Back in the Saddle again, or A Quest for St. George.

*Dusts off the cobwebs*

Right so, been a while since I or anyone else for that matter has posted on this blog. I haven't had all that much to say. I could go on about graduation a few days ago, or family or what not, but Instead, I'll regal you with a story of a quest of a sorts.

Some background:

This past semester at Virgina Tech, I took a class called World Regions. Very fun class. The teacher is an eccentric individual. In fact, Eccentric is a bit of an understatement, but whatever. In anycase, he thinks hes a super hero. Or well, he has an alter ego as a super hero. That too doesn't matter much, but it should give you an idea of how awesome he is. 

Its his second class that matters, the one I wasn't enrolled in: Geography of Wine. Neat, right? A class devoted to the origins of wine. Long and short, the man knows his wine, his beer and his booze. And he talks about it, a lot. I've gotten a ton of recommendations of all kinds of stuff to drink from him, usually over Drinks at some place like Soulvakis, the local Greek place (yeah, that's right, I've been drinking with my Professor. Hell, he bought me and my Girlfriend lunch once).

Right so, background on the professor, check. Last day I am in Blacksburg, I decided to stop at the Vintage Cellar on the way out of time. The Vintage Cellar specializes in wines and rare (read that as not your Budweiser) beers. They tend to have all kinds of stuff from all over the place, including "local" guys. I've been blessed in Blacksburg with 2 local breweries: The Bull and Bones, which is also a restaurant, and the Blacksburg Brewing Co, which makes an excellent Pilsner (first One I had that I liked. Sadly, it's not bottled....I'm gonna miss that beer...)

Anywho, I'm there to pick up a beer for my Uncle. He came down to Hampton to watch my Grandmother while my Mom came up to see me graduate, and I knew he liked beers by the St. Peters brewery. So I got him some, and I picked up a bottle of wine for a friends approaching 21st birthday. While I'm there however, I hear someone call my name from behind the counter. Low and behold, its Prof. Boyer, my World Regions Professor and drinking buddy. Turns out he spends a lot of his free time there. He and I and my folks and girlfriend get to talking. We get to going on about local beers. And this is when I find out that, low and behold (I like that phrase, "Low and Behold"....I can make a dick joke out of it, I'm sure), that there's a Local Brewery in my hometown of Hampton, VA. The St. Georges Brewing Co. Total shocker, let me tell you. 

Well, I get home. Give my Uncle his beer, and find out that he bought a 6 pack of St. George's India Pale Ale (for those not in the know, an IPA is a kind of beer. It involves a specific method of brewing that I don't really know, as in all honesty, I don't really like IPA's. I think the official term is too hoppy. Its been ages since I've had one, and I'm not exactly in a rush to see if my opinion has changed now that I drink beer quasi-regularly. I'm sure I'll encounter one again sooner or later, but I'm not gonna actively search them out). He also had one of the Porters (a darker kind of beer similar to a Stout) for dinner the night before. Get this: he found them at the local grocery store. Not a specialty store, the local Farm Fresh. Fuckin A.

So the next day, I try a few of the Local Farm Fresh's till I find the one he went to (turns out to be the one that has the Star Bucks that I used to work at in it. Small world). I see a 6 pack of Porter, a Six pack of IPA, and this:

The St. George's DragonPack, or Sampler pack. It has 6 beers: Porter, Lager, Pilsner, Spring Lager, Nut Brown Ale, and American Brown Ale ( I have no idea what the Difference between the two are, but if I had to bet, it'd be their Nuts). I quickly deduced that this was not all that St. Georges had to offer, but it was all that was on the shelf (Other beer's offered include: Golden Ale, India Pale Ale (mentioned earlier), Summer Ale, Fall Bock, and Winter Stout. As you can imagine, the last three are the other seasonal ales, like the Spring Lager, that are available when any reasonable person would imagine, as their names would suggest). So, after a quick debate, I went ahead and nabbed the awesome DragonPack. $9 later, myself and my new shiny box of beer were in the car and on the way home, bottles rattling as they eagerly awaited a stomach acidly death. 

Thus was the Quest for St. Georges Beer.

In an effort to make myself do more blog posts, I shall be trying these beers over the next week or so. One a night, when I have the option to do so. The drinking started last night (May 19th), tho the actual blog post for the first drink I tried (the Porter) will be up tomorrow. I am keeping my notes on the beers in my handy dandy Moleskin Notebook (purchased yesterday, before I decided to go on a beer quest), and will provide pictures. I may also include input from my Dad, who is willing to try some of the beers. Not every one tho, because some nights he just doesn't feel like trying a beer. 

So, you've all been warned. I promise the next few blog posts from me (ie, 6-7) will not be nearly as long as this one, and will end with a special post (I'm not telling what it is, but I'm sure someone will figure it out sooner or later. Feel free to guess). In the mean time, I have some drinking to do. G'nite!

PS: this blog is cross posted on my Art of Manliness blog page.

small gripe

So, the superbowl is tonite. My team didn't make it, but I decided as soon as I found out the Redskins wouldn't be in the playoffs, to root form whom I thought would be the most unlikely candidate to win: the Cardinals. And since they made it to the superbowl, I'm pretty entertained, and will be cheering them on all night. Heres the problem tho:

I'm going over to my friends apartment. There are 3, count em, 3 High Def 36 inch or larger Plasma Screen Tv's there, with HD Cable. Now, 36inches aint that big, but its a damn sight better then what I got. I watched the superbowl there last year on HD, and it was awesome. If I can, I will never watch the big game one something that isnt HD. I digress. 

The game is probably going to last a while. Its a Sunday night, tho, and that means the busses stop running to my friends apartment at 10:30. Odds are, the game wont be over by then. Here in lies my issue. Why the hell wont the University do something smart for once, and extend the bus hours on nights like this. Last year we had reports of a good deal of students getting plastered and having trouble getting back to Campus. Not everyone has friends they can call on for a lift. I'm lucky. One of my friends agreed to pick me up this year after the game. Not everyone will get that chance. 

All I'm saying is, the University I go to should really use their heads some times, and have the busses run a little later on Sunday night, when theres a big game like the Superbowl on. I realize it's not a University sponsered event, but the guys in charge should know that most students are going to be interested, and probalby off campus, and probably drunk to boot. I wish the people in charge would use their heads some times....

Too soon?

So im not sure how many ppl know or not, but the other day, there was an incident in one fo the residence halls on campus. Long and short, one dude chopped off a chicks head in one of the on campus coffee shops in a dorm. Pretty gahstly, esspecially considering Virginia Tech has a small history of students snapping and killing people :p

Something that struck me as stupid was some comments/ letters to the editor from concerned partents. Some parents want to "ban asian students" from attending Tech, since both incidents were perpertratied by asian students. Personally, thats pretty stupid. But its sad how quickly people jumped on that as a solution. Other parents are telling their kids "not to make any friends with Asian students" or "to keep a distance from the Asians". Meanwhile, the university is bending over backwards shitting itself, because all those security measures they put in place to protect studetns really didnt stop homedude from hacking of this chicks head with a kitchen knife. It's made for an interesting week, to say the least.

But to hte point of my rant (other then keeping this place alive).  I'm sitting in class, and my teacher is ranting on about something. Is on topic, and he's doint it in a funny way. Its great. Suddenly, a student complains, and suggests the teacher might want to move onto the next subject. Ballsy student. The teachers reply "well, what are you gonna do, Chop my head off?". Class kinda goes quite, then about maybe half of us start laughing. I'm left wondering tho....Too Soon?