Monday Morning Hangover: The Hangover Strikes Back
I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one that spent a good portion of a weekend morning suffering from a Savor-induced hangover. But while I sometimes wake up hungover and wonder if the night was worth the cost, I had no doubt yesterday that Savor, with its vast array of beers, well-paired food and amazing group of fellow beer-lovers, was completely worth the hangover.
Now, I’ll just have to deal with the withdrawal that comes from having so many good beers from breweries not available in the DC region. While my hangover drawer was able to help me deal with the hangover from Savor weeknight events, I do not know if there is a cure for the overall withdrawal of those events. Hopefully, more and more breweries will at least see how amiable DC beer drinkers are to ‘tap take-overs’ and special events such as limited tastings and ‘meet the brewer’. Better yet, I hope the brewers, who are not yet in the DC market, left here with the thought of “we have to get our beer to DC.”
Much thanks goes out to JBass who reconnoitered the event on Friday night and gave the rest of us a head’s up about some of the beers that would run-out quickly, such as the delicious Odell Woodcut No 5, the sour Avery Dihos Dactylion, and either of Cigar City’s brews. Out of the beers that I clearly remember, the Odell Woodcut No 5 was my favorite; although, I do give props to Cigar City’s ability to give the Humidor IPA its cigar flavored aftertaste and to make the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie taste exactly like one.
Few will be shocked that outside of the actual beer tasting, my biggest surprise came from finding Texas’s St Arnolds Brewery at the event. When the first Savor brewery list was released, I searched it to see if a Texas brewery made it but came up empty. A buddy of mine from Texas said the same thing. It was a pleasant surprise. While I forced the Fancy Lawnmower — a brew I have previously reviewed and think is a great summer beer — on some of my friends, it was easy to tell that, after having the Woodcut No 5, they were not head-over-heels in love with it. They did claim it would be a great BBQ beer though.
What were y’alls’ favorite beers or surprises (aside from the killer hangover the next day)?
Monday Morning Hangover: Redneck Tip on Fighting Mosquitoes
Busch knows it's clientele: Camo and Blaze Orange packaging to make sure that even drunk, you won't shoot the beer.
It’s the return of the Monday Morning Hangover and this edition’s beer related trick/tip is just in time for BBQ season.
While growing up in rural Texas, I often had somewhat random pieces of wisdom imparted on me. Some of it good; some of it bad, but today, I’m going to share with you one of the tricks that I was taught in my younger years but couldn’t really test until I was in college.
See, as a child, I spent most of my Fall weekends doing the stereotypical Texas activities. On Friday night, I’d go to watch my hometown’s high school football team lose yet again and then head out to the local hunting camp for the weekend. Needless to say, you meet a lot of down-to-earth, friendly people. Not only will they give you suggestions on where to find deer, help you to field-dress and process it, and get up early to ensure you go out with a good hearty breakfast, they also share little tid-bits of vital information, one of which was a way to be less attractive to mosquitoes. Now, I can’t remember who told me this trick, but it has been tested a la Mythbusters style and proven to at least be a bit true:
Drinking Busch Light keeps mosquitoes away. Don’t ask me why this is true (best guess, the beer is so awful that mosquitos don’t even want to have it second-hand), but empirical evidence did validate it. On a camping trip during college, I decided to test this idea. While everyone else was drinking Bud Light/Coors Light/Miller Lite, I reached for my tall boys of Busch Light. The next day, I did have a few mosquito bites but no where near the number of my fellow campers. Since then, I’ve always grabbed at least a sixer of Busch Light when heading out into the woods.
Anyone out there hear about this trick?
— Shintern1909
Monday Morning Hangover: Google Reader, the sane alternative to Twitter
I am a late adopter of social media and still a bit upset about my moment of weakness when I signed up for facebook. Since that moment though, I’ve refused to join sites such as MySpace, Flikr, Four-square, and, most importantly, Twitter. Of the three, twitter has the most to offer: where you can find out what food trucks are in your neighborhood, special deals that are going on at local establishments, celebrities’ idiotic thoughts, and random epiphanies from people while sitting on the john.
I’m only too happy to miss out on those; however, Twitter is a key medium to an important bit of information — changes in draft lists. Forward thinking beer bars have been disseminating new tap info via Twitter for a while, but now more and more bars are picking up the trend. All this has made it even more difficult for me to resist taking the plunge and joining Twitter.
That was until I discovered Google Reader. Not only does Google Reader allow me to follow blogs (such as this one) and newspapers, it also allows me to follow Twitter feeds without having to be an actual Twatter Tweeter. Sure, new feeds are not constantly coming through during the day (typically, my Reader updates each Twitter feed around five times a day), but that’s an additional advantage as my phone/email/however followers are notified is not constantly going off. Furthermore, Google has finally released a good version of Reader for, at least, the Android OS, so you can follow tweets while out at bars.
Personally, I only follow the few places that I live near and am likely to go to over the course of a week or rotate good beers often: RFD, Churchkey, Meridian Pint, and Room 11 (has a guest tap each Tuesday). I’m sure there are several other good beer bars that I should keep up with (Black Squirrel and bars on H St NE come to mind) — I just don’t go to those areas frequently enough.
I also suggest following DCBeer.com and (shameless plug) JStreetBeer.com. With so many events and new beers coming to DC, these two sites can reduce the number of times you face-palm yourself because you did not hear about an amazing beer tasting event or new beer to try.
Monday Morning Hangover: Wristbands at Concerts
Author’s Note: Sorry about the delay. I had intended to write this over the long weekend, but most of that time was used for booze, food, bowling, and football watching. All of which was typically done whilst nursing a beer/food hangover from the previous day/morning. Happy Thanksgiving + 4 day.
This is a quick and easy MMH. When at a concert or festival, especially one that isn’t sold-out, be aware of your surroundings — particularly the back of hands and wrists. See, wristbands and hand stamps are an easy way to weed out people based on age. It’s a trick that I never really used in college (because it didn’t really matter) or while living abroad (non-applicable due to low drinking ages). Consequently, I was taken to school and taught a lesson recently at an 18-and-up concert. Thankfully, my teacher was not an awkward experience but a friend. Nonetheless, the non-event (aka me hitting on an 18-20 year old only to feel that my current mustachioed look may be more appropriate in a windowless van) can serve as a reminder to us all to be mindful of our surroundings and use subtle clues to prevent us from waking up and feeling like a perv (thus compounding our hangover).
Other benefits from this lesson:
1) Not being arrested for contributing to a minor, etc
2) Dignity
3) Not waking up in a room complete with a roommate or housemates (and by housemates, I mean parents)
4) Knowing how to find underage people at a club/concert/festival — This is for other underage people, but I imagine mustached dudes may use it, too…
Disclaimer: some underage people have fake IDs, which would defeat my lesson, so keep that in mind; the wristband is just the first test you should use.
Monday Morning Hangover: Coherent Stupidity
Everyone enjoys drinking. Well, most people enjoy drinking. For those of us who do enjoy drinking, there are various levels to our drunkenness.
Many of us can have a few drinks and enjoy our evenings. A few beers, or a couple glasses of wine, nothing crazy, just something to take the edge off; make us relax a bit. This is something that can make us more sociable and enjoy the evening. Although, there is a step, just past the “sociable” level, that I like to call “coherent stupidity”. Everyone knows it. It’s the point where the guy that’s been drinking quite a bit isn’t quite wasted, and definitely isn’t sober, but he’s trying to carry on a rational conversation. A conversation that is definitely beyond the scope of reason for the amount of drinking he’s done. If this guy were sober, he would probably make sense in this conversation. However, in his current condition, it’s really not a good idea.
Monday Morning Hangover: Capitol Bikeshare or: I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Walk of Shame
Capitol Bikeshare: Walk of Shame 2.0 -- Cheaper than a taxi, faster than your feet.
A couple of months ago, DC rebooted their Metro-Bikes program with Capitol Bikeshare. You may remember the old program if you ever used Foggy Bottom Metro station or were on the south side of the National Portrait Gallery as I honestly believe those were the only two locations that I ever saw bike stands; fortunately, Capitol Bikeshare was rolled out properly and in force — not only can you find bike stands outside or near most metro stations within the district, but they are also near those Metro-No-Man’s-Land areas such as 14th and P NW, Adams Morgan, etc.
So why is this making the Monday Morning Hangover? Because most of us have woken up from a long night and found ourselves at someone else’s place. Here’s where Cap Bikes can step in:
Monday Morning Hangover: The Bat-Suit
You just woke up and realized that despite the fact you have work this morning, you ended up having a few too many last night and ended up somewhere other than your bed. To make matters worse, you have work in an hour, are dressed for a night at the bar, and reek of bad decisions (like that whiskey you decided to end the night with…) In other words, you may be screwed and not in the good way.
Well, “Fool me once…” and all that crap; here, today, I will let you in on what I call the “bat-suit.” Essentially, the “bat-suit” (name inspired by an Entourage episode where Ari reveals his ‘bat-phone,’ a secreted phone that he keeps on him for emergencies) is a change of clothing that you keep at the office. My suit started off as simply a tie after an unscheduled business meeting on a day that I had gone tie-free, but from there, it quickly expanded to what it is today:
Monday Morning Hangover: The Race For The Cure
This is the first installment of a, hopefully, weekly series involving tips and tricks surrounding drinking and drinking’s aftereffects. I say hopefully because I only have about six weeks of material right now…
It’s Monday morning, and like most other Monday mornings, this morning finds me hungover from a drinking event with my fellow J Street-ers while watching my fantasy team AND the Cowboys go down the shitter. While I’m not in the state I was on NFL opening weekend (literally did not remember the end of the Cowboys-Redskins game until my Philly-fan friend decided to make me suffer), I am in hangover hell. To make matters worse, I’m sitting at my desk in a windowless, florescent-lit room that I call “cube-ville”. Perhaps you are in similar pain because the weekend is too short and D.C. now has too many good beers on tap – either way, read on as I delve into one of my desk drawers that I lovingly refer to as my Office Hangover Arsenal:
drboozenstein
jtonzi
Jesse
X
pyzocha
samdinning
shintern1909
The J Street Beer Review 