Hofbräuhaus Las Vegas

On a night off some NCCers and I go to the Las Vegas Hofbräuhaus. While expensive, our reservations on spending money on the food and beer were quickly lifted.

Joel enjoys a liter, the default size offered at $14.50.

Jamie (in blue) participates in a contest on the stage with nine other women on who can drink finish a liter first. The winner got a free beer stein. Unfortunately, Jamie did not come in first, but at least she got a free beer out of it. We all enjoyed German appetizers and called it a night before becoming bankrupt.

Throwback - Mayfest 2010


Joe Blum films and participates in the Syracuse University 2010 Mayfest held in Walnut Park. Click to see "Mayfest according to Joe Blum" on the Newshouse site.


Despite the official SU Mayfest 2010 being held in Walnut Park, a sizable number of SU and ESF students continued the trend this year of partying in front of houses along Euclid Ave.


Max Nepstad and Jenna Passmore in Walnut Park.


Syracuse police monitor the Euclid area during the 2010 Mayfest.

You can see a couple of these photos on the Newshouse site: "Walnut Park wins Mayfest, but Euclid Ave. survives"

Holy Grail of Beer - Westvleteren 12

When I was in Amsterdam last fall, my friend Will took me to a bierwinkel, or beer shop, called De Bierkoning which, among other less commonly found beers, sold the three Westvleteren beers Blonde (5.8% abv), 8 (8% abv) and 12 (10.2% abv). I haven't really been appreciative of beers in the past, but then I tried an €18 bottle of Westvleteren 12. Since then, I think I'm starting to become a bit of a beer connoisseur. I've also really been wanting to try Westvleteren 12 again, and just yesterday I finally got my hands on six bottles.

Westvleteren 12 has a bit of an international reputation of being the best beer in the world. It's constantly rated as the no. 1 beer by sites like Beeradvocate and ratebeer (8 and Blonde have ranked highly too), and given this attention, the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece on the monastery in 2007. Westvleteren 12 is brewed by monks in the Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus Westvleteren in Belgium.

It is extremely difficult to obtain due to its very limited production and distribution. It's only available at two official selling points: the drive-up sales window at the abbey and at the In De Vrede (In the Peace) café across the street. The current production is 4750 hl annually (for comparison, an average microbrewery in the United States produces 18000 hl annually). The bottles have no labels – all the legally required information is written on the bottle caps.

Getting the beer today means calling the monks at the St. Sixtus Abbey ahead of time and making an appointment, driving to the monastery and then buying a maximum of two crates per person once a month. Its rarity has certainly contributed to its mystique worldwide, and the monks have no intention of increasing production despite demand. In an article in the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, Brother Joris explained that they "brew to live, but don't live to brew." The money they make is just enough to sustain their lives at the monastery (well, monks are also allowed to drink the Blonde ale with their meals). Anyone who buys the beer agrees to not resell it. The monks want their beers to only be available in the area of West Flanders for local and private consumption. But that doesn't mean a grey market for the beer hasn't emerged.

From Wikipedia: "Despite the popularity, the monks of St Sixtus have continued to decline almost all interview and visit requests, and have not enjoyed all of the attention they have received. Non-monastic visitors to the abbey are usually turned away, instead being directed to the visitor's centre opposite where there is information about the abbey and brewery. They have stated a desire to live a peaceful monastic life, and find the resulting interruptions quite intrusive."

The Saint Sixtus Abbey is one of seven Trappist monasteries that produces beer. Only these seven breweries are allowed to label their beer with the Authentic Trappist Product logo that indicates compliance to the rules of the International Trappist Association.

Hooray Food Class

My ANT 400 Food and Identity class had a field trip to the Fuller's Griffin Brewery, and we took a tour of the complex. Fuller’s is perhaps best known as the brewer of London Pride, the United Kingdom's leading premium cask ale. At the end of the tour, all their products were featured in a taste-testing session, and the size of the test samples were quite generous.