Excuse me, God, what are you trying to tell me?

SOMETIMES BEER MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS.

I try to support a good craft brewer wherever possible. I do this by buying their beer. As much as possible. This is not always easy, but I give it my best shot. I have the same attitude to the imports which are becoming more available than they were even a few years ago. I figure that if they don’t move the stock quickly enough for their shareholders liking, the retailers will pull the stock and we all miss out.

That’s my excuse for buying as much beer as I do. And I brew my own as well. Here are my tips on buying some beer.

The local hotel bottleshops are worth driving straight past because, apart from the higher pricing the staff are unlikely to know any more about beer than what colour it is. And even then most of them would be guessing. The next step is the large supermarket chain linked bottleshop. Much better than the drive thru for price and range and the knowledge level is generally a little better. Convenient, too, because you can pop in after doing the shopping and use the excuse that your menu planning required supplies for beer-battered fish and beef and ale pie. But beware; this line of reasoning will not work for eight weeks in a row. I know, I’ve tried.

And, in recent years, we have seen the emergence of the super-ultra-hyper-mega barn style of beer, wine and spirit retailing with a massive range of various lines under one very large roof. An infinitely better range of local and imported beers as well as specialty brews and seasonal beers. The prices are reasonable considering that the other option is travelling overseas to the brewery or knocking on the doors of all the craft brewers across the country.

In Australia we have the ‘luxury’ of two brands of ‘beer barn’ from which to choose.

One is Dan Murphy’s, owned by the Woolworths supermarket chain and the other is First Choice Liquor, owned by their rival, Coles Myer. Dan’s is by far the bigger and has been doing it ‘large’ for a few years longer. I have frequented Dan’s only because I can take the car out of my driveway, point it in any direction and, within four minutes, hit one in the front door. I have been keen to try the opposition since they opened about twelve months ago, but knew only which suburb it was in – no further clues in the advertising – and I wasn’t about to do the marketing man’s job for him. At least give me a road and I’d have probably driven til I found it. Would have passed eight Dan Murphy’s to get there though. I was thinking, only that morning that it really was time that I got of my jacksie and found out where the bloody joint, closest to me, was.

So on Friday night I was working away at the restaurant, talking beer with the guests and the staff and I had the pleasure of looking after a group of five young adults catching up for a night out. Most wait staff probably wouldn’t notice, but the boys – and some of the girls – had a real mix of beers on the table; Belgian blond, German Pilsner, Chill filtered, you get the deal? And so I got talking and I offered some suggestions for a nice beer to go with the food they were waiting on and started talking beer styles and trends and craft breweries and all that kind of stuff.

Come the end of the meal and the guys were ready to leave and, as Forrest Gump so beautifully put it; Just then, God showed up. Not just in the form of a sneaky handshake with the concealed tip, but in the form of Business Karma – or, a business card karma. I often get a business card from a guest, but this one was, well, special. First Choice Liquor. On the very day that I was thinking of doing something about the problem of not having done something about not having been to First Choice!

Thank you, God (and Matt) for the sign. After I get down there (now that I know where it is) I will report on my findings. And on my drinkings.

Cheers,

Prof. Pilsner

Your Beer Personality

Found this interesting bit on beergirls’ blog the other week. The quiz is designed to match your personality to a particular beer by computing the answers to a few simple beer related questions. I am going to set Dr Lager to work on setting up an Australian version.

My test revealed that I am Samuel Adams Boston Lager – lucky for me – and the description wasn’t a million miles away from the truth, either. Here it is;

“You're fairly easy to please when it comes to beer - as long as it's not too cheap.You tend to change favourite beers frequently, and you're the type most likely to take a "beers of the world" tour.When you get drunk, you're fearless. You lose all your inhibitions.You're just as likely to party with a group of strangers as you are to wake up in a very foreign place.”

Never, ever, ever have I woken up in a ‘very foreign’ place – certainly not that I am aware of – but the rest was acceptable. What the quiz needs, and what ours will deliver, is a description of the beers personality as well as an explanation for the selection of it.

Another innovation brought to you by the wonders of the modern technological world and the Beer Blokes unashamed propensity to see a good idea, rip it right off and present it as something new and bold.

Coming soon.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourbeerpersonalityquiz/

Beer and Work Part Two

Believe it or don’t, the Dr and I worked together for many years as ‘wedding consultants’ for a large family run formal hire company. Our job was to advise on styles of formal wear, measure and fit, order the stock from the warehouse and supervise the fittings. The job itself was fairly simple and free of stress. But, at busy times, the pace and the pressure could build to the point where mere mortals might crack under the strain.

The reasons for the stressful occasions were fairly obvious. Beer and the bride-to-be. You see, the shop we worked in was opposite a large establishment which specialised in the heavy retailing of alcoholic beverages as well as the shortening of pool cues by half using only brute force and the melon of an unsuspecting opponent. Rough pub. (They spent millions on it to refurbish and reinvent it only to discover that you still get the same old dickheads in ‘cos they’re too stupid to go anywhere else.)

It was also a landmark of convenience for us because we would all hit the bottle shop after our shift then retire to a mates house nearby where we would play cards and drink til’ the wee small hours talking shit and thinking of new and better ways to make more money in commissions. More on this soon. And, speaking of morons;

It was also a landmark of enough note that our clients would often use it as a meeting point for the wedding party before the initial suit selection or the final fitting. Now, if they met up and got a bit lagered for the first fitting, we were in commission heaven because the job was not only easier because the groom and his mates were more relaxed, but because we got paid a bonus to hire formal shoes in addition to the suits and EVERYONE hired shoes when they were looked after by the Doc and I and they had been drinking.

Meanwhile, the bride-to-be was busy on the other side of the shop with her uptight entourage, pimping and preening and all arguing over dress styles and how ‘Maria can’t wear that because of her Tuck Shop lady under arms’ and ‘the off the shoulder look is no good for Anna because she’s a big fatty boom-bah’ and it ‘just highlights her flud-dubbidahs’ while we were happily convincing the blokes that the suits WE chose for them were perfect in every respect. It’s amazing how a well chosen, throw away comment like; ‘mate, looks like you were born in that’ or; ‘sure you’re OK settlin’ down with just the ONE girl?’ was a winner when combined with a gut full of VB. Easy, happy days, indeed.

About this time, the bride-to-be would show up – possibly alerted by the macho laughter and school boy humour- to ensure that everything was going to plan. Her plan. We would be up to the shoe stage and she would chime in with something like; ‘You don’t need to hire shoes, no one will notice’ and we would matter-of-factly reply with; ‘That’s right. As long as you all have matching shoes of your own’.

If this didn’t get her hooked, and it usually would, we would throw in (as we walked away) ‘You’re not planning on spending much cash on the photos, anyway, are you?’ “Wait a minute . . . what do you mean?” she would stammer, thinking immediately of the $1000 deposit she just sent off to the photographer. Gotcha! ‘Oh, nothing, it’s just that the only time you really notice the different shoes is in the photos.’

“You’re ALL GETTING SHOES!!” Ka-Chingggg!!

It’s really quite funny to look back on those halcyon days when the lure of the dollar was almost insatiable. And it was not the monetary value, which was literally A dollar, which drove us but the fact that we had thought our strategy through and planned our performances to a ‘T’ over a couple of beers and then celebrated our success in the same fashion. There really is something magical about sitting around with mates and beers and reliving past glories and future conquests that still, to this day, give me a warm beery glow!

And, while we no longer work at the same job together, whenever we get together in the presence of our mates and our lagers, the conversation invariably staggers around to the days of old and the times we shared and we raise a glass to the beer which, as Homer Simpson so eloquently puts it;
“Is the cause of, and the solution to, all of life’s’ problems.”

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner