Author: Alan

Is This The Hat For The KSPC?

Now that the “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” (KSPC) has been founded and the flood of offers for branches world-wide have begun to pour in, the important question of the cap is rearing its head. There must be a cap. I don’t know if this is it. Kingston’s traditional sporting colours are black and yellow. A black hat with a simple “K” in yellow might be just the thing. Each branch would have the one-letter logo in local colours.

But that one letter would have to be in common font to go with the “KSPC” on the back to maintain the global identity. I lost sleep over the weekend on the question of font. The right font is a massive decision with brainiacs a plenty out there who know what needs to be known. If it could be a Pabst Oldstyle “K” that might be the best. Yes, I like Pabst and not just because of PBR or, rather, the PBRs.

August SW Ontario Road Trip

Mucho fried after 17 hours in 48 driving, driving, driving along with the questionable food and the more questionable guest bed arrangements. I could have been to Boston or even farther and back. Not too much to complain about as I dropped by a couple of breweries on the way, including my first trip to Neustadt Springs, home of the excellently named 10W30 dark ale and also picked up some new ones for me from Church-Key.

Ontario: Neustadt Springs Brewery, Neustadt, Bruce County

neu3As I headed up from Stratford towards Owen Sound on a family tour, I knew that Neustadt was roughly on the way but I had to figure out the shift in the north-south concession lot roads from the north-west to south-east ones…and I got a little lost. South of Clifford on highway 9 I got my bearings again and soon was there. Watch out if you find yourself on School Road #7, though. I am glad I did find my way there as my whole family was treated to the sort of tour of Neustadt Springs Brewery by owners Val and Andy Stimpson, up and around the brewing equipment, that I really love and the others tolerate in return for all the other great things I do in life…really.

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You may recollect that Neustadt’s 10W30 is a favorite of mine. Well, meeting the couple that make this brew was a real treat and also an education. We were shown their special import New Zealand hops, asked to grind a few pellets and shown which ones have hints of kiwi fruit and mango. Dandy. We were also given some of the short run Manchester Bitter to try and had a few secrets shared. I found it an excellent light beer in something of the light mild tradition. You will note there was only a bit left when I thought to take the photo of the brew.

 

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After that, when the kids got a bit Dad’s-dragged-me-to-a-brewery…again, Andy said he’d take care of them and we all went off to the cellars. You see Neustadt is a 21st century micro sitting in and on top of a mid-Victorian brewery, the Heuther Brewery opened in 1868 or so and run by a cousin of the original operator of the now revived Heuther Hotel, another modern micro-brewery in Waterloo. In the basement we were shown the brewing area, the tunnels to the downtown area of the village as well as the one to the Victorian brewer’s home. We were also shown the air vents, below left, dug into the ground to keep the air sweet.

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Great stuff. So now I got to support Ontario craft brewers while picking up a dandy 10W30 glass and t-shirt as well as a bunch of bottles fresh from storage. In the fall they are putting on a porter. Worth the trip if their other beers are anything to go by. Here’s the BAers take on the beers.

Directions to Neustadt Springs

Friday Cogitiferiffic Chatarama

Who the hell ever thought I would make it to August 25th 2006? Aside from the whole thing in Mexico in ’66 (thank you Pepe), I got through the nuclear war along with all of you, got through my teens without being eaten by a backroad ditch along with pals, got though a holiday in Paris as Syria was blowing bits of it up in ’86 and survived the Kings Cross Fire in ’87. Things got a little dull after that and law school and stuff but then there was the 5.4 earthquake in ’97 and that weird day in PEI around Jan. ’03 when I decided to head out of work early and got caught in a blizzard that was so thick I could only make out where the road was by checking out the tops of telephone polls. Whew. What a roller coaster. But here we are. August 25, 2006. Woot. I’m taking half a day to celebrate.

– Final lunchtime update before hitting the road update: I just created the “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” after looking at the picture of David Sommerstein of NCPR at this page. Expect splintering schismists branching out into “Adult Novice 500 Up” but that is their business and may also morph into a heritage group playing trapball and the other early games. The “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” is hereby soliciting membership as well as designs for the hat which must feature a “K” on the front. Submissions and proposals to be posted here.

– Update for the road update: As I did so triumphantly for “flogging”, I just now coined “clogging” for filling up the comments section of a blog with technically incapable comments or, I suppose, just going on and on…like this.

– It is a sad, sad day when the yapping of bloggers is not what shapes the news but is the news. Bo-ring. Everyone lay on the floor, wiggle around now and scream as one – “STOP PRETENDING BLOGS ARE NEWS!!!” I heard you . Thanks.

– There are men of destiny and then there are others who are not:

The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said yesterday he will change its name because it angered so many people.

– I am watching the post- or to some mid- conflict reaction in Israel. Remember this post from last month. The concern appears to be mainly the lack of ability to impose immediate overwhelming force as opposed to ultimate peace – which is fine but the taxi driver may not have had that breath of relief. It is such a foreign existence it is hard to even imagine it.

– One clawed back. Five and a half to go.

– Gary’s Blogger blog has taken off nicely. Interesting post on pottery restoration services. Now there is a situation that requires a van with a big engine and the right to break the speed limit – Vrrrooommmmm. I say it gets designated the all important and still available purple flashing light.

– Have you noticed that certain cheater-ramas have entirly poached the Friday bullet idea? I knew I should have copyrighted this fantastic idea when I had the chance. Imagine the dollar bills flowing over my upstretched face and arms. Imagine.

Isn’t that enough? Off to see the newest member of the clan who is supposed to enter this world around noon and then off to grannie-in-law’s to talk sports of the 1920s to today. When is someone going to try that music format of “the music of the 20th century” anyway? Al Jolson then Ramones then “The Biggest Aspidistra In The World” then ringing my bell.

Start Your Christmas Shopping Now

Care of a kind word from a co-worker, I learned that the LCBO Vintages folk released 375 ml bottles of Lustau East India Sherry on Saturday. As I know my mother does not read this blog…or the internet at all ¹…I know I am safe to admit this is her stash for wee cakes and scones and after a nice bit of lamb and with a wee bit of blue cheese and beside a dish of trifle…and before and after a nap. Here is a review from one wine site’s review of the Lustau range as well as one from a wine blog. Note: “A blend of Soleras averaging 15 to 50 years of age.” Yum! Wee whisps of the 1950s in the glass.

¹’cause onywin tha’ dae is gang tae Scots Prrrrresbyterrrrian HELLLLLLL!

Moving Stuff

With the move to long-term contractual indebtedness, there has been a small wave of thing acquisition that canot go unmentioned, and not just the junior gin-soaked popinjay training kit. These are things that have worked and I recommend:

  • My Dolly: I was not aware that what I know as a dolly in Canada is a hand truck in the States. But there is no doubt aoub t the fact that the move was made on a Model PJD2223A Harper Nylon Dual Hand Truck (Jr). This thing was sixty bucks or so at the Home Depot and at any given time has move two rolled up futons, or a six foot tall computer desk or umpteen boxes of books. With a removable handle (bright yellow in my version) it flips from a two-wheel box jockey to a four-wheel table on wheels. It has saves both back and patience.
  • Bankers Boxes: In the good old days, you went to the NSLC and picked up wine boxes and rum boxes and moved your stuff in those. [Don’t try it with the PEILLC, however, as apparently those boxes are valuable assets that only a fool would think of wanting for free, thus earning you the locally classic yet over-used dirty look abaft.] Now, I am a man and I go and buy bankers boxes when I move. Not the big ones, either. The smaller letter sized one will do. Because they are all the same size and very sturdy you can stack a whack of them on your Harper Nylon Dual Hand Truck (Jr). And because you bought the small ones you can remove them without fear of hoisting an inadvertantly 400 lb one that wrenches the back. Slow and steady wins the race. And they also provide sensible storage for the stuff that does not see daylight.
  • The Scott Classic: Who the hell needs a Briggs and Stratton in the sub-urbs. The lawn I now own takes 15 minutes to mow. So I own a green Scotts Classic mower with a fancy green paint job and bright orange wheels. I puff about as much with a push gasoline mower but without the blue fog of exhaust. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to run and a brief nod to exercise before the self-inflicted prize of a cold drink.

Three smart sensible things. I am not usually like this. One thing I have not bought yet are contaps or tapcons to drill into the brick and secure the angled flag pole bracket for the front of the house. Houses ought to have flag poles. Especially when you have a 3×5 Louisiana with the pelicans on it.

Cricketing Shame

How could I have missed the news? Caught up in the last bits of summer…looking at boats…finally getting the push mower out for a go after weeks of drought and brown laws. How could I have missed this?

Eventually, after nearly an hour of après-tea negotiating, the Pakistanis were convinced to continue. But by that time — with some 24,000 fans in the stands and in the dark about the proceedings — the officials had decided that Pakistan had forfeited the game. In 129 years of international cricket, never before had a game been terminated thusly. When you think about the aborted international games in other sports that immediately spring to mind — about the appalled Soviets getting off the ice on Broad Street or Bobby Knight pulling his basketball team off the floor against his hated Communist opponents — cricket’s was an astounding run of civility. So chalk up another milestone in the sporting world’s further descent into the underworld.

Book Review: Great American Beer. Christopher O’Hara

This is a handy neat smaller format hardcover that the publisher was kind enough to FedEx me this week. And I am glad they did as this is a dandy guide to its exact topic: post WWII, pre-micro revolution pre-branding US beer. The author gladly admits this in the introduction:

The antithesis of the recent microbrewery revolution in America, this was a time when the major beer powerhouses took control of the brewing industry and, in the grand spirit of American industry, relentlessly quashed the small, independent producers that relied upon local support. This story is about the Americanization of beer, where homogenized brands – grown through a mixture of political clout, industrialization, and marketing might – became the best loved, and most heavily consumed beer brands in the world.

This is an unapologetic book in a time of review and perhaps revision. As Ken Wells discussed in Travels With Barley, despite all the efforts and successes in the craft brewing revival, this is a continent of lovers of beer-flavoured water making that still the primary cultural phenonmena to be grappled with when considering beer.

This book tells the story not so much of how that occured as who was involved. And it does so with style and wit. It is a primarily a series of fifty 500 to 200 word essays on the individual brands that made up the wave of oneness that is macrobrewing, from Bud to Blatz to Utica Club. Because this is as much pre-brand as pre-craft, there are no discussions of those “Bud Draft Dry Light Ice” sorts of beers that popped their heads up starting in the late 1970s – the word Light…or rather Lite…does not appear in the table of contents. This is a book that argues for a golden age and makes a pretty good argument for it. Even with the eighteen page history, this is not academic tome or a deep dive into the culture but, as you can expect, that could be an issue which, once raised, might be legitimately greeted with a shout of “academic, schmacademic.”

The book heavily relies upon images of the collection of beer stuff collector Erik Amundson, which you can see at the web site www.taverntrove.com. This is good and well handled as the advertising, packaging and other flotsom and jetsom of the brewers played such a huge role in differentiating a homogenized product. It is presented attractively along with well-written, informative text providing a book for the beer fan not scared to be presented with the phrases like “trendy imports” and “craft snobbery”. I’d say get it.

The Flickering Light

More connection problems that are making me think that the modem is dying. Do modems die? I dutifully unplug, replug and reset it with a certain percentage of luck getting back on line. It reminds of days in small urban centre Poland when the phone rang, people shouted what sounded like “Tak, soo-ham!!” which I understand means “Yes, I am here!!” and then hangs up as only about one in seven connections were ever made. For $39.99 a month I should have better analogies springing to mind than eastern Europe of the immediate post-communist era.

Anyway, how would you know if your modem was dying?