The Dysfunctional-Palooza Obnoxious Masshole BS Thread

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No. That's not true. In my rather large set of acquaintances who actually CAN cook a whole hog, there is only one who has ever deep fried one.

I would suggest that that f'ing SPECTACULAR failure is responsible for the majority of the people who slow down in spite of themselves to look at the car wreck in (rhymes with Cape)'s back yard. Da fuq? You wrap gods gift to man in F'ing burlap? Burlap? Why not toilet paper from a dysentery ward?
 
Hi and thanks all to everyone except PTN. Went to Night Shift brewing yesterday. Awesome beers once you find the place.
Cape, I'm actually starting to enjoy some sours now, but I'll never forget that first one I had at your bar. What a shocker for someone who never had one before. Go Pats. And Paul, GFY
 
Hi and thanks all to everyone except PTN. Went to Night Shift brewing yesterday. Awesome beers once you find the place.
Cape, I'm actually starting to enjoy some sours now, but I'll never forget that first one I had at your bar. What a shocker for someone who never had one before. Go Pats. And Paul, GFY

Sorry I missed saying happy birthday yesterday- I've been busy. I'm old. I sleep alot,
 
Watching two good teams is a nice change after the first half of the Sox season. I have no horse in this race. Rooted for Lester/Ross and against everyone on the Dodgers. Oddly the scars from living in the Back Bay during '86 have almost completely healed with finally winning a several in the 2k's. So I'm not really rooting against or for anyone.
 
Yeah I've been pretty busy.. did the whole "bought a house, got a new job, got married, got a scholarship to travel the world to study beer (taking the Master Cicerone exam next week), had a baby, and renovated every room in the house" thing and then got fed up when all my friends were brewing except me so I started back up again a few months ago and it led me back to this corner of the internet.

All of that stuff is nice and all and I'm sure that everybody is wondering what the wife and the kids names are but what we really want to know is about that travel around the world studying beer thing. Once you give us an exhaustive description of that I'll fake interest in the kid.

And isn't this a topic better suited to the Masshole thead? People who don't know is might think my response was crude.

So I got a new job working in the beer industry a few years ago and them knowing what I know about beer asked me to take the Certified Cicerone exam. Took the Certified Beer Server exam, took a class and 6 months later passed the Certified exam.

All is well and good and I was happy with that as that exam was moderately difficult. During review time I was asked if I would like to pursue the Master Cicerone exam which I declined and was told they could "help me out with a class or two". I took the booklet they gave me, thanked them for the raise, shoved the book in my bag and that was it for a few days until one of my buddies asked how my review went. I told him about the booklet and "a class or two" and let him give the book a read. His response 15 minutes later was, "Hey, you should read this. I think you get to go to Belgium!" Turns out it was about a scholarship a supplier was offering to prepare people for the Master Cicerone exam which included extensive travel for the next 1.5-2 years to brewing schools and cultural immersions in far and away beer drinking lands.

So I read the book, applied and landed one of six scholarships awarded. First trip was to Siebel Institute which consisted of classes on sensory evaluation, beer styles and food pairing taught by none other than Ray Daniels and Randy Mosher and was followed by several online Siebel courses.

Next was a 2 week trip to England and Ireland which included classes at the Institute of Brewing and Distilling at London. Lots of cask beer drinking and trips to breweries. We visited a brewery that still delivers their beer by horse and wagon where the horses can literally drink beer out of a glass. Wrapped up England with a CAMRA festival with over 150 casks then set off for Ireland. Visited several breweries and brew pubs and even hit one of the Jameson distilleries.

One of the best courses we took was at Oregon State University. Phenomenal fermentation science program there. One of the instructors there, Tom Shellhammer, is very involved in new hop development (as is the school as a whole). Visited a hop farm where they were almost weirded out by our excitement to be there because to them its just a crop. Got to visit Deschutes, Logsdon and hung out in the barrel room at Cascade for hours just popping open barrels with a group of Scandinavian brewers.

Attended a two week course with the Master Brewers Association of the Americas at the University of Wisconsin. That state knows how to do 2 things right: beer and fried cheese curds. Anyways the class was very intense to the point where some of it was lost on me but we were sitting in the same classroom with brewers from Stone, New Belgium, Boston Beer, MillerCoors, Sapporo, Kirin, Unibroue etc. This class gave me a newfound respect for professional brewers; not that I didn't respect them before but it made me realize just how knowledgeable these people really are. We all like to think we're all capable of starting our own breweries but these people were clearly on another level. Took a field trip to Briess and got to visit New Glarus while I was out there. Absolutely fantastic brewery. I'd say it was the most impressive one I've been to if it weren't for my trip last month to Asheville where I was able to visit the new Sierra Nevada brewery.

The most exhausting trip was a 2.5 week trip to Germany and Belgium (while my wife is 7.5 months pregnant). We started with 3 days at Octoberfest in Munich and visited Dusseldorf, Cologne, and Bamburg which also included a trip to Weyermann. Then it was off to Belgium where we stayed in Brugge and Brussels. We were lucky to get private tours of Cantillon, Rodenbach, Fort Lapin, De Ranke, Halve Maan and Orval. The beer offerings in their cafes there are amazing.. 2010 Cantillon Classic Gueuze? Sure, why not?!

Also took draft system classes at Micromatic. It was a lot of dry and "sciencey" stuff but pretty useful to me in my work as well as for the exam. As mentioned before I was able to visit SN in Asheville as well as the new Oskar Blues brewery down there and spent some time in Baltimore visiting Heavy Seas.

The deal was that once all of this was done our group would take the Master Cicerone exam but it turns out its starting to get harder to get in to. I've made it onto 3 waiting lists and wasn't expecting to take it until next Spring and was informed 3 days ago that I was bumped into next week's exam so I've been cramming.

So yeah that's about it and I'm sure I'm missing lots of cool details but my brain is mush after working today and studying for 4 hours.
 
Thank god, I was afraid you were going to tell us all how your kid is so f'ing AMAZING because he smeared his poop on the wall and it looked EXACTLY like the Mona Lisa.

You suck. All of those cool brewing experiences and you left out the coolest of them all. You know, the time you went to Yeager's and watched us use the mega tun.
 
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