Bit Of A Funk

I have been a bit remiss in posting because I have been in a bit of a funk lately as a result of the horrible season that the Jets are having. I will try to make amends. Things can only get better today because the Jets have a bye-week.

I brought my camera to the last game and here are the hi-lite pictures. This will give you an idea of what I am going through.

An Excited Fan, The Lovely Loretta


The Most Excitement Of The Day


What can I say. On top of everything else, Sports Illustrated rated the game-day experience of each team in the NFL and the Jets came in dead last. You can read about that by clicking the picture below. Fittingly enough, it is a picture of a Jet being tackled.

I did drink the three beers that I mentioned and I will post about them tomorrow. I brought the empties home to take pictures of the bottles. I was too depressed to take pictures at the game.

Oh, next week is our pre-Thanksgiving day tailgate party and I will definitely take pictures of that. We will be having turkey and all the trimmings. I am bringing the candied yams with rum-soaked raisins.

Hunted Down Like Dogs

As I mentioned in my last post, Downtown Bar & Grill is conveniently located between American Beer and home.

Downtown Bar & Grill


We were thinking of just passing by, but then I saw this guy waving us in and, what can I do. Temptation is not something I pass by.

C'mon In Boys


Imagine our surprise when we found out it was just a plywood figure and not a real person. Bruce said now he knows how ducks must feel when they fall for that old decoys in a pond trick. I said the similarity was more than he knew, because much like the ducks, we too were going to get blasted.

My buddy Matt was all to ready oblige by pouring us one of his special beers.

Matt Pouring A Blast


We started out with a Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner 2005 Harvest. This was brewed only once but Matt does cellar beers so this was a nice treat.

Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner 2005 Harvest


It is quite hoppy, and that is a bit of an understatement. It has so much first harvest noble hops, Hallertau Mittelfrueh from Germany, that the beer is actually a bit murky from hop particles in suspension. It is a nice 8.8% alcohol but there is so much flavor you don't really notice it at first. You smell the spiciness of the hops, and that is the predominant flavor. There is also a nice malt back though. The hazy orange color with a nice white head made for a pretty drink as well.

After polishing off the bottle we switched to something just because we liked the name.

Great Divide Yeti Stout


This one kicked up the alcohol factor a bit, coming in at a hefty 9.5% and tasting it too. It has a lot of chew to it and you get plenty of flavor, chocolate, coffee, toffee and caramel in layers. All that and hoppy as well, particulary at the end. There is a reason this beer has won all sorts of awards over the years.

As you can see, both Bruce and I enjoyed it.





All good things must come to an end though, sort of. Obviously we were having too good a time. Now I usually don't carry my cell-phone and didn't have one with me on this trip. Nonetheless, the Mysterious Chinese Woman and her sidekick Donna (Bruce's wife) managed to track us down and I don't think they were too happy to see how much fun we were having.

Deputy Donna


Mysterious Chinese Woman, The Scout


Even though we got hauled off home we still had our purchase from American Beer. We decided to open just one small bottle and, choosing carefully, we selected -

Three Philosophers


Three Philosophers is brewed by Ommegang, a brewery that specializes in Belgian stlye ales. Nothing unusual about that, except it is located in Cooperstown, New York. Be that as it may, they turn out an incredible line, nary a clinker in the bunch.

Three Philosophers is a Belgian stlye Quadrupel ale and is blended with a small amount of Kriek from Belgium. Kriek is a spontaneously fermented cherry beer. It does give Three Philosophers a bit of a ripe cherry flavor which nicely complements the chocolate taste. Nice for sipping after dinner or, quaffing like we did.

Bruce and Bar Man About To Quaff


This beer was the strongest of the lot so far today, a heady 9.8%. Again, with all the flavor you didn't really taste the alcohol, but you definitely knew it was in there. This beer could easily replace a port after dinner and, in my opinion, would go with a cheese plate even better than a port. If you can get your hands on it, by all means try it.

Oh yes, the educational part of the blog. Three Philosophers name comes from a 1784 satire written by British poet William Blake. The satire was titled An Island In The Moon and had three philosophers as the main characters. I can only guess that whoever named this was an English major who could only get a job in a brewery (not unlikely) and sampled a lot of the brew before coming up with the name. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

The Mysterious Chinese Woman told me the next day that Bruce and I did, indeed, eat a lot of cheese while we were drinking the beer. But I don't remember.

As American As Beer

Well, in my opinion, there is nothing more American than beer, and no better place to get your beer than American Beer. This, of course, is if you are getting your beer to go.

American Beer


Luckily, American Beer is within walking distance of where I live so shopping there is a breeze. I also believe that walking home with my beer is fairly good exercise. The Mysterious Chinese Woman and I disagree somewhat on that last point. She thinks I should be putting the money I spend on beer towards a membership in a health club. Alas, it is an argument she will never win.

Ever ready to help you with you beer selections are Sabrina and Jennifer.

Sabrina and Jennifer Ready To Help


And backing them up is Cindy, who looks to be in charge of inventory control, and just about everything else.

Cindy Cooking The Books


And lets not forget Louie, the muscle of the operation.

Louie, A Wooden Bear, and Bar Man


American Beer does have a truly great selection of beers, you can get lost in the bottles. I will often come here to buy a single bottle of beer that I could have gotten at the neighborhood deli just to look around. It truly is a beer drinkers paradise. Just today I bought a six-pack to take to the Jets game on Sunday. But my six-pack has two bottles of Silly Scotch, a Scottish style ale brewed by Brasserie De Silly Brouwerij in Silly, Belgium; two bottles of Out Of Bounds Stout from Avery; and two bottles of 14'ER ESB Ale, also from Avery. Given how much I liked their Reverend the other night I figured I would check out some of their other offerings.

I have had the Silly Scotch before but I will review all three beers after I drink them on Sunday. I better drink them before I start to hit the Glogg I am making or I won't be able to remember what they taste like.

No point, really, in trying to describe the store. I will let the pictures do the talking. They also sell growlers of beer, but I forgot to take a picture of that. Next time, for sure. Maybe I will even buy one to lend a certain amount of authenticity to my posting.

Anyway, without further ado, the pictures:









Believe me when I tell you that this is just a small sample of what they have available. It really is a beer drinkers heaven. And just down the street on the way back to my house is the Downtown Bar & Grill where they have hundreds of different types of beer to drink at the bar. I couldn't ask to live in a better place.

One thing, it seems as though nobody that works here actually drinks beer. They can tell you where to find what you are looking for and how much it costs, but they can't tell you a thing about what it tastes like. This is a bit of a drawback, but not too much of one because I like to experiment anyway.

Having made my selection Jennifer checked it out and closed her eyes, either in dismay or in appreciation. How would she know though, she doesn't drink.

Jennifer Checking Out My Purchase


Well, by buddy Bruce was with me and we did have to walk right by the Downtown Bar & Grill, and we had been looking at a lot of different beers so....,

Stay tuned while the adventure continues and we are tracked down like, like, like two guys in a bar who should have been home by now.

By the way, if you want to get more information about American Beer you can just click below to go to their website.

Halloween at Pete's

Well, I was minding my own business fully immersed in my second obsession, Everquest. I was planning on staying home and watching the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village on television last night. Nothing more. Then an Everquest friend of mine, Akkusen, another beer aficionado, asked me what I was going to do for Halloween. It doesn't take much to trigger a desire for beer in me so I immediately began to think of a pumpkin ale or something. Next thing you know I was heading to my old favorite Pete's Waterfront Ale House to get my nose wet. And not by dunking for apples.

Spooky


They didn't have any pumpkin ales available but my eye was caught by Avery's The Reverend Suddenly the sounds of the Eurythmics Missionary Man began playing in my head and I had to have one.

Woof, it was a good one. A Belgian Quadruple Ale style coming in at a hefty 10% alcohol. A beautiful tawny color and absolutely delicious. Spicy and malty at the same time with nice chocolate and caramel back flavors. Usually I have several different beers when I hit Pete's, but I stuck with this one all night long.

Bar Man and The Reverend


Of course this blog isn't just about drinking and debauchery, it is also educational. That gets me grants and tax write-offs. So here goes the educational part. The Reverend was named in honor of the grandfather of Tom Boogaard. And who, you might ask, is Tom Boogaard. Well, he is, or was, Avery's Sales Manager. And his grandfather was an ordained Episcopal Reverend. And, think about this happy coincidence. It is Halloween and I am drinking a beer associated with Tom Boogaard.

After the beer at the bar the Mysterious Chinese Woman and I headed to a table to have ribs. Again, kind of appropriate for Halloween, I thought. Would have been cooler if we could have just ripped them out of someone.

Mysterious Chinese Woman About To Rip Into Her Ribs


And, believe me, these ribs are worth ripping into.

Ripping Good Ribs


I ordered another Reverend and by a happy twist of fate got it served in a larger pint glass.

Happy Halloween


And then, to make the evening complete, my favorite bartender Gaid showed up in costume. At least I think he was in costume. He often looks like this after a night out.

Gaid In Costume, I Think


I had one final beer at the bar and then staggered off home. I was going to watch the Halloween Parade on television but fell asleep instead. My evening was a lot of fun though and I have left-over ribs to look forward to for dinner tonight. Life just doesn't get any better than this.

I guess I have to give Akkusen some thanks. If not for his comment (it doesn't take much to set the Bar Man off) I probably would have stayed home.

Head Cheese At Pete's

Pete's Waterfront Ale House has had a special Octoberfest menu this month and has also featured a number of special Octoberfest beers. My friend Bruce and I stopped in the other day for a beer and were treated to one of their specialties, head cheese.

Head Cheese Pete's Style


For those of you who might not know, head cheese, also called souse and brawn, is a jellied loaf or sausage. Originally it was made entirely from the meaty parts of the head of a pig or calf, but now can include edible parts of the feet, tongue, and heart. The head is cleaned and simmered until the meat falls from the bones, and the liquid is a concentrated gelatinous broth. Strained, the meat is removed from the head, chopped, seasoned and returned to the broth and the whole placed in a mold and chilled until set, so it can be sliced. It really is quite delicious.

Bruce and Gaid (pronounced Guy) with Head Cheese


Eaten with some coarse bread with a bit or raw onion, it really hits the spot.

Sam, The Head Cheese At Pete's


Now, I am not sure who actually made the head cheese, but I am sure that Jim, the talented chef had a head, er, hand in it.

Jim, Head Cheese In The Kitchen


And, despite how it may look, Sam and Gaid are not really one person with two heads.

Say Cheese


We, of course, washed down the head cheese with a couple of beers and then headed off to my favorite beer store in the neighborhood to stock up the old larder at home. That will have to wait for another day though.

Happy Hour Mobile

In the interest of keeping you informed about new websites that might be of interest while at the same time shamelessly promoting myself, I want to introduce you to Happy Hour Mobile. There motto is:

"We find the bars you'll tell your friends about."


In addition to their website they also offer downloadable content.

To check out this nifty website, just click below:

Now, back to the shameless self-promotion. Mark, one of the creators of Happy Hour Mobile, interviewed me via e-mail regarding my journey through 1000 bars. I think he just wanted to see if I was still alive. Funny, now that I think about it, a lot of people seem to wonder about that.

Well, once we established the fact that I was still ambling off to get my nose wet now and again he sent me a list of questions to answer regarding what I had learned along the way and what I was up to now. The results are now posted in the "Featured" section of their website. Check it out if you want to.

I'll probably be having a pint or two with these guys in the near future and if I do you can be sure you will be reading about it here.

Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden Hours

If you go to the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden website you will see this:

Our restaurant hours are:
Monday, Wednesday & Thursday 6:00pm - 11:00pm
Tuesday closed (BBQ in summer 6:00pm - 11::00pm)
Friday 6:00pm- 12:00pm
Saturday 12:00pm - 12:00pm
Sunday 12:00pm - 11:00pm

The question that I have is On Saturday are they not open at all, or open 24 hours? I suspect they mean they are open from noon until midnight.

People do not seem to realize that there is really no agreed upon definition of 12:00 A.M. and 12:00 P.M. Just to give you an example of the confusion surrounding this, dictionary.com says "If it is 12:00 a.m., then it is midnight. If it is 12:00 p.m., then it is noon." However, the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual says just the opposite. Kind of makes your head hurt.

A.M. means before noon, from the Latin ante meridiem. P.M. means after noon, from the Latin post meridiem. Therefore you really can't have a 12:00 A.M., which would mean twelve o'clock before noon; that is nonsensical. And, of course, the same goes for 12:00 P.M.

Now I know that this has little to do with the main thrust of my blog, but given the number of bars that continue to use 12:00 A.M. and 12:00 P.M. when they advertise their hours and that this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, I thought I would share.

Of course anyone who advertises they are open from 12:00 P.M. to 12:00 P.M. really needs a proof-reader.

Dinosaur Barbecue - A Classic

Yesterday I headed up to Harlem to visit the now legendary Dinosaur Barbecue. The original opened in Syracuse, New York and a second was opened in Rochester, New York. The one in Harlem is their most recent addition, opening in 2004. And a welcome addition it is. I don't have a car and this one is just a subway ride away from where I live in Downtown Brooklyn. Admittedly, it is a kind of long subway ride, but one well worth taking. It is on 131st Street in Manhattan and about as far West as you can go. If you take the 1 Train to 125th it is just a couple of blocks away. I don't know why it has taken me so long to visit here, but you can rest assured I will be back again.

Dinosaur Barbecue


When we walked in we were greeted by the cheerful Sherry who guided us through the crowd to our table for four.

Cheery Sherry


While the rest of the group perused the extensive menu of barbecued goodies, I headed to the bar for a beer. No surprise there, I guess. Ginger pulled me a draft Rogue Dead Guy Ale.

Bar Man And Ginger At The Bar


They had the type of cluttered bar you would expect in a place like this and quite an extensive beer menu. I think they have 25 different beers on draft and a pretty decent selection of bottled beers as well.

A Suitably Cluttered Bar


Dinosaur Barbecue has a bit of a biker theme so the decor features a lot of pigs and hogs. I am not sure if these chopper sculptures were for sale, but the artist does sell some of his works. I failed to take down his name and contact information though, so if someone knows it, send it to me and I will update this blog to include it.

Sculpted Hogs Of The Riding Kind




And, of course there were also the hogs you can eat decorating the walls.

Hogs Of The Eating Kind




There was also had a neat variation on the dog's playing poker motif featured in a wall mural.

A Mixed Group


Now no amount of decorations will help if the food isn't any good, but that certainly wasn't the case here. Not only was the food delicious, it was plentiful as well. The menu on the wall was only a sample of what they had to offer, but it gives you a hint of what is available.

Hmm, Decisions, Decisions, Decisions


We settled on an appetizer plate for four that included deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes, chicken wings, and boiled shrimp. A great way to start. We followed that with an order of ribs that came with corn bread and your choice of four side dishes. We settled for coleslaw, baked beans, greens, and I forget the last one. Do you think one order of ribs were enough for the four of us? Check it out.

Not Only Great, But Plenty


The had a number of sauces available if you thought the ribs needed more flavor. They really didn't, but it was fun to try them out anyway.

Add Some Spice To Your Life, Or At Least To Your Ribs


Old movie posters graced the walls and all I could think of was "Damn, they just don't make them like they used to." I will have to check NetFlix to see if they are available.

Drive-In Double Feature




I recommend that you try this place in mid-afternoon when it is merely crowded. I would imagine that during lunch and dinner hours it would be packed. Be sure to bring a hearty appetite.

And, you might want to make your visit a high priority. It is located in an area that is being annexed by Columbia University, so how long it remains at this location is a bit of a question. Apparently Columbia University will help them relocate, but part of its allure is its current location amongst the auto repair shops.

What A Guy!!!

Sheesh, the other day I stopped into Pete's Waterfront Ale House and Guy was bartending. As usual we got to talking, I took pictures, he signed the necessary waivers and releases required for them to be posted (maybe he is in a witness protection program), and then I got pre-occupied and didn't put a picture up on my website. Boy, did I ever hear about it when I stopped in there today. So Guy, this one is for you. One of my favorite bartenders at my favorite bar..., I give you:

GUY


By the way, I took about a dozen pictures and he liked this one the best. You can imagine what the others must have looked like.

Guy told me that Tom Cruise modeled his role as a bartender in Cocktail after him. I can definitely see the similarities.