Jim's Travels: Boston

As chronicled on these pages, I have been traveling quite a bit lately. A few weeks back, I flew up to Boston to hang out with my friends Shawn and Alan. Shawn lives in the Boston area with his wife Jess. Since Alan was going to be in town for work, I got invited up for the weekend.

As is the norm for my friends and I, the visit revolved around drinking, particularly of the barley and hops variety. Shawn and Alan pick me up from Logan International Airport on Friday around lunch time. We preceded to one of Shawn's favorite chicken wing joints for some grub and brews. I enjoyed a pint of Harpoon IPA with my chicken wings.

Afterwards, we headed over to Sunset Grill and Tap which is located in Allston neighborhood of Boston. I decided to order a flight of beers from Boston-area breweries. The flight included Beer Goggles Barleywine from Wormtown Brewery. As to be expected from a barley wine, this one had a big flavor and was high in alcohol (10% ABV). Even the small flight sample of the brew was difficult to finish. Another beer in the flight was Dočesná Czech Hop Harvest Ale which is the 38th offering from Harpoon Brewery's 100 Barrel Series. The other two brews were Dean’s Beans Coffeehouse Porter from Berkshire Brewing and Great Pumpkin Ale (!) from Cambridge Brewing.

The rest of that Friday has faded into the haze. It should be no surprise that the start of Saturday was spent recovering from the night before. Saturday afternoon, Shawn, Jess, Alan and I made our way over to the Boston Beer Company for a tour of the brewery known for producing Samuel Adams beer. I had done the tour by myself on a previous visit to Boston, so I was already familiar with the discussion of beer ingredients and the brewing process. The tour ended with a beer sampling that included their flagship Boston Lager and the seasonal Octoberfest. The new selection to me was the Samuel Adams Latitude 48 IPA.

Saturday night was dedicated to birthday parties for some friends of Shawn and Jess, including the friend who was the inspiration for this post. The first stop was a bowling alley which had candlepin bowling instead of the ten-pin type with which I am familiar. I elected to skip the bowling and instead focus on my beer which was an Oktoberfest Lager from Berkshire Brewing Company. This was my second brew from BBC in as many days.

After stopping at a wine store to pick up a party gift, we proceeded to the house of another birthday girl who was sharing a party with yet another birthday girl. The party featured a wide selection of alcoholic beverages and good food. Guests could entertain themselves with beer pong and bean bag toss. I partipated in both activities during the course of the evening. In between glasses of Sangria and Jell-O shots (which were consumed in memorable method), I squeezed in a few bottles of beers. Two of the brews were from Harpoon Brewery. One was their UFO Hefeweizen, and the other was their Summer Beer. I also had a Smuttynose Finestkind IPA. Smuttynose Brewing Company is located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

That wraps up the Boston trip. Since returning from Boston, I have traveled to Los Angeles, but there will not be a post covering that trip. I should have a return trip to Montreal in a couple of weeks and a week-long trip to Vegas at the end of November.

Founders and Empire

Note: Due to being a bit under the weather and being busy, particularly with work, I've been working on this particular post for about two weeks. I only hope it's a good one, so let's get to it.

Growing up, I was a big fan of science fiction. I was particularly fond of authors from the so-called "Golden Age of Science Fiction" including Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein. Like many other people however, my favorite author was Isaac Asimov. I enjoyed his short stories and books, especially those from his epic Robot and Foundation series. I also find it amazing that he wrote his first published story, "Marooned Off Vesta", in 1938, when he was only 18 years old. For several years, I was subscribed to Asimov's Science Fiction magazine which every month included a editorial from the good doctor himself. Nowadays, I don't gobble up science fiction as I did when I was younger, but when I'm in a used bookstore, I always like finding one of his paperbacks covering various topics of science.

The title of this post is take-off on the Foundation and Empire, the second book of Asimov's original Foundation trilogy. The Foundation in that series was a group of intellectuals, I would call them historical mathematicians, who used complicated mathematical formulas to forecast history on the grandest scale. Being science fiction, the empire was, of course, a galactic empire. Being me, my references to Founders and Empire are to a brewery and a book.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was reading Empire by Gore Vidal, and last Wednesday, I finally got around to finishing it up. Empire is the fourth book in historical order of Vidal's fictional series spanning the history of the Unites States. While I enjoyed the first two books, Burr and Lincoln, I found the third book, 1876, a bit lacking. Unfortunately, Empire was more like 1876 in that it was basically a soap opera. In a way, Empire serves as a bookend to Lincoln. In Lincoln, John Hay is a private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln. In Empire, John Hay starts as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom before moving back to the United States to become Secretary of State under William McKinley and then Teddy Roosevelt.

In my previous post on Vidal's historical series, I mentioned that I felt both Burr and Lincoln benefit by their dramas revolving around major wars, the American Revolutionary and American Civil Wars, respectively. Empire starts with the end of the Spanish–American War which Hay famously described as "a splendid little war." However, the war itself is only a topic of discussion. It is the aftereffects of the war that play more into the plot of the book, particularly the transfer of foreign territory from Spain to the United States. The acquisition of Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines are the empire referred to by the title.

But the dawn of the American empire and effect of that change on the country and the world is not really the main focus of the book. The book is mainly about the newspaper business and the influence of the media. Aside from the fictional main characters, a sister and her half-brother who are the grandchildren of a character from Burr and 1876 and squabble over their inheritance and control of a newspaper, the main character is not Hay or McKinley or Roosevelt. It is not Hay's close friend Henry Adams nor multiple Democratic nominee for President around the time, William Jennings Bryan, although all of them share large parts of the book. No, the main character is William Randolph Hearst, the heir of a mining fortune turned newspaper magnate turned politician. Hearst is the spiritual fore-barer of the National Enquirer and Jerry Springer. Through his newspapers, Hearst goaded McKinley into entering the country into war against Spain, and the end of the book insinuates that Hearst manipulates Roosevelt into turning against the robber barons who financed his run for President and becoming the king of trust busting.

Moving on to Founders, I mentioned in another previous post that El and I picked up a four-pack of Founders Brewery's Nemesis 2009 which is a one-time concoction aged in bourbon barrels. I did not care for this brew, but El loved it. Of course, El also enjoys a good Scotch or bourbon, and she likes wines aged in the barrel. I'm beginning to think that I just don't like the woody taste of barrel aging. I generally don't care for whiskey. Instead, I prefer the clearer liquors like vodka. The other day, El and I had a wine which was trumpeted for being aged in the barrel, and once again, I did not like the woody taste of the wine.

Luckily, all is not lost for Founders Brewery. Last Saturday, we visited our favorite wine and beer shop where I had a Founders Dirty Bastard which is a good, malty beer. I also sampled two beers from Allagash Brewing, Black is a dark Belgian stout, and Four also a darker Belgian ale. Both are good solid beers.

Lesson Learned

Beer Update: On Sunday, El and I cracked open the first bottle of the second home brew batch, and each of us had a pint. Honestly, it was a bit strong. El felt that it needed aeration and even grabbed a stirrer to help with that. Hopefully, the other bottles will be more drinkable.

Also on Sunday, El and I had dinner at Savoy, a local French restaurant. We have dined there before, and it was quite enjoyable. For those that may not know El, she is quite a foodie. One of her favorite foods is foie gras, and Savoy is one of the few restaurants in the area that have foie on the menu. We were both looking forward to dinner and to some succulent foie gras in particular. Unfortunately, we have repeatedly discovered that Valentine's Day is the absolute worst day for dining out. In the past, we have encountered poor service, limited menus, and lower-quality food (even resulting in a possible case of food poisoning). Alas, this year was no different. Instead of their full dinner menu, Savoy offered a limited fixed-priced menu which did not include foie. I asked about substituting or adding a dish of foie, but neither was allowed. I assume this was due to the large number of diners. On our previous visit, we had plenty of attention from our server as well as other waitstaff. On this visit with a packed house, our server barely had any time for us. The food was still good, although the desserts were a bit disappointing. The bottle of wine (Guido Porro, I believe) was nice though. All in all though, it was another disappointing Valentine's dinner.

Need a Holiday?

The second second batch of home brew has been in the bottle for two weeks now, but I haven't yet had the opportunity to have a taste. I put two bottles in the fridge. Once I crack open the first bottle, I'm sure I will post about it. Instead of staying home and sampling the home brew, El and I ventured out. I had the next to last half pint of Aventinus Eisbock and then a pint of Victory's Storm King Imperial Stout. There was a two-pint limit on the eisbock due to its higher alcohol limit. I'm sure that helped drained the keg since limiting something usually makes it more desirable, but it also helps that it's a good beer. I thought my second beer, the Imperial Stout, was much more hoppy than the standard stout. Meanwhile, El had a flight of red wines. Three of which were Mourvèdre wines. We ended up bring home a bottle of 2004 Jade Mountain Mourvèdre.

Of course, today is Valentine's Day, but today is the first day of Engineers Week. In honor of George Washington, a trained surveyor, Engineers Week is celebrated the week of Presidents Day which is tomorrow. On Wednesday, some technical-minded coworkers and I will be visiting a local middle school for Engineers Week to encourage students to study science and math and consider careers in engineering and technology fields.

Today is also the first day of the Chinese New Year which is known as the Lunar New Year in other Asian cultures. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2010 is the year of the tiger, and according to Wikipedia, this is specifically the year of the Metal Tiger. That reminds me of the World War II German tank. To summarize, if your sweetheart happens to be a metallurgical engineer who went to say Clemson University, or some other engineering school that has a tiger as their mascot, then you can wish them a Happy Metal Tiger Engineers Valentine's Day. Otherwise, let's just stick with "Happy Valentine's Day".