The Shark's blog

Happy Labor Day - a day that encourages black-out drinking by constantly reminding us all that the summer is (un)officially over (September 21st, bitches!). Rather than bore you with words (and also because it's 9:15am and I've already started drinking), I figured I'd share some photos from this past Friday's super-secret inaugural Order of Osiris meeting at the Brooklyn Brewery. This will most likely also be the first time I'm seeing these photos, as I blacked-out shortly after 10pm after nearly draining the entire cask of Cookie Jar Porter. Enjoy!

Apologies for the lag in entries - I was on a wicked staycation the past 2 weeks. Well, staycation in the sense that I stayed home about 60% of the time, while the other 40% was dedicated to camping and a trip up to Boston. But that's not important right now. You know is? Beer. I'm sitting here drinking a delicious bottle of Post Road Pumpkin Ale, generously donated by the Brooklyn Brewery for review, which I should have up tomorrow or Thursday the latest.

Used to be that a guy would come home from work, crack open a cold one, put on Wheel of Fortune, scream at the idiots who buy vowels when anyone who's at least attempted to take the GED exam could answer the puzzle, and reflect on a day's hard work. Those days seem to be long gone. At least for me, they are.

Like many fine Americans, I find myself severly underemployed right now. 

Sam Calagione is an interesting man. A novice homebrewer-turned owner of one of the fastest growing, and most defintely influential breweries in the world, Dogfish Head, as well as a celebrity brewer and entreprenuer, (see: Eataly NY's brand-spanking new rooftop beergarden), Sam is all at once a persistent overachiever, an ambitious businessman, a visionary hop titan, and, as I learned this weekend, a really, really nice, humble beer lover.

The worlds of cocktails and beer get along about as well as Jews and Arabs on the Gaza Strip. A high-minded cocktail drinker will look at a gentleman enjoying a pint and some bar nuts and think to himself "how uncivilized," while a malt fanatic scrutinizing the tap list of his local watering hole will roll his eyes when the liquor snob next to him delays everyone else's imbibing by ordering a way-too-complicated cocktail.

Etched in the deepest folds of the cerebrum are special moments in life you can't help but always remember: The night you lost your virginity. Your wedding day. The birth of your first child. The birth of your third child (because the second one turned out to be a shithead). The legendary night that Brooklyn Brewery took over the taps at Blind Tiger Ale House and brought an arsenal of their rarest vintages and one-off beers.

In the words of Chris Brown to Rihanna, 20 years from now when they've rekindled their love (they ARE the modern day Pam and Tommy Lee, after all) "it's been a long time, baby." Indeed, it seems like millenia ago since the last time yours truly has shared his cranial output on Brewdies. And with good reason. Recently, I took a big, long awaited step in my life. No, not an intervention (not saying that won't happen soon); I actually got engaged. The normal reaction is: girls "Awww"; guys "don't do it!".

Shakespeare once said "I only write plays for the fine trim it lands me"*. (*There is no way to either prove nor disprove that Shakespeare actually said this.) Not to compare myself to William S. (I'm much more handsome), but I only write blogs for the free beer it gets me. And this past Tuesday, there were plenty of gratis suds flowing when Brooklyn Brewery invited me and two friends to their Main Engine Start release and brewery expansion party at their headquarters in Williamsburg.

When I tell people that I'm an avid beer drinker, they glance down at my stomach, nod approvingly, and ask "Why are you telling a total stranger this information?" But when I tell them I'm also an avid marathon runner, they look more apt to believe that Charlie Sheen really got rushed to the hospital for laughing too hard.