Escape from St. Louis

Beer #393 Dry Hopped APA / Saint Louis Brewery, St. Louis, MO
Previously from this brewery:  My take on the Winter ESB, Marci's take on the Winter ESB

Busy weekend, as I just got back from a Phi Gamma Delta leadership conference in St. Louis.  While the days were jam packed with productive meetings, I did manage to take advantage of an afternoon break on Saturday to visit the Schlafly Tap Room, the public face/popular brand from Saint Louis Brewery.

My first sample was the Dry Hopped APA, which had a bright copper hue and thin white head that lingered.  There are aromas of pine and light citrus, and the taste is dry and bitter throughout, with plenty of pine and grapefruit, but not much malt.  Very nice beer if you're a fan of dry, hoppy, or dry hopped beers.  Interestingly, this brewery was celebrating their 21st birthday on the day I visited, with a big concert and party on Saturday night.  Which completely explains why I was there at 2pm.  Bad timing, indeed.

Okay, so that's not a great picture.  Sue me.

Now, for the interesting part of my story, a confession: I drank this beer in a complete state of bewilderment.  The brewpub was only four or five blocks from my hotel, right in the middle of St. Louis, not far from the Gateway Arch.  While I didn't walk for hours, I did walk long enough to notice that on my journey, I didn't see a single car go by.  Not one.  I didn't see a single person walk by.  Nada.  I didn't see any birds, or stray dogs, or people riding their bike, or runners jogging, or delivery trucks delivering, or police cars policing, or buses being loud, or cabs driving recklessly, and by now I think you get my point.  The only proof of recent life I found were a variety of empty liquor bottles and cans of beer littered across the sidewalks like autumn leaves in a forest.

I honestly felt like an extra in the film version of The Road, Cormack McCarthy's take on a post-apocalyptic society where you really didn't want to run into people, because if you did they were likely to (spoiler alert) try to eat you.  Think about it: imagine going to the heart of a  major American city, walking for over ten minutes.... and being the only person in the world.  Odd.

However, and here's where some of the bewilderment came from, when I walked into Schlafly it was packed, or as packed as a brewpub is going to be on a Saturday afternoon when nuclear winter might have just happened.  Did the people get there through a secret tunnel?  Teleport in from another dimension?  Have they been trapped in there for years, too afraid to leave?  I can't say for sure, although when the shit does hit the fan I guess a brewery is an ideal place to hide yourself.  On my walk back, I did eventually see a person.  I did see a car go by a few blocks ahead.  Maybe there's still hope for society.

Actual picture of my walk to Schlafly

If that short tale wasn't sufficiently interesting for you, this might do the trick: The brewpub is housed in a brick building built in 1902 but left vacant since 1969.  A huge fire in 1976 engulfed the buildings at this intersection, and the skeletons of those buildings were in such a state of disrepair, the film Escape From New York used the exteriors as background shots.  Check this link for more info, including the scene from the movie if you need a visual on where I was walking.  Oh, you haven't seen the film Escape from New York?  Why, it's a movie about a post-apocalyptic world.  Maybe there is something odd and unusual about St. Louis after all....



Thing to Think About Today:
Okay, so maybe nuclear winter hasn't found St. Louis.  It was a cold winter weekend where not much was happening, nothing nefarious or post-apocalyptic.  However, if you do want to see a fantastic, sad, scary movie, you definitely should watch The Road.  Great film, although it would have earned huge bonus points had they walked through downtown St. Louis.  Just saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXTAY

A True Champion

Beer #364 St. Sebastiaan Dark / Brouwerij Sterkens, Meer, Belgium
Beers to go: 2

Rather busy day today, as I spent the afternoon celebrating the 9th anniversary of TJ's, one of my favorite bars in the world.  Incredible beer list to commemorate the big day, and I managed to drink some of the best beers I've had in a long time.  And, the beauty of going out for drinks at lunch?  I'm home at a very early hour, already unwinding and getting ready for bed.

Tonight I'm reviewing a bottle of St. Sebastiaan Dark, a dubbel from Brouwerij Sterkens in Belgium.  This beer has a dark brown, nearly black color in the glass, with a tan head.  The aroma gives you yeast and floral notes, and when you take a sip, you get stone fruits, malt, and some cola flavors.  This beer is certainly very good, but lacks some oomph.  It did get better as it warmed in the glass, and if you see this one on a shelf somewhere, it's definitely worth your time.

The extra A in Sebastiaan is for 'Awww right!'

Brouwerij Sterkens has been in business since 1651, although only in the past 15 years have they started shipping their wares out to other countries.  Now you know.

Thing to Think About Today:
By the time you read this, the Heisman Trophy will have been awarded for this college football season.  For years, the Heisman has been the most prestigious award given out in college football, annually awarded to the most outstanding player.  Admittedly, in recent years this trophy has been more of a silly popularity contest; an award given to the best player on the best team in college football, regardless of whether or not they were actually the "most outstanding player" in the sport (for example:  fraudulent 2012 nominee, Manti Te'o).

I digress.  Regardless of how the winner gets picked, the ceremony is one of the must watch moments of the college football year.  On this date thirty nine years ago, Penn State running back (and my fraternity brother) John Cappelletti was awarded the iconic trophy.  Today, the winner isn't known until their name is called, but back in those days, the winner was chosen in advance and the ceremony was a formality where the trophy was handed out.  However, drama was in abundant supply that year, as Cappelletti used his acceptance speech to dedicate the trophy to his eleven year old brother, Joey, who was stricken with leukemia.

Joey passed away a year later, but this speech lives on as the most touching moment in the entire history of the Heisman Trophy.  A movie, Something for Joey, was made about the Cappelletti family story - a must watch for all sports fans.  Tonight, someone will walk home with a big, shiny trophy and a spot in the history books.  However, save the majority of your applause for kids like Joey Cappelletti - true heroes who fight not for success on the gridiron, but instead for their very lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YdgWihXJvE

Sunday: Beer, Memories, and Punching Cancer in the Face

Beer #71 Blue Sunday Sour / New Holland Brewing Company, Holland, MI

Earlier today, the final numbers for THON were released: $10.68 MILLION raised to combat pediatric cancer.  For the uninformed, THON is the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, a 46 hour dance marathon organized and executed entirely by Penn State students.  Since 1977, THON has raised more than $88M in the fight against cancer - every penny raised by college students.  Originally a fraternity/sorority fund raiser, it's grown exponentially to include students from all corners of the university.

I had the pleasure of dancing for my fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, my sophomore year, and it's truly one of the greatest and most special things I've ever done in my life.  Being awake and on your feet for 48 hours (we did it hard core back in the day) is not an easy task, but thinking about what kids battling leukemia and other rare forms of cancer have to deal with, and seeing how much joy they get from being "celebrities" at THON is incredibly powerful.  This time of year, the memories of THON come flooding back like a tidal wave: me, Sober, Super Dave, and Bo supporting each other, making new friends, trying to pump up our fellow dancers, playing games, and spending time with our assigned family.  Sadly, I've never managed to get around to scanning in my old pictures.  Perhaps this is the impetus to buy a scanner so I can share memories of THON '95 with the world.  We raised $1.16 million, and it seemed like the largest sum of money in the history of time.  Seeing it increase ten fold in a the past decade has been incredibly rewarding.

To answer the questions you haven't yet asked, but I'm sure you will:
1. No, you don't dance the entire 48 (now 46) hours.  But you do need to be awake and on your feet.
2. You do get bathroom breaks, but they hustle you along.  No lingering.
3. Best way to get some relief is to do a handstand, with friends holding your legs so that blood can drain back to the rest of your body.
4. After being awake for 48 hours, I slept for more than 14 hours straight.  It's unbelievably taxing on the body, but compared to having cancer, it's a damn walk in the park.
5. Key highlight of THON is running down a series of mats doused in baby powder, then sliding head first to an area where a morale team gives you a quick rub down.  If there is a heaven, it will be filled with the sensation of this rub down.
6. You will have sleep deprivation induced hallucinations.  I thought there was a giant table across the middle of the floor, and I kept walking way, way out of my way to get around it.  People would be talking to me, then disappear in mid-sentence into thin air.  Your brain is scrambled during this event.
7. Another key highlight is the line dance, a simple and repetitive choreographed dance number with some music to get you pumped up and some topical events to sing about.  You start out doing it every other hour or so, and by the last hour you're doing it every 15 minutes to keep the energy high.  I still remember some of the '95 dance, but sadly not all.
8. All dancers are given a unique dancer-only shirt with their number and their name or a motivational message on the back.  I still have my shirt, and if our house ever burns down it's one of the first three things I'm grabbing.  The name I peer pressured my partner into adopting?  "DEEZ NUTZ".  What can I say, it was 1995.  It was a popular phrase.

What better way to celebrate a great accomplishment than with a great beer?  Today we break open a Blue Sunday Sour from New Holland.  It shows off a burgundy hue in the glass, and the aroma is of fruit and mild vinegar. Tart and sour, right up front, with the taste of stone fruit and some malt notes. There's a crisp effervescence, and the oak aging lends a dry finish.  This is complex and wonderful, with just the right amount of alcohol at 8.7% ABV.  This is by means a beer for everyone, but if you EVER see one available in a bar near you, I implore you to at least try it.  This beer has officially landed in my coveted Top 25.  Blue Sunday Sour was named for the "blue laws" of Michigan which did not allow beer sales on Sundays.  It's also a cellar beer, which means we can age this for a few years, sort of like wine.  Although, something tells me Marci might drink our entire supply of two cases long before then....

Thing to Think About Today:
Please think of others.  Someone out there has it worse than you do, and they can use your help.  Whether it's donating money to THON (or anywhere else), donating blood, or volunteering, I encourage you all to think about trying to give back this year.  It feels good, and it's the right thing to do.  If you need a little motivation, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYDodY_CWUA