The Best Beers for Non-Beer Snobs

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Late Spring and Early Summer are officially Beer Season in Baltimore. Beer is great all the year round, of course, but warm weather brings with it the opportunity for backyard parties, grilling, porchin’ it, and other chances to drink outdoors for extended periods. And for that, you’ve got to put down the highballs and reach for a beer.

There are those among us who are always seeking out the latest and greatest in the world of beer. Even some of you reading this probably count yourselves among the ranks of ‘beer snobs’ ‘beer nerds’ or, if you prefer, ‘enthusiasts.’ There’s nothing wrong with trying to track down the hoppiest IPA, the most carefully crafted barleywine, or the cloudiest Belgian wheat. For the rest of us though, most of the time, we just want a beer.

The beer's two bucks. The opinions are free.

So where does that leave us? We haven’t got the time or the patience to seek out the rarest imports and smallest microbrews and brag about it boorishly online, but neither will we settle for AB and MillerCoors products, which are all terrible. We just want something that we can get most places, drink several of, and, you know… not have to think about too much. It’s with these criteria in mind that we’re happy to present The Best Beers for Non-Beer Snobs.

Shiner Bock. According to Wikipedia: The Bavarians of Munich pronounced “Einbeck” as “ein Bock” (“a billy goat”), and thus the beer became known as “bock”. To this day, as a visual pun, a goat often appears on bock labels. The one produced at the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas wears its goat proudly, and it’s one of the most balanced beers out there. It’s a great choice as a takealong to a party or a drink-it-while-watching-a-game beer.

Sam Adams Boston Lager. A lot of beer snobs turn up their noses at the offerings from Sam Adams. That’s why they’re called snobs, we guess. Sam Adams is the Radiohead of the beer world. The people who loved it originally now pretend they never did. You just assume it’s a big major thing, but it’s still relatively small. It still doesn’t quite suit the tastes of the mainstream, exactly. We love Sam Adams. Radiohead on the other hand…

Löwenbräu. Löwenbräu may technically Be owned by A-B InBev, but it’s still producing the same beer it ever has. With a history dating back to 1383, it makes brands like Bass and Guinness look like up-and-comers by comparison. It even predates the famous Reinheitsgebot, the 1583 German law that dictated purity in beer. If it’s good enough for Oktoberfest, it’s good enough for the Chop.

Sierra Nevada Is Sierra the best bad beer or the worst good beer? This is a typical beer snob question, as it’s usually what they’ll reach for when they’re ‘slumming it.’ For us though, it’s just a good call. Most bars have it on draft and most stores have it in the cooler. It’s strong but not too strong, and tastes good enough for us.

Heavy Seas Gold Ale. We secretly yearn for a time when Baltimore will be known not as Boh country, but as Heavy Seas country. We realize that’s a pretty big hill to climb, but this might be just the beer, and just the brewery to do it. Just about everything heavy seas puts out is de-goddamn-licious, but Gold Ale has been our favorite since the early Clipper City days. We’d drink it even if it wasn’t super local, but we’re sure happy it is.

How to Dress for Summer

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Just do this… all Summer, all day long, every Summer, every day. These sons of bitches are so goddamn dapper that poor Brigitte Fossey can’t decide which one of them to devour first… and third.

Martin Sheen, Brigitte Fossey, and Sam Neill at Cannes, 1981.

If you ever wanted to know how to dress for Summer, cancel your GQ subscription and pay no mind to the blogs and the mall. Just do this. See how they’re standing on the middle of a beach in jackets and not looking overdressed? That’s style.

Wearing this in Baltimore could literally take you from the office to happy hour to the ballgame, from dinner at Bluegrass to Flicks on the Hill, or from a day at the zoo to a night on the Avenue. It’s also got the subtle advantage of being absolutely timeless. This photo is 30 years old, and it’s still going to look fresh 30 years from now.

Whatever you’re doing this Summer, do it in this.

Drinking on Your Wedding Day

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It takes a lot of time and effort to plan a wedding. It’s no small matter to co-ordinate a real life fairy tale which is meant to be the one and only happiest day of your life. If you’re a bride or groom, it’s hard enough to pull together the budgetary and logistical challenges in a way that pleases you, not to mention pleasing parents, in-laws, and everyone else. It’s a challenge even to the professionals, and for someone with no experience in event planning it’s enough to drive you to drink.

If you’re about to put so much money and planning into a reception, you may be worried about a certain drunken uncle or a beast of a best man. What no one ever tells you about wedding planning though is not to tip your own glass too many times during the toast. You’re going to want to remember this.

Norman Mailer was an expert on drinking- and on weddings for that matter. His example though, is not one to emulate.

Please don’t get us wrong. We don’t mean to criticize any happy couples here, and heaven knows your Chop is typically the first (and last) in line for an open bar. We’re usually the last to urge moderation, but your own wedding is one of the few times when a little temperance is called for. If you’ve got a date set for this season, it’s true that it’s your party, your day, and you’re free to spend it how you will. At the same time though, it’s your party. Even though you’ve got a staff of waiters and bartenders at the ready, the hosting duties are still yours.

Sure, every couple is in pretty good shape throughout the dinner hour, and most people are savvy enough not to really pour it on until the photographers are long gone. In a lot of ways though, your wedding day can be the longest day of your life. Once you make it to the point where cake is cut and the old folks start to trickle out, but the bar is still open, you’re not quite done yet. This is precisely the point where it’s best to ease up and just maintain. You’ve still got plenty of wedding ahead of you.

Besides, you only get one shot at wedding night sex, and whiskey dick is a most unwelcome wedding crasher.

Temporary Home @ Guest Spot’s Inaugural Opening Tonight

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There’s a new art gallery opening tonight. From 7-10 pm, Guest Spot will open its doors to the public for the first time with its inaugural show, Temporary Home, which is curated by Carl Gunhouse and features the work of Becky Alprin, City Blossoms, Jason Hughes, John Lehr, and Christine Rogers.

Early buzz has it that this will be a fine show and an exciting gallery.

John Lehr's 2008 piece, Nuggets, is an example of the work on display in the Temporary Home exhibit.

We’d love to tell you more about it, but reading through some of this gallery’s copy left us pulling our hair and yelling ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?! If you’d like to know more, you can go over to the Guest Spot website (which is actually a very well designed site) and sift through many paragraphs like this:

“The unique curatorial program focuses on ideas surrounding impermanence and liminal context within a home dwelling. Artists and curators will have the opportunity to install work in a mixed use space, thus challenging the singularity of commercial space and exploring the delicate relationship between space and purpose.”

or this:

“Guest Spot’s focus is to create a new curatorial program that addresses current ideas of exhibiting art through rehabilitation of spatial contexts. The core programmatic theme is a re-appropriation of rigid societal norms of space utilization to more thoroughly examine the concept of the ”American Home”. Its program will include artists whose works deals with concepts relating to impermanence, ephemerality, and liminality.”

We suspect it may just be easier to go down there and have a look-see for ourselves. By the end of tonight, we may not understand the mission statement, but at least we’ll know what Marcellus Wallace looks like.

_______________________________________________________________________

Guest Spot is located at 1826 Fleet Street in Fell’s Point.

The Showiness of The Long Distance Runner

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Okay, so we’re going to rant a little today. Just at tiny bit. We have to, because the topic we wish to address is such that the only way you can approach it is to rant anonymously on the internet. There’s no laws on the books about it- no signs posted, no accepted protocol. So we’re just going to come out with it here.

Yesterday was National Runnning Day and with the weather turning warm people all over are starting to think semi-seriously about getting in shape for the first time since their New Year’s resolutions. The sunshine is drawing people out to pool parties, the beaches, and to all sorts of Summertime activities where a decent tan and a trim waistline are de rigueur. It’s for this reason that the number of joggers out on the streets multiplies exponentially this time of year.

As Tom Cortenay will tell you, running is best done alone- not in the middle of a crowded city.

We’re not here to rant about running. Running is great. We endorse it. More people should do it. Hell, we should probably give it a shot one of these days. We’re not getting any younger, after all. Ninety nine per cent of all joggers are perfectly wonderful people enjoying a wholesome and healthy hobby. The other one percent are assholes.

There are tons of great places to go jogging in Baltimore City. Whether it’s up the Jones Falls Trail, at one of our lakes, on a track at a high school or college, around one of the several large city parks, or just along a pleasant avenue like Keswick or Guilford or just about any street in Bolton Hill. Wherever you live, you can find a great spot in your neighborhood, or jog a different spot in the city every day of the week. Yet somehow, this still needs to be said:

Stop jogging on crowded commercial sidewalks.

This is a city of neighborhoods; of little main streets and town squares. It’s in these places where shops and restaurants open their doors, where people are coming in and out, strolling up and down, walking their dogs, stopping to chat, enjoying outdoor cafes, people watching, soaking up the atmosphere and all of the other things that make city life city life. These blocks are crowded. The last thing anyone needs is some sweaty jogger, oblivious in ipod headphones, weaving through the sidewalk, bumping into people and causing chaos. It’s annoying, and it ought to stop.

Honestly, it’s baffling to us. Why would anyone make a habit of running through crowded commercial strips where the sidewalk density can reach 50-100 people per block, when just one block over there’s a broad residential street with few if any people, less vehicular traffic, and fewer urban obstacles like newspaper boxes and bicycle racks? Why would you jog along Cross Street when you could run Riverside Avenue? Why do you need to run past the commercial blocks in Charles Village when you could just circle the JHU campus?

There’s only one explanation that occurs to us; that the few people who do make a habit of jogging in commercial districts aren’t really very serious runners anyway. They’re showoffs. ***OOOoohh. Look at me jogging! Do you see my natural tan? Do you see the carefully selected vintage tee shirt that I cut the sleeves off of? Did you notice that my ipod’s special running mix has Bon Iver AND Lil Wayne??? I”m sooo gonna post my time and mileage on Facebook as soon as I get home!*** Again and again, these are they type of people we notice running through commercial districts- not the kind who care about running, but the kind who care about advertising the fact that they run. Fuck them.