Sort of Creepy

This morning I took the girlfriend to the airport at 3:30 because I'm the best boyfriend ever. Since I was up I decided to get an early start at the brewery. Obviously there was nobody at the Wynkoop this morning and the only other souls I saw downtown were the guy delivering the newspaper and some dude riding his mountian bike through the moon lit streets of downtown. Maybe he was training for some kind of race because why the hell else would one be riding a bike at 4:30 a.m? It's mind bottling.

So I get into the brewery, turn the alarm off and turn on some lights. I also need some tunes to break the silience and to stop freaking myself out from all the little creeks and cracks of the old building. As I get in to the brew, it is actually sort of nice and almost reminds me of my homebrewing days when all I would worry about is the brew itself. When I get to the brewery later in the day, people are all around asking me various questions, the little Mexican janitor says, "My Friend," because he doesn't know much else, and I stare at everybody's food because of the constant hunger pains assoiciated with the 6'3" frame. But this morning it is just me and a mash tun full of 1290 pounds of sweet malted barley to produce Big Easy Barleywine, which should come out to about 10.5% ABV. The only unfortunate thing is that I may not have the enjoyment to trying the finished product as I am off the brewing school in 6 weeks. This beer will need to age for a couple of months to mellow out all of the residual sugars.

The janitors have finally started to show up and the managers will be here in aproximatly an hour and this will turn in to another day. But I realize how great it is when I can fully concentrate on the brew at hand and forget about all of the managerial issues, gossip and nitpick things that are also assoicated with working in a brewpub.

The New South

I am a year and a half removed from the South (graduating from the University of Georgia in 2007)  and have been very spoiled by the selection of beers in Colorado.  For Thanksgiving I went back across the Mason-Dixon line and was very happy with what I came across.  Sure, I was excited to get my hands on some Sweetwater 420, which is now a staple all over the state.  However, I usually seek out as many different beers as possible when I travel.

The first thing I noticed at just about every bar I drank at over the week was the quick spread of Yuengling in Georgia.  It just recently found its way in to the peach state even though it has long been distributed in every state touching its border.  Bringyuenglingtogeorgia.com was a driving force in this process.  If you are not familiar with the beer, I would call it a lager that probably tastes close to what the American lagers tasted like before prohibition.  Nice and smooth with a good amount of malt and a helping of hops.  Better from the tap though because it is bottled in green bottles, letting light infiltrate the beer and damage the yeast.

The city of Athens has a great beer store, Five Points Bottle Shop, which really helped me develop my palate in my late college years.  They increased their beer retail space and had Belgian beers that I didn't even come across when I was in Belgium.  Trapeze also opened downtown as a beer bar that rivals Brickstore in Decater, Georgia and even Fal

ling Rock in Denver.  Terrapin finally opened a brewery of their own in Athens after contracting their beer out for so long.

Now for the Old South.  I was at the airport leaving Atlanta wearing my freshly bought UGA hat and an eight year old gets my attention.  He very clearly pronounced, "Roll Tide."  Then I hit him in the face.  When I told the police about this, they understood and I was awarded a giant trophy.