An old drinking friend comes to town tonight: Uncle Joe (who's movin' kinda slow--joke). He re-located from Detroit to Florida about six years ago. Born in 1946, he's the first of the baby-boomers, but more conservative than the average Depression baby.
We almost lost him about ten years ago to a massive heart attack. He actually had an out-of-body experience. It's the kind of story that pretty much seals the deal for me with regard to whether we have spiritual souls. Man's ability to abstract generalities (universals) from specific material goods was always pretty good evidence, but Uncle Joe's personal testimony tops it.
But tonight, we'll drink and not think of that scary time. We normally go to the local Hillcrest Lounge when Uncle Joe comes to town, but my Dad is hobbled and can't get out, so I'm assuming we'll hang out at my folks' and watch basketball with music playing in the background.
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"Dude, you're like, ow!, killing my buzz": Around 11 p.m. officers were dispatched to the Chapparal Bar where the bobcat went inside and attacked and bit two men. The other patrons climbed on top of bar stools to get away.
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Mormons embrace Distributist drinking before the rednecks, the hillbillies, and the Eskimos: Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. of Utah signed into law legislation that makes homebrewing beer legal. The “Exemption for Alcoholic Beverage Manufacturing License” was sponsored by Representative Christine A. Johnson and made Utah the 46th state to legalize homebrewing. The US Government made homebrewing legal on a federal level in 1978. Since then all but four states; Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Oklahoma have made homebrewing legal.
What in the world is holding back Alaska? I assume Kentucky hasn't repealed its prohibition because nobody cares. It'd be like taking time to repeal an anti-adultery law in New York: "Everyone's doing it (so to speak) and nobody cares, so why take the time to permit it?"
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Just when you thought it was safe to go into nerd beer water again: The can v. bottle debate is coming back. Beer snobs had pretty much written off the can like compact disks had written off albums, but cans are coming back according to this blogger (as are albums, according to a local disc jockey, but I suspect he's smoking crack).
The evolution of the can is a fascinating one. As recently as the 1930's, tin cans could not hold beer without exploding. And then came the advent of the liner. Initially made of vinyl (and fancy polymers today), they sealed the can, and prevented all liquid contact with the metal. Over the years, the technology has improved ten-fold and the fear of tainting our precious bevies with metal has become irrational. In fact, its seeming more and more like the can is the perfect vessel for beer.
I was fortunate to meet Dale Katechis, the founder of Oskar Blues brewery a few years ago at Brewtopia. There in the midst of all these breweries and their countless bottles was a table filled with cans. Huh? It seemed so strange. Yet for Dale, it was a subtle war cry; a shot across the stern of the micro beer community. Dale's Pale Ale was not just a great beer, but also a new philosophy: the Can is King. Backed by the belief in “less air, less light”, Dale was upbeat, passionate and grounded in his renegade ways. And the beer? Unbelievable.
