Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Big Ithaca win at 2008 TAP NY

I’ve had to write this in a hundred different places for work, but I really felt it was worth mentioning here as well.  Over the weekend the 2008 TAP-NY took place.  It’s a festival that celebrates New York State craft beers.  In 2006 we took home the Silver medal for DoubleIPA, and last year we came home empty handed.  This year however we won big.

• The F.X. Matt Memorial Cup for New York State’s best Craft Brewery
• The Gold Medal for ‘TEN’, our tenth anniversary ale, a crazy strong super hopped up Red Ale that makes the Cascazilla nothing more than a whimper in comparison.  It’s part of our Excelsior! series (the 750ml bottles)
• The SIlver Medal for ‘Flower Power’, our signature IPA.  This has always been a rock solid beer for us, and its been an especially good year for this beer.  Reaching the final four in the National IPA challenge, and now this!

Right now I’m exceedingly proud to be working at the Ithaca Beer Company.  Everyone there has been working their asses off to make the beers the best they can be and it’s always good when you get a little recognition for that.

The answer is bacon.

I’ve thought about it long and hard and I think the answer to my problem really is bacon!  What problem is it that can be solved by this miracle meat you ask?  Hippies.  That’s right.  Not even all of them really, just the small subset who come in here and feel that the one bath a year they are accustomed to really is optional.  If a minute after someone walks in the odor is so strong my eyes actually tear up there is something very wrong.  As much as I want to spray them down with my bottle of sanitizer I always resist temptation.  So the dilemma became how to keep them from wanting to come in here.  After all, these inevitably are the type of people who come in, ask a ton of questions, sample all the beer, and then buy a 50 cent package of yeast so they can attempt to ferment the berry/flower/beet of the week.

The answer is so simple.  Bacon.  A little bacon grease in all our beers, and make sure to let them know.  They’ll be so revolted they’ll tell all their friends and boycott us!  Okay, so maybe that isn’t a real solution.  I’ll just go back to the fantasy in my mind of renting a crop duster, filling it with soap water and making passes over the Grassroots festival.

Super Burnout.

I’m not talking about the video game here, I’m burning out.  The holidays are always tough – I don’t have a lot of that family or shopping stress – it’s just that because we have a bunch of students working here who all disappear around the holidays I end up working a crazy number of hours.  Plus I end up dealing with other peoples holiday stress as we get people in here last minute shopping for random gifts.  Then there’s all the running around after work because around the holidays everyone wants to get together, or go out and do this or that.  I don’t really remember what my living room looks like anymore.

Today is a half day for me.  The parents are in town so I’d like to see them for a little bit rather than always be at work while they’re here.  Tomorrow though will be a full day of working.  Saturdays are crazy days to work. Between tours and large groups, and just generally being just slightly more busy than two people can handle its going to wear the last bit of me out I’m sure.  Fortunately Sunday there are no plans other than sitting on the couch.  Maybe I’ll treat myself to a new XBox game and spend the whole day blowing up aliens or some such.  It will be a good relaxing day.  Life should return to some sense of normal around January 12th once our student staff get back in town.  But for the time being its zombie mode for me.