Baby Huey & The Babysitters - Hard Times

Cold, cold eyes upon me they stare
People all around me and they’re all in fear
They don’t seem to want me but they won’t admit
I must be some kind of creature up here having fits

From my party house, I’m afraid to come outside
Although I’m filled with love I’m afraid they’ll hurt my pride
So I play the part I feel they want of me
And I pull the shades so I won’t see them seein’ me

Havin’ hard times in this crazy town
Havin’ hard times, there’s no love to be found
Havin’ hard times, in this crazy town
Havin’ hard times, there’s no love to be found

From my party house I feel like meetin’ others
Familiar faces, creed and race, a brother
But to my surprise I find a man corrupt
Although he be my brother, he wants to hold me up

Havin’ hard times in this crazy town
Havin’ hard times, there’s no love to be found
Havin’ hard times, in this crazy town
Havin’ hard times, there’s no love to be found

So many hard times…
Sleepin’ on motel floors
Knockin’ on my brother’s door
Eatin’ Spam and Oreos and drinkin’ Thunderbird baby

(Wail) In this crazy town
Havin’ hard times, there’s no love to be found
Havin’ hard times, in this crazy town
Havin’ hard times, there’s no love to be found

I’m sick and tired
I’m sick and tired of payin’ dues baby
And I’m sick and tired of havin’ so many hard, hard times baby
And from my party house, from my party house

This scene immediately came to mind when I saw a Miller Lite ad touting that it’s “triple hops brewed”.  It made the Bruce Banner beer geek in me go a little Hulk.  Saying your beer is “triple hops brewed” is like Honda saying their cars come with four wheels.  Most beer is brewed with three hop additions.  Bittering hops, flavor hops and aroma hops, in that order.  Miller is cleverly taking ownership of hop additions the same way Lucky Strike used the toasting of tobacco to differentiate its brand from the competition.

But this is nothing new.  Miller Genuine Draft is “cold filtered”.  Coors Light is “frost brewed”.  Budweiser is “beechwood aged”.  And now Miller Lite is “triple hops brewed”.  Ninety percent of the beer market is made up of American Lagers or Light American Lagers by these three breweries.  When you’re essentially making the same beer as the other guy, you need to find some way to stand out.  For the uninformed beer drinker, which are a majority of Americans, these buzzwords help them do that.  The average beer drinker feels satisfied about their purchase thinking they’ve made an informed choice.  When in reality there really wasn’t one to begin with.  So Don Draper was right, advertising is based on one thing - happiness.  And you know what they say, ignorance is bliss.

This is not how you get a free beer.  This is how you get your head combed back and then tossed onto the sidewalk.

I don’t know what I was more offended by, the fact he pushed a girl or that he believed MLK’s martyrdom had entitled him to a free beer.  Either way, pretty sad.

Lager is the most common, base level of beer against which all other brews are judged.

A base level of beer?  What the hell does that mean?  And why are all other beers judged against lagers?  But it gets worse

Characterized by a smooth but crisp bite, it’s brewed over a four- to 12-week period in very cool temperatures using a yeast that ferments at the top of the barrel.

WRONG!  Lager yeast ferments at the BOTTOM of the barrel, ALE yeast ferments at the top.  I stopped reading the article after that.  I skimmed the rest of the way and soon realized this was the Natty Ice of beer articles.  In fact it almost seemed like the person who wrote the thing secretly despised beers.  This has inspired me to write my own article for beer beginners.  I’ll have something up by next week.

On the job hunting front I’m hopeful.  I have my fingers crossed about a potential position at one of the biggest craft breweries.  But they have no exact response date so I have to wait and see if they call.  It’s tough to find a job in the industry even in the Bay Area.  It’s still a small industry and there isn’t much turn over.  I haven’t given up yet but I am slowly coming to the realization that I might not even be working in the industry prior to opening my own place.  It’s not completely crazy either.  There are plenty of very successful brewpubs and breweries that have been started by people without any prior experience other than being homebrewers, the Brooklyn Brewery being one of them.  That was started by a journalist/homebrewer and his friend who worked in commercial loans.  Now it’s one of the largest and fastest growing craft breweries in the nation.  It’s not something I’d want to do but I have to be open to the idea that it might have to be that way.

On Wednesday I arrived at Gordon Biersch at around ten in the morning.  They had already started heating the mash by the time I got there.  Knowing we had a long day of brewing ahead of us John suggested we take in some “fortification” and had me sample all of the beers they had available.  It turns out there was to be much “fortification” through out the rest of the day and the next.  And not for without good reason, brewing is hard work!

I started off the day by hauling nine sacks of malt up to the second floor where their mill is located.  Each sack of malt weighs 55 lbs.  My job was to open each bag, carry it up a few steps to the mill’s hopper and pour it into the mill.  Sounds simple enough right?  Not quite.  Each step, from opening up the sacks, hoisting the sack onto my shoulder, walking up the steps and finally pouring the malt into the mill came with specific instructions from Rich.  The job of a brewer can take its toll on the body.  Your day involves heavy lifting, pushing, pulling, turning and twisting.  If you can manage to do each task as efficiently as possible, however small the adjustment, over the course of the day it adds up and you’ll be doing your body a service. Rich really made an effort to show me the little tricks of the trade.  Not only to make the work day easier but most importantly so that the work day was safe.  He struck some fear in my heart as he never hesitated to remind me of all the ways I could burn (heat and chemical), bump, fall, slip, pinch, break and bludgeon myself through out the day.

On the second day I brought in the rauchbier I had brewed with Augi a year ago to get some feedback.  Rauchbier is a German style of smoked beer.  I was really eager to get their opinion because German style beer is what Gordon Biersch does, John even learned the trade in Germany and both of them are huge fans of rauchbiers.  After chilling the beer on ice I poured them each a small glass.  One of the things I really liked about this beer was the great clarity it had.  But unfortunately the hour ride on the Muni had thrown all the yeast in suspension.  I mentioned this to them and they both agreed it was fine and as brewers they liked the flavor yeast gives the beer.  Rich said the beer was “fun” and paired it with the ham sandwich he’d brought to work.  John observed there was some oxidation in the beer but considering it was a year old it had held up pretty well.  He also said the first thing he looks for in a beer is balance and that my rauchbier was nicely balanced between the malt and hops.  I noticed that the smokiness was much more subdued compared to when I first tasted it a year ago.  I’d never had a true German rauchbier before I brewed my own so I don’t have any kind of reference for this style of beer.  After getting their mostly positive feedback it really makes me want to explore this style more and eventually brew another one after I get a good idea of what’s out there.

After two days of brewing we’d made 50 barrels (100 kegs) of Märzen.  All the spent grain had to be taken out to the waste container unfortunately the service elevator was broken so we had to tow these huge bins of wet grain through the parking garage then push each bin from one end of the building to the other where the waste container was located.  It was raining that afternoon and I was getting soaked pushing this bin through the courtyard of the building.  As I was passing through I could look into the windows of the offices on the first floor.  I saw young professionals my age sitting in front of desks, staring into their huge flat screen monitors, looking warm in their business casual dress.  Then I saw my own reflection in the window.  Wet from head to toe, pushing what I’m guessing is 400-some lbs. of spent malt in a bright blue bin, wearing a t-shirt, cargo pants and a pair of dirty work boots.  And to top it off I’m working for free.  I realized at that moment although we were only separated by a distance of a few feet, we might as well have been existing in different dimensions.  Then I had my second realization…I wasn’t envious of them one bit.  I actually liked what I was doing.  I smiled and said to myself, “This is beer baby!” and kept pushing forward.

The Year in Beer: Beer Drinking in America by Volume

I started off with an Allagash Four, then on to another quadrupel, a bottle of Ommegang’s Three Philosophers split with my buddy Augi.  We finished the day off with a real treat, Brasserie de Rocs’ Triple Impériale, a Belgian dark strong along with a cheese and salami plate. One of the most interesting things was when Augi challenged me to quiz his girlfriend, who does not drink beer at all, on beer and brewing. I was amazed, she could name me all the main ingredients in beer, as well as different types of hops and even processes in fermentation. Funny enough, she probably knew more about beer than 95% of beer drinkers.

By the end of it Augi and I agreed we would try to make going to The Trappist a Sunday ritual. It might take some more effort to convince his girlfriend.