Prost!

Like most everyone's college career, mine has been filled with hours in the lab, studying late into the night and...beer. Of course, back when I was a freshman, the choices of beer for mass consumption were limited to such great brands as Keystone, Hamms, Mountain Creek....yeah, awful.
However, those days are...uh...not as frequent! Shortly after turning 21 I searched for a place to happily consume lots of beer and be considered a patron...rather than a mooch. Fortuitously, only 3 blocks away from my apartment I found the Old German Beer Hall, one of Milwaukee's drunkest and most interesting bars.
All beers served at this bar are from the Hofbrauhaus Muchen, a brewery in Munich that I know little about other than that they make good beer, or at least beer that is meant to be consumed en mass.
This is not to say that the beer isn't good, but when you can get a liter of beer for $5.50 on Thursdays with a college ID... it's hard to remember the finer points of what you're imbibing. So here's an outline of a night you can expect drinking at the Old German Beer Hall.
1. Arrive around 9 or 10, this way you can leave after downing a few liters to go brashly flirt with the opposite sex...you tell yourself this is what you will do but it never happens.
2. Order a liter of beer. I usually go with the Hofbrauhaus Original. It's a very smooth beer, and judging from the color and head, it is most definitely a lager, though much heavier than it's American brethren. Sweet the whole way through with a nice hoppy aroma that kicks in at the end. After mass consumption it can taste a little bitter, but that's just your body becoming dehydrated.
3. The first liter seems to disappear from the giant mug it's in until you get to the last 1/8 of the glass....for some reason it won't disappear. At this time one of 2 things will happen.
A) Someone you know will come in and give you a beer on them
B) The band will start playing polka and/or techno, to which the beer wenches will proceed to dance the sluttiest chicken dance you have ever seen.

Beer Taste: You still have complete control of your taste buds, it's smooth, sweet, and filling.

4. Now you might as well stay to talk to your friend and play some weird drunk hammering nails in log game with them, or remember your childhood between gulps of liquid bread as random people start dancing on the large oak tables. At some point you run into the same problem you had with the first liter, but power through.

Beer Taste: After the first beer this one seemed a little more bitter...but then the alcohol kicked in and it was just sweet and filling again

5. It's time to go to the bar across the street. That's what you say to yourself, but your cheap college ass won't let you go to a bar and pay upwards of $10 more dollars to get more than buzzed when you can spend that here and get completely annihilated. Also, the benches are comfy for some reason. You get yourself another liter and begin nursing it

Beer Taste: You can't really taste anymore. The sweet is gone and you get a slight bitter aftertaste in your mouth. You might be able to slap yourself in the face and not feel it if you're a little person. The mouthfeel is still smooth. If you induldged in the dollar shots, this will also taste like black licorice and wood.

6. Somehow you finish that last beer. Amongst the polka and weird German techno you stumble out of the bar with either the buddies you came with or the buddies you met up there. Even if you go to the bar across the street, chances are you won't remember it, and will drink yourself into oblivion trying to talk to some girl.

7. Good morning, it's 12:00 in the afternoon and you go get pancakes.

Conclusion: Your chance to re-enact Beerfest without feeling like a tool

An Act of God

This latest post has nothing to do with beer, unfortunately, but I thought I would share it anyways. It involves Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola.

Having come from a religious (specifically Catholic) background, there is one thing I can't stand, God-bashing. After the many years I spent around monks and the occasional hermit (whom you're not even really supposed to say hi to), I've gained a respect for people who have the ability to fully devote themselves to their beliefs. Ridiculing faith that can lead to such peaceful and admirable life-styles is ignorant and disrespectful. An equally infuriating notion is the bible-thumper telling me that they know everything about God, or that they have "the answer", but at the very least if you tell them to back off they'll just tell you "I'll pray for you."

**Before I go into this, let me just say that people are free to believe whatever they want. So this next section isn't meant to hate on atheists, rather to bash on a smal sub-sect of jerk atheists, who are really just jerks who happen to be atheists, so really it's just about jerks.**

The atheist version of the bible-thumper, however, is too pissed off at their current situation to leave your beliefs be. In addition, they'll go into great detail about how all religions are wrong. The savvier ones may pull quotes from sources such as scientists like Richard Dawkins or any number of classical-to-modern philosophers, but most of them will just spout flimsy ideas about their own take on the universe, insisting "I don't know how people can't come to this conclusion", or something like that.

So, with all that on the table, I was at a friend's house last night, and somehow we got on the subject of religion. I had drank a couple of Jack and Coke's beforehand, Here is the experience in a step-wise manner:

-Mixing Jack and Coke is an art form, it must be mixed to taste like both whiskey and coca-cola, not one or the other. Thankfully, this is almost impossible to mess up.
-Mouthfeel- like whiskey
-Intial taste- like coke
-Finishes-like whiskey and coke!
-On my third drink and the person next to me joins in on the conversation on the other side of the room.
-As the night progresses all other conversations have ceased due to the volume of the person next to me
-I get another drink
-Conversation's topic is on how theology professors may be biased to give good grades to "believers"
-I agree that some teachers can be close minded and get another drink
-Person next to me starts to call relgion as a whole "a joke", and proceeds to say how they make a mockery of religion in their lifestyle just because "it's funny"
-In an attempt to finish off the rest of my drink to get another, my cup 180's out of my hand into my crotch, thus ending the conversation.
-Embarassed, I make many crotch jokes
-The majority of the group leaves for the bars, while I notice a house party across the street
-My friend and I decide to go to the house party, where we run into much of our freshman dorm floor
-A much better time ensues, with music, more women, and drink, with my crotch splash as an icebreaker.

Conclusion: Jack Daniels is a gift from God