The main purpose of this blogging adventure

I'm no connoisseur of brew, I simply have a taste for good and relatively inexpensive beer. I'm your average twenty something beer drinker, but that didn't always use to be the case.

Growing up in a tiny little quiet community, there was not much to do if you were a teenager. You could buy weed with relative ease, get a pack of smokes, and you could get shitty beer as long as you knew the right people. Having little to no decent bars around and no nightlife to really speak of (unless you count all of us rejects of society hanging at a doughnut shop that's open 24/7, oh yeah, we were hard core) there wasn't really much for a teenager to do except throw a surprise kick back at a friend's house or maybe smoke a couple bowls while studying. The beer you always got was the cheapest nastiest forty ounce that you and your friends could buy with your ration of lunch money. Bud, Miller, Coors, PBR, Mickies, whatever--it came in a huge bottle and tasted like piss. You drank it because everyone else was.

I'm not trying to knock the basic " All-American" commercially produced exported beer that this country knows and loves, although the Europeans are probably laughing at us because that's the kind of horse urine swill we're so proud of. I used to drink the mass produced grog we're all used to, I was a fan of the lighter beers though and the only decent thing I thought was amazing was Sam Adam's, I knew nothing of the insane selection and fine brews we have in this country until recently. My favorite beers before were: Red Stripe, Pacifico, Hefeweizen, Corona, Blue moon, and Sam Adam's winter lager. I still have friends who insist on drinking things that taste like beer flavored water or like Seabiscuit's drug test. I can still drink a Red Stripe or any other normal beer that's taken up the supermarket shelves, exceptions being Coors and most of the domestics we have, when I have little money to spend on going to Bevmo and buying up some beer that I know trumps all others.

In November of 2010, I went to Oregon to see the family and enjoy my cousin's extraordinary home crafted brews. Being of age in the states, I could now go to the many bars and pubs and drink with my relatives. In Oregon I was introduced to many fine things, including the beer isle at Haggen's. This beer isle is the one to end them all. There were the basic "All American" and recognized brand names, but then the shelf went on...and on....and on...with hundreds of different bottles and types of beer. In Southern California, even Bevmo's beer isle isn't nearly as selective as Haggen's. My dad suggested I pick out a beer I wanted to try but I, having been a "girly girl" of beer drinking, went straight for the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. I picked it simply for the label, I'd seen the movie with Alan Rickman and read a biography on Rasputin (he was one hell of a dude, so I figured with a party animal like Rasputin on the label and named for him--it had to be pretty good). Turns out, I was right. If you do not like dark beers, do not drink this, it's a stout. If you've ever gone to B.J's and had Tatonka stout, it's about as black if not blacker with a whooping 9% alcohol by volume.

I meet a long lost relative who is the grandson of my grandmother's brother, either way he's my cousin, and he's setting off on a road trip to see Oregon and California. After a long holiday with the family and drinking my cousins home made beer (NOTHING RIVALS IT! It is the best pint you will ever drink, or hope to drink) among other new brews like The Dissident. If you ever go to Oregon around Thanksgiving, go to the Deschutes Brew Pub in down town Portland and order up a Dissident. It's like nothing you've ever tasted. It's...it's like an orgasm in your mouth and brain at the same time with a hint of cherry. Anyways, Oregon has a lot of really fine quality American beers, crafted to near perfection. Eugene hosts Ninkasi, which puts out some really amazing beer, the only one I didn't enjoy when I went was the "unconventionALE". Too strong, it made me want to drop balls and grow a beard, not many beers can do that but this one can. On our adventures we went to many different places, visited different breweries, and had a great time.

You come back from a brew tour like that though, where it's brewery after brewery for about a month, and you have a couple extra pounds.

This blog is more about how the love of beer brings people together, whether it's family or friends or just strangers at the bar. You don't need to be an expert and you don't need to be a connoisseur, you just have to enjoy beer, if you can do that then you can use this blog to open your tastes to something new and different. I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer sharing it with someone. I'll be promoting different beers every week or so, from the American to the European, some of them you might already know and enjoy but for the rest of you, it'll be an experience.


Next week's Beers of choice, as recommended by my friend Braggster:
Stone Brewery's: Smoked Porter
Big Sky's: Moose Drool