“If you’re not working, then aren’t you incredibly bored?” — Everybody

My imagination is better than it was when I was five, so: no.

Also, I make things because I have access to grownup things like power tools and hydrometers. Instead of sitting around, I’ve been occupying myself with bookmarklets, micro-batches of cider for my brother’s pre-wedding tasting extravaganza, a deceivingly elaborate wooden board for an obscure French Canadian game, blog posts, tweets, a handful of really poorly constructed music playlists, and latkes (the tastiest of things so made).

The future contains at least a little quality time with a grinding wheel and a large hunk of metal, but small things are still things to occupy your head thinking thing with.

And travel takes up some nice time, too. Thanks, travel!

But, yeah, you can still definitely hire me. I project managed crap out of that crokinole board.

whyamiinseminary:

The second best part about baseball season - OBERON

thank you kalamazoo

I’ll make this real easy: If you’re drinking Samuel Adams Summer Ale, then you’re wrong.

You’ll find yourself on the right path when you look in your hand and see Bell’s Oberon, Smuttynose’s Summer Weizen, or something that begins with Weihenstephaner.

We don’t need any more poorly directed art films; we need more bitters. We always did.

Firestone 13 and 14 have arrived. Sobriety departing. All this in the name of having less stuff to move.

N.B.: lazy copywriters.

The story of Charo and the Sun Country Wine Cooler

daveholmes:

Never forget.

Via Beernews.org (note: my emphasis):

Controversial beer makers BrewDog have unveiled the world’s stronger and most expensive beer.

The Fraserburgh brewery has unveiled their 55% ABV The End of History tipple priced at a staggering £500 a bottle. Only 12 bottles of the blond Belgian ale have been created - with each one coming in a unique bottle made with stuffed animals dressed in eccentric outfits.

If there’s a news story about beer and a minor element is that each bottle comes at £500 pricetag ($758 in the US as of today), then something is fucking awry. For the bargain hunter’s sake, I hope it’s a 750ml bottle; for the animal that just fell victim to the world’s strangest colonoscopy, I hope it’s just the 330.

Backing up: it’s a 55% ABV beer. That’s 110 proof. That’s the proof of my favorite gin which is even high in its own right. If you don’t know your proofs, here’s a little cheat sheet:

• Budweiser: 8.4 proof
• Kahlua: 40 proof
• Grey Goose: 80 proof
• Jack Daniels: 90 proof
• Beer in a dead animal: 110 proof

BrewDog has been here before (sans experiments with taxidermy). They’ve gone back and forth with Schorschbräu - a German brewery - in a battle to see who can make the most alcoholic beer.

Here is a condensed history:

• Samuel Adams makes Utopias: 24% | 48 Proof
• Schorschbräu makes some beer and claims it’s stronger
• BrewDog makes Tactical Nuclear Penguin: 32% | 64 Proof
• Schorschbräu makes Schorschbräu Schorschbock: 40% | 80 Proof
• BrewDog makes Sink the Bismarck!: 41% | 82 Proof
• Schorschbräu ups the Schorschbock to be: 43% | need I keep doubling this for you guys?

Some of these beers were announced almost on top of each other and with jabs betwixt the two that included one brewery calling the other “sausage munchers” and the other retaliating with accustations of cross-dressing.

And now, this 110 proof thing is here. Is it a beer? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t want to talk about the Reinheitsgebot. I don’t want to talk real ale. I do want to put this in my mouth, slowly, and with an ambulance on call.

I feel like I did after I read The Stranger in ninth-grade: I can’t wrap my brain around it. I’m angry and I’m confused and I’m angry and I’m scared and I don’t know why.

I will do what I did after I read The Stranger in ninth-grade: I’m going to talk about it at parties to make me sound cool and it won’t work.

(Photo courtesy of stv.tv)

Assign yourself one (1) point every time you answer yes to a question. At the end of the quiz, tally up your score and we’ll see where you stand.

1. Do you take any care when considering the beverages you’re about to poor down your gullet?
2. Do you live in or around San Francisco or do you visit the Bay Area at least once a year?

Total up your points and add one because you like the name Camper English. You do; there’s no point in asking.

If you scored one (1) or more points, then you passed the Alcademics Quiz. To collect you prize, head over to Alcademics.com and hit the RSS feed button on the right side of the page to start having delicious, delicious, boozy knowledge poured into your reader of choice daily (or close to it).

It’s good for you.

Cazadores Awesome

Cazadores + strawberries + jar + 3 weeks + strainer + glass + ice = you have friends. Welcome to the summer months.

A few days ago I woke up with a couple emails about a new website called Pintley - Pintley as in pint, as in beer. In short:

1. The emails were both a welcome affirmation and a unsurprising condemnation of time well spent.
2. Pintley sells itself as the Pandora of beer discovery. Rate some brews and the idea is that they point you in the direction of others you’d like.
3. Pintley is pretty geeky which is good because beer geeks are geeky too. Think BSG fans with liver damage.
4. It’s up against two pretty well established players: BeerAdvocate and RateBeer. They don’t really do the recommending thing, at least not like Pintley, but they’re the big (although imperfect) folks in the surly online craft beer world.
5. If the Pintley matching algorithm is little more than suggestions based off of style guides, then they’re fucked. If it can cater suggestions based on actual taste profiles (like being able to distinguish Ipswich IPA from Plinny the Elder) then Pintley would be pretty powerful. Even better would be recommendations based on common yeast strains (this would be intense), known malt builds (malt characteristics might be the only way to go), and hop varieties (probably the easiest of this three).
6. Discovery is important to beer geeks, but after you’re fully indoctrinated it’s mostly centered around recently released beers or vintages or beers that you can’t get in your region anyways.
7. The rest of the pintley offering is old news but still a pleasant sight since the discovery aspect can’t be expected to provide enough for a community by itself. Related: they better be good at community building. Related: beer helps with that.
8. I’ll give it a go, but no review just yet. Reason one is it’s still in beta and reason two is something to do with my laziness.

I wrote too much, but here’s all you really need to know:

Today, go buy a beer you’ve never had before. Rinse. Repeat.

Via Tom