Tuesday, July 23, 2013

A Good Problem To Have

How's everybody doing this week? Hopefully dry, as it appears that the monsoons have passed, and now it
is just three to five brief showers per day. I for one have been ecstatic about the rain. Why? Because it is almost August and we have barely hit 90 degrees maybe once or twice. I don't like hot weather. Smart asses would say, "Well then why do you live in the south?" I would reply. "Because I have a good job idiot, why do you think?" But I love it in Atlanta, and I don't plan on going anywhere. I deal with the heat and I deal with the crappy traffic. People up north deal with the cold, and probably the crappy traffic too. It's just two sides of the same coin. If there was a place where the weather was perfect all of the time, that place would most definitely suck. There would be too many people there enjoying the mild temperatures and sunny days. And no jobs. Plus, what would we do if we didn't have something to complain about? Sure, a place like San Diego pokes holes in my theory. The weather in San Diego is beautiful all the time, and so are the people. The beer? Unbelievable. I am sure that there are some drawbacks to living there. One being that you would eventually feel inferior to all of the beautiful, successful people. Then you would probably develop a drinking or drug problem to deal with your insecurities. I also think there are a lot of bums there. I mean, if you have to live outside, there's not many better places than San Diego. Maybe all of the bums are the people whose sense of inferiority to the beautiful people made them alcohol and drug addicts. So in essence the beautiful people have ruined their own surroundings due to their beauty and perfection. Serves you right for having such good genetics. Hope you're happy.

So other than celebrating a tolerable start to the seven months of summer, here are some other things worth getting pumped about:

  1. Mall of GA is opening up their cellar, starting tonight with North Coast Olde Stock 2011. Tomorrow they will bust out Weyerbacher Heresy 2012, then SweetWater Festive 2012 on Thursday. Friday is Unibroue La Terrible 2011, followed by Brooklyn Monster 2011 on Saturday and both Red Brick Smoked Vanilla Gorilla 2012 and Lost Years 2012 on Sunday. Nice way to end the month up there in Buford.
  2. On Tuesday the 30th, Metropolis will be tapping a firkin of JailHouse Misdemeanor with cocoa and ancho chiles. We are calling it JailHouse Metrodemeanor. Stop by around 6:00 pm to try this one-time-only brew. 
  3. This event has been postponed. Stay tuned for the new date. Wednesday, July 31st, the Taco Mac at Windward Pkwy and Hwy 9 will be tapping a cask of Heavy Seas RipTide White IPA at 6:00 pm. That is the first one of those I have heard of in this area. I have a previous engagement unfortunately, or else I would be there for sure. Tell me how good it is when I see you next time. 
I gotta run people. I need to update the app with these events and get back to work. You might not hear from me next week. I am going to visit the Woodford Reserve distillery in Kentucky again. This time I am taking a friend there for a major milestone birthday. Watch for some Instagram photos at "beer_fred_tmac" from what should be quite an adventure. Before we get to Kentucky we are going to spend the night in a city none of us have ever been, just to see what kind of mischief we can uncover. Should be fun.

Now I need to decide what to do with one of two bottles of Deschutes Black Butte XXIV. I brought two of these bombers back from Oregon in my luggage a year ago. I was in Bend the day it was released (which was not planned, I am just that good--true story) and had a few drafts of it. The bottle says "Best After 07/23/13". So does that mean I drink it today? Technically it is not after 07/23/13 until tomorrow, but I have been waiting exactly 364 days to drink one of these guys. Can I wait one more day? Only the voices in my head know. We will see what they have to say when I am standing in front of the fridge tonight. I have a hunch I am going to like what they have to say.


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

You Think Adult Alcoholics Are Difficult....

Did anybody see this article in Creative Loafing recently? If you did, then you should be really excited to
hear about this new brewery that will be launching their beer this Friday at Taco Mac in Decatur and at The Fred Bar. You might also have noticed how The Fred Bar is mentioned (even though the capitalization is sloppy) as being a key element in the formation of this brewery. Pretty cool. So drop into either one of those locations to taste their Night In Brussels (a Belgian-y American IPA) and Single Intent (Belgian-style Single/Blonde) on Friday and welcome Three Taverns to the local beer scene. I am going to try to get by one of those places depending on how my day shapes up on Friday. But read that CL article and get a load of the pedigree this brewer brings to the table. Impressive.

Do you like to drink beer, but it just isn't making you fatter fast enough? Problem solved: beer ice cream. Yes, that's right, your prayers have been answered. Many Taco Mac locations will have beer ice cream in four flavors coming very soon. They are: Brown Ale Chip, Honey IPA, Malted Chocolate Stout and Peach Lambic. Vanilla Bock will be coming eventually, once we see how these first four perform. These products are strictly adult only. It is illegal for us to sell them to anyone under the age of 21, because they are roughly 2-3% ABV. They are made with real beer. No matter how much a kid whines about wanting this ice cream, they can not have it. Think about it like this: If your kid gets his hands on this stuff, suddenly all other ice cream will not longer be acceptable. Your kid will now only want cold, creamy deliciousness...that also gets him drunk. And he is going to want it all the time. Vegetables? Hell no. He wants to get drunk on ice cream. Mac & Cheese. Maybe, as long as it gets him kind of drunk. Did you want an obese alcoholic child? Because that's what you'd get. Adults, however, will love the fact that they can end their meal with a yummy dessert while still tasting beer, and...wait for it...get an additional Brewniversity credit for the ice cream! Who's screamin' for ice cream now? It's you, isn't it? That's what I thought. Expect the product to arrive next week, and I will provide a complete store list at that time.

The last thing I have for you is a possible invite to a tequila tasting/educational class next Thursday night from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at The Fred Bar. A very notable expert from Herradura will be in town from Mexico. He will be walking us through the awesome world of tequila production, including some great historical info, a video presentation, and a tasting of four tequilas. You will get a bottle of Mexican beer to wash it all down with as well. This event is only $20.00, and there are just a few openings left. If you are interested in coming, e-mail this address: brewniversity@tacomac.com, and be sure to put "Tequila" in the subject line. I will forward you the RSVP requirements, and you can sign up through that. As of this minute there are only ten spots left. Please don't sign up if you kind of thinking that maybe you want to attend. That would keep other truly interested people from being able to get in, and would therefore qualify you as a jerk. So be cool, because as well all know, karma is a bitch. Have a great rest of the week everyone. Bye. 




Wednesday, July 10, 2013

C'Mon Get App-y!

Run, don't walk, to your smart phone. Trample innocent bystanders if necessary. Download the Taco Mac
Brewniversity app! It's ready, it's free, and it is really cool. Yes, even if you are not in the Apple cult and you use an Android phone, you too can have the app.

What does it do? Well, a lot, but the main feature is that it helps you find beers faster than looking at a menu. Take me for instance, at Metropolis last night. I searched for beers at that location, sorted by brewery, and in seconds I saw every Sierra Nevada beer they had on tap and in bottles. The Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale was delicious. I had two. If I had asked the app to find me only beers from that same brewery that I have not yet had on my Brewniversity list, it would have told me that there were none. But if I changed the search criteria to search by style and not by brewery, it would have come up with several. If I had asked it to search simply by beers that I have not had that were available at that location, no style or brewery criteria at all, it would have found a bunch.

But that's not all. You can find all of our special beer events, add them to your calendar, tweet about them, or do that Facebook. You can read about different beer styles, find Taco Mac locations, see images and info on beers that you are interested in...OK, I am going to stop listing everything that it does. Download it and start playing around. It's a phone app; it isn't complicated. If you don't have a smart phone yet, then I immediately know three things about you. One: You are part of 40% of the U.S. population that doesn't have a smart phone. No shame in that. I was a little late to the party too. Two: You have been considering getting one, if only to shut everyone else up that won't stop talking about their damn phone. Three: Sometime in the near future you are going to be in a Taco Mac, you are going to see and hear people happily using the app, and want to slap them silly. Because when they are not looking at, or talking on it, they are talking about their phone. I feel you there. But I also know that deep inside you wish you were navigating the Taco Mac beer selection electronically, effortlessly gliding from one outstanding beer to the next. So if you are one of those people in the 40% of the population, I have one small piece of advice for you: T-Mobile has a pretty aggressive deal going on right now for smart phones. I know because I just got my dad one for his birthday last week. Yeah, he's 68 and he has one of the baddest ass phones you can get. What are you working with over there, a flip phone? Nice. But seriously, you want the app, no matter what kind of phone you have. Do what you need to do to get it.

One more very interesting thing about the app--and then I will shut up about it, but this is important--is where it pulls the inventory data from now. Our old web-based system pulled the data from the buttons each store has in their computer to ring up your beers. Based on the vast amount of beers we carry, sometimes there are extra buttons in the computer for one reason or another, and that made the data inaccurate. Now the app is pulling the data from the current beer menu in the store. Big improvement, right? But wait...there's more. It filters the data through the store's daily insert, the thing that says, "Just In" and "Gone". It picks up the beers that are just in, and drops out the ones that are gone. Brilliant! Now the only inaccuracies would be a beer that runs out literally that day. Hooray, and I expect to see the kind of unbridled craziness in the streets that usually accompanies a Super Bowl win or V-E Day. Beer Drinkers Gone Wild Volume 1. All the hairy, sweaty beer bellies you can handle. Only $19.95. Act now.

And if all of that was not an adequate enticement, you can view this video to see the handsome model we paid a ton of money to record a little bit of footage about the new app. I don't know what it is about that guy, but he is one sexy man. Enjoy.


Wednesday, July 3, 2013

This Is The End

Sticky hops make sticky foam.

Well, it is not really the "end" end, but we are coming close to the conclusion of our SweetWater cask run.  In fact, if you weren't in Buford on Saturday, you missed the last chance to taste the IPA with oranges, grains of paradise and four different types of additional hops. It was great. (And I will probably go see that movie, This Is The End this weekend. Reports are that it is hilarious.) Here are the remainder of the dates:
  • Wed. 7/3 Cumming-- IPA with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary.
  • Fri. 7/5 Windward 5:30 pm-- Brown Ale with cardamom, cocoa & orange peel.  LAST CHANCE to try this beer!  
  • Fri. 7/5 Old Milton 7:00 pm-- Porter with chicory, vanilla & cocoa.
  • Sat. 7/6 Crabapple 4:00 pm-- Imperial Stout with mint, lactose & cocoa.  LAST CHANCE to try this beer!
  • Sat. 7/6 Woodstock-- Porter with chicory, vanilla & cocoa.  LAST CHANCE to try this beer!
  • Wed. 7/10 Suwanee-- IPA with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary. LAST CHANCE to try this beer!

Notice where I tipped you off to the final appearances of each flavor. If you miss these chances, like you did with the IPA last Saturday, it will be like missing one of the last chances to ever see a dodo bird, then kill it and eat it. Don't be like the guy after the last guy to ever eat a dodo bird.

The location in East Roswell has a cask of LoneRider Peacemaker Pale Ale getting tapped on Saturday as well. Observant readers may notice that now we have three different casks getting tapped on Highway 92 on the same day. Total distance if you wanted to hit all three? Seventeen and a half miles. Same road. I can't really make this much easier for you than that. 

Next week Metropolis kicks off their Tuesday cask series for July. Here is the line-up:
  • Abita English Mild on July 9th.
  • Duck Rabbit Brown Ale on July 16th.
  • Abita Naughty Crumpet on July 23rd.
  • JailHouse somethin' or other on July 30th. The guys at JailHouse are whipping up something special for us, we just don't know what it is yet.
If you were too lazy, or just didn't care, to find out what "monumental" show I went to last week that was worth driving back and forth from Charlotte twice in one week, it was Dave Chappelle. Let me tell you something; if you missed it (he sold out 5 or 6 shows in Atlanta), I am glad my name is not you. That guy was as funny as he has ever been, and seeing him put me in a good mood for days.

That is all I have for you for now. Have a great holiday. Be sure to try to blow something up, because what's more American than blowing shit up? Getting drunk and blowing shit up, that's what! I made that one easy for you. Bye.

PS-- I got to try the new Terrapin RecreationAle (like "recreational") at our annual charity golf tournament. One of my new favorites. Go get some now. Thank me later.


Fore! Or five. This beer is great.