Burning Poop, Buzzed on Beer

Working in downtown Oakland provides me a wealth of choices from which to obtain my midday sustenance. One of which is Quizno's. Never, in a million years, will I eat there. Every time I walk by that place I'm assaulted by a smell of such utter foulness, I really don't see why anyone goes there. It smells like burning poop. Literally, like some dropped some #2 on the floor and set it on fire. I'm sure it's just the combination of melting cheese and other assorted ingredients burning in the toasters (am I? Am I really?), but damn, the smell, it's foul. Why anyone eats there is beyond me. How does one walk in, smell that stench, and think, "Mmmm...I can't wait to eat me some of THAT!"?

The kegerator is back up and running. Freshly filled CO2 bottle, new keg of Prohibition Ale...and guess who disconnects the keg every night. This guy. The replacement tower arrived last night from Avante. We'll see how long this one lasts. Especially if I manage to install it before the poker game starts tonight. It may last only a few short hours, given the quality and sturdiness of its predecessor.

It also no longer smells like beer in the house, or, specifically, in the kitchen. Thanks for the new tower, Avante, but it would've meant far more to me if someone had come over and pulled the bottom drawer of the stove out and scraped the gag-inducing coating of dried beer/dirt/mouseshit off the floor underneath the stove and the adjacent cabinet. Just sick. If that doesn't qualify as "pain and suffering" and "emotional distress" I don't know what does.

While at Speakeasy last Friday getting the new keg, Christen and I were offered free beers. You know how, at Peet's, if you buy coffee beans you get a free coffee? Apparently it works like that at Speakeasy, too. But with beer. I asked for a full keg and two beers and he gave us the beers for free. Sweet. Christen got a Prohibition and I got a Double Daddy IPA. It turns out Double Daddy is 9.5% alcohol by volume. And I drank it in about 5 minutes. And it was 6pm. And I hadn't eaten since lunch. That beer hit me like a shot of tequila. I babbled and slurred and tripped over my own tongue for the next 2 hours. I just did not have enough warning to prepare myself to be buzzed like that. If you're on your third beer, ok, you can expect to be buzzed and increase the filtering of the brain-to-mouth censor accordingly. One beer? Not ready. I'd like to apologize to Mike, Kelly, and Carlos for any and all inappropriate, derogatory, or insulting things I may have said that evening. And, Christen, I'm sorry we can't hang out with those particular friends of yours anymore.

That's Just Swell

After being gone nearly a month in a part of the world with mediocre (at best) beers, one of my main objectives in life revolved around getting my kegerator operational again. I had an empty keg from Speakeasy Brewing lying around so I decided their beer would work nicely to welcome my kegerator back into operation.

It’s not that easy to get Speakeasy kegs. You have to go to their brewery in the lovely and not-at-all gang infested Bayview section of San Francisco on Fridays between 4pm and 8pm. Not a small task for someone who lives and works in Oakland, gets off at 5:30, and has no desire to fight Bay Bridge traffic to get to SF on a Friday during rush hour.

Oh, but Prohibition Ale is so very tasty. One of my top 5 beers. Maybe even top 3.

I persevered. I worked from Tim’s house in SF on Friday, and then left to Speakeasy to exchange my empty keg (and $50) for a full one. Since Sunday was the gluttonous event known as the Belgian Beer Dinner, I didn’t hook the keg up until Sunday night, and then poured only enough to clean out the hoses. The point here, which will be sadly relevant later, is that the keg remained almost completely full.

Forward to Monday evening. Christen and I walk through the front door after work and the first thing I notice is that it smells like beer in the house. Lots of beer. I’d say it smelled like a frat house, but it smelled like good beer (not Natty Light) and the underlying scent of vomit was missing. As the kitchen is in the back of the house, if I’m smelling beer at the front door this cannot be good. Trying not to panic I head to the kitchen where my worst fears are realized; there is beer all over the kitchen floor.

The kegerator is essentially a fridge slightly larger than a dorm fridge with a cylindrical tower attached to the top. This cylinder holds the tap handle from which the nectar of the gods is dispensed. This cylindrical tower no longer pointed to the heavens but now lay on its side on top of the kegerator. Due to its incredibly crappy design, it must’ve fallen over (perhaps nudged by one of the cats), and in the course of landing its valve opened, spilling all 5 gallons of my precious Prohibition Ale uselessly on to the kitchen floor. Now there is a goddamn LAKE of beer in the corner of the kitchen. I was using a rolled up beach towel like a broom and sweeping WAVES of beer out the back door. While crying. (Jason was a big help cleaning up. I guess that what he gets for harassing me non-stop until I finally accepted his invitation to come over and drink my beer).

So much beer hit the floor the beer made its way under the linoleum, between the planks of the sub floor, and was dripping on to the dirt under the house. Mother loving crap.

How long do you suppose my house is going to smell like beer? 3 months? 6 months? 2 years? I don’t swear much on this blog, but…Fuck.

And now all my CO2 is gone, too, because, after ALL 5 GALLONS (did I mention it was a full keg?) of beer spewed out, the open valve did nothing but vent CO2 into the kitchen. Opening the kegerator revealed a frozen mass of beer and ice. You know how paintball CO2 cartridges freeze over when they’re empty? The same thing happened inside the kegerator, but with a 5 lb tank of CO2. You think it’s hard to get a keg of Speakeasy beer? Try getting a CO2 tank filled on the weekend.

The kegerator company (Avanti) has been good so far. They’re sending a replacement cylinder, although, it is probably of the same crappy design. Compensation for my lost beer, CO2, and perhaps damaged floors could be far harder to obtain.

That was my Monday.