are many beers out there that fall in my drinkable category, but they are stop gaps for use only when the cream of the crop are conspicuously absent. I feel I must be upfront and honest, to me the only real beer is a dark one. I prefer Porters above all else, but it will be cold day in hell when I turn down a Stout. To be fair there are some amazing light beers out there too and I will give them the justice they deserve. I have had my fair share of excellent Blonds, Wheats, Browns, Ambers, Whites, Cask Ales, Lagers, Pilsners and what I feel is one of the most underrated and unappreciated beers out there, the Rye. I will also admit that I feel no love for the newest love child of popular beer culture, the India Pale Ale. Try and try as I might I just cannot make myself willingly partake in an IPA when there is any other good option. There have been one or two that I felt were worth a second try but as a whole I find them to be a waste of good beer ingredients and brewing time.
Besides beer I also love to imbibe in another truly American creation: Bourbon. Now we need to have another little heart to heart on this one. You may be a kindred soul of mine when it comes to beer, but if the first thing that came to mind when you saw Bourbon was a European house of royalty from France you should leave. Now one positive side action of my recent uprooting is that I am much closer to Kentucky, home to the distilleries of the greatest Bourbons available. Now technically Bourbon only has to be made in America, but its named for Bourbon county Kentucky for crying out loud, so to me a true bourbon must come from Kentucky. There is one notable exception to this in my mind, but that my friends is a discussion for a later time.
If you decide to read this you need to be prepared for it. I am to put it lightly, irreverent. I have my personal biases and they will come through in my reviews. Anyone who attempts to make it seem like they are fair and unbiased across the board is a fool lying to themselves. This will be critical, cynical, sarcastic and at times downright insulting to some people sensibilities. There will be off color jokes, political jabs and obscure historical references which if you don't get will hopefully inflame your desire to learn about where we have come from, and because like it or not history has a lot to say about where we are going.
Well look there, this is the introduction statement, I'm not even reviewing or critiquing anything and I'm already bloviating. Feel free to leave your well thought out commentary and discussion I welcome the conversation. Should anyone like to write up their own review, or lament about the lack of decent brew in their current part of the country feel free to send them my way and I'll post them up.
No comments:
Post a Comment