October 31st, 2008

Beer of the Unknown

Happy Halloween everyone! Do you all have big plans tonight? Big spooky plans?

You all better not have big spooky plans because we moved the Halloween Party at our house to tomorrow night to accommodate all the “really important” and “serious” and “non-celebratory” things everyone claimed they had up, like “working” and “visiting an ailing relative.” Who’s ever heard of a Halloween Party the day after Halloween? The costumes will seem ridiculous! The jack-o-lanterns will be wilting into abstraction! The candy will be on sale for like 80% of…. Nevermind. You all are geniuses.

Tonight Steph and I will probably be cleaning up in preparation for tomorrow, and…handing out candy to trick-or-treaters? Do kids still trick-or-treat? On one hand, I hope so, because this is the first Halloween that I’ve had a front door that faces a neighborhood street with a small porch in front of it with a light I can leave on, letting dressed-up children know it is cool for them to come up and ask for candy and that I will make a big deal about their costumes and let them take a handful of fun-size Snickers (not just one) as 90% of the adults in my childhood did. Oh yes, I will pay it forward. On the other hand, I kind of hope kids don’t trick-or-treat anymore ’cause: more candy for me.

October 31 is an important date in Steph-and-I lore, as on this day in 1999 we made the transition from two people who constantly hung around in each other’s dorm rooms and walked each other to class and ate virtually every meal together, to two people who constantly hung around in each other’s dorm rooms and walked each other to class and ate virtually every meal together and kissed on the mouth. So much to say about those days, but I’ll save it for another time. All I’ll tell you is that Halloween was on a Sunday that particular year and that we went to a costume party on Friday night — Steph as a 1920s flapper, me as a straightjacketed mental patient — and that we walked home from the party together, both sort of knowing this thing we had was going somewhere, and that it was pretty chilly out and that I took off my straightjacket and wrapped it around her! I’m sorry, but that kind of quirky, endearing shit is only supposed to happen in movies. This is the one moment we have that is like this, so I never miss an opportunity to share it. Steph and I used to mark our “dating anniversary” with presents and fancy dinners (Applebee’s), but now that we have a “for real anniversary” two weeks before, we’ve whittled it down to making sworn statements that we comprehend the significance of this particular day while we are on our way to various Halloween festivities. I’m grateful for this, because Steph’s birthday is two weeks later in November and then we’ve got Christmas right after. A guy could injure his brain trying to come up with all those gift ideas in a row.

Overshadowing all the candy and costumes and acquisitions of true love, however, is my unbearable curiosity about how the beer is going to turn out. If you’ve been keeping up with Witchger Projects you know that my neighbor Jerry and I made a batch of Pumpkin Spice Ale, and our plan is to serve it at the day-after-Halloween party.

I was completely clueless as to what was going on throughout the entire brewing process, but Jerry seemed to understand it, plus he was already in possession of all the necessary tools and equipment, so I have reason to be optimistic about it.

Homebrewing requires a lot of patient waiting, as you let the yeast do its job and just sort of keep an eye on it and not let the container get too gunky or hot, and it’s killing me. I want to know how my beer is going to taste. Now.

After spending several evenings in my kitchen, pacing the floor in front of my fermenting container, I decided that just because our very first beer wasn’t even ready to drink yet, that didn’t mean it wasn’t time to take things to the next level.

We call our fake brewery “Sheffield Brewing Company” because we live on Sheffield Road. I sat down with pen and paper and Adobe Illustrator and made us some graphics. The one thing that kept coming up when I looked “Sheffield” up online was the English town by that name, and its mention in Canterbury Tales. Something vaguely medieval seemed appropriate for a brewing company, so here’s what I came up with:

The logotype.

The (probably too illustrative) mark.

The combination of the logotype and mark.

The logo with a (playing-it-safe) slogan.

A layout for the Pumpkin Spice Ale, which can be turned into signage for the keg and labels for the bottles.

Ironically, I spent far more time designing this stuff than I did actually brewing beer, but I figure an elaborate visual identity can only improve our beverages. (“Geez, this stuff is bitter! I can’t stand it. Wait, look at all those boxes with words in them. These people clearly know how to make good beer. I will keep drinking ’til I acquire a taste for it.” “There are large chunks of malt floating in my glass! Wait, does this packaging make use of the classical typeface Janson? Ok, this stuff is actually pretty good.” “Dear God, this has the exact same odor and consistency as motor oil! Wait, is that a 3-point stroke around that logo? Bob and Jerry: please accept the key to the city.”)

Of course I hope our ale doesn’t need the aesthetic enhancement. 24 hours from now, we’ll find out! I’m clinging to the edge of my seat. Most suspenseful Halloween ever.

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April 4th, 2007

Mazal tov…ya’ll!

That’s right, today I am truly a man!….

Ok, maybe that’s taking it a little far, given the reality of the event I’m about to purvey…. But today I am truly a bluegrass musician! That’s pretty exciting too.

I have claimed to be a banjo player for years, meticulously mastering “breaks” (in styles both Scruggs and clawhammer) and learning songs with names like “Old Joe Clark” and “Cripple Creek.” But it wasn’t until a few days ago that I, after years of curiosity, got the chance to sample some of the infamous, homemade beverage that is permanently attached to southern folk music.

Yes, I’m talking ’bout “The ’Shine.”

“White Lightnin’.”

“Mountain’ Dew.”

I’m sure you’re just dying to know all about the circumstances and supplier. Yeah, it would be fun if I put those juicy little details online, wouldn’t it?…so I can get sued and fired and into all kinds of unimaginable trouble. You’d like that wouldn’t you? Well my better judgment is telling me to keep all this stuff anonymous. Nice try, internet.

I think I can safely reveal that a) it was given to me in an ordinary drinking-water bottle that had been opened, emptied, refilled with the precious liquid, and then had the lid screwed back on and b) I began consumption after receiving an: “A little goes a long way.” A succinct caveat, but, being the only caveat I think I have ever heard from this person, I knew the stuff was to be used with caution.

Well…. Well, after all this build up, I feel like I owe you some sort of crazy drinking story. And I wish I could give you one, but honestly all I did was take a grand total of three quick swallows from the plastic bottle. Quick, terrible, awful swallows.

I can take a hit or two of normal, store-bought liquor, be it vodka, tequila, or whiskey, right from the bottle, hardly cringing at all, and I can tell you this stuff was on another level. After each swig my tongue and throat felt like I had swallowed a shot of gasoline and a lit match (in that order). I then flooded my palette with Coca-Cola. I ceased any and all consumption less than a minute from when I’d started.

I did have a pleasant buzz for the next several hours, despite only consuming about 3 oz. of liquid, which is kind of cool. So while I may not have an anecdote about how I got stuck in my dorm’s elevator at 2:00 am and the cops had to come get us out and I was totally underage and I had to keep my cool or I would have been arrested, to offer up to you, I do have these widely-applicable words of advice:….

A little goes a long way.

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