Loving Craft Beer in College—Originally posted on Porchdrinking.com

How about this scene:  You swing open the back door to a house that leads into a dark basement.  A cloud of body heat, and body sweat greets you at the door.  Each step taken down the stairs (that surely don’t meet building code nonetheless) enters you into another level of this nimbus dense, wet heat cluster.  Finally on the basement floor you immediately identify the source—a hundred sweat dripping college kids standing shoulder-to-shoulder yelling to one another over the boom of the music.   As thirteen dollar handles of vodka are being passed over your head you scale across the side of the basement to make your way around the crowd.  There are solo cups filled with last weekend’s beer that were placed and forgotten on the shelves beside you.  And is that something growing in the beer?   Hard to see, but you can sure smell a festering sourness woft out of the cup.  Buddy, that ain’t no lambic.  Human traffic is backed up at an unchilled keg.  Pour yourself a cup.  Oh great, a nice head to this one.  The whole cup is foam but it quickly dissipates into a lukewarm puddle.  Take a gulp.  Gotta’ love Natural Light.  Then take a look over to the beer pong table.  There’s a guy, ping-pong ball in one hand, snifter glass of Dogfish Head 90 Minute in the other.  That’s me.   I love craft beer and I’m in college.  That guy is me.

A scene exaggerated a bit, sure, but the idea should be clear:  It’s not always easy being deeply impassioned with great craft beer in the college scene.  After moving away from Colorado to attend school in Boston I have found myself absorbed in two of the best regions for craft beer in the country.  My passion for great beer has grown—I started homebrewing, blowing off chapters of economics theory in exchange for chapters on brewing history, and scouring Boston and Colorado for great beer bars and brewpubs.  I try my best not to turn into a beer snob and to get along with all of the other college drinkers but after your first can of Dale’s Pale a can of Natty’ is, well…a can of Natty’.  Here are some of the hardships of being a craft beer lover in college:

1)   How am I supposed to homebrew in this?  The ‘great indoor sport’ is more cleanliness and sanitation than anything else.  You won’t make good homebrew consistently without extreme care for proper sanitation.  My college house poses a significant barrier to brew in this regard—a dwelling of 12 guys all seemingly helpless when it comes to washing a dish or pan—the sinks are often clogged, the countertops house dishes that wait all to patiently to be cleaned, and there are crumbs everywhere.  That would explain the ant infestation.  Ok, so I’ll clean it all up, wipe it all down, sanitize, and I’m ready right?  Wait, my housemate used my primary fermenter for a mop bucket….

2)   My friends who just don’t care about craft...  I’ll head to a sports bar to watch the game on TV with my friends and have a couple beers.  “Hey look at that, the Stone Pale Ale is only fifty cents more than a Bud,” I’ll slyly comment.  “I think we’re going to get a few Miller Lites actually,” one says, “Yeah, they have the vortex top,” another adds.  I just sigh and drink my Stone, not wanting to act like a snob.

3)    …and my friends who think they do.  Its irking when another of my friends comes home with a six pack of Blue Moon or Shock Top and proclaims it the best beer he’s ever had.  “Craft beer is just so much better,” they say.  Yeah…craft beer is so much better.  And I’ll just tip my cap to Coors and Busch for tricking the masses once again.

4)    The financials.  What shall I pair this Founder’s Breakfast Stout with?  Ramen noodles with beef flavoring or chicken?  It’s no secret college kids don’t have a great cash flow coming in and I’m no exception.  Great craft beer usually doesn’t factor into college kids’ budgets.  But here I am shifting a few dollars away from groceries so I can pick up a six-pack.  Hey it has breakfast in the name doesn’t it?

5)    Bastardizing Beer.  The word ‘beer’ used in college discourse takes on a much more different meaning than ‘beer’ used around craft beer circles.  For the former it is a straw colored liquid that gets drank in copious quantities every weekend.  It’s valued as a means to an end—liquid courage, escaping stresses, a filler for my beer pong cup, to get drunk.  It is Miller, Coors and Busch.  There’s not a whole lot else going on with it, but its fun.  So they drink and drink a lot.  For the latter, and for myself, it is the end itself.  A complex and fascinating beverage that brings joy at every sip.  It can range from pale straw to inky black and everywhere in-between, with just as much a range of subtle flavors, aromas and consistencies.  A drink rooted in history and culture, this stuff built pyramids and got us out of the great depression.  It’s so many things I can’t even begin to discuss here.  There’s something to this stuff and I just want all the party-hardy college kids to understand. 

And yes, of course, its fun too…

Men In Short Shorts

A little piece I wrote up for Conte Confidential about BC Rugby...

“Extra Mayooooo!!” our captain yelled out just before we engaged in a scrum against UMass-Amherst. Extra Mayo? Not the clearest reference, but everyone knew what it meant.

We had to get an especially big push in the scrum at a critical point in the match to secure possession and the win. At this late stage in the match, everything is a scrap, including the inspirational shouts.

Most players on the team of 15 had been in the game for nearly 80 minutes of pushing, grappling, tackling, sprinting and rucking. The body is physically beat: dehydrated, scraped up, bruised and often bloodied. What were once white rugby shorts are soiled brown. We had to pool all our remaining energy into this last push so that the last 75 minutes weren’t for not.

And we did.

I joined the rugby club during my sophomore year. I had been active in sports in high school. Although intramural sports at Boston College were a casual good time, they left something wanting.

I had zero experience with rugby when I began. The sport was entirely new to me. It was entirely new to my mother as well. When she saw a game in the fall, she commented that she thought it was a “circus,” referring to the line-outs where we would lift someone 10 feet in the air by their butt and their thighs and the scrums, which were formed by a mass of groaning men.

BC and Northeastern go for a line-out (photo credit: Duncan Walker)

Rugby is far different than the sports I played in high school. I had to learn quickly, and here are few of my takeaways:

1) Whatever you learned in football, throw it away.

Rugby may seem to have a lot in common with football, but most of the time it is counterproductive to use football strategies. You don’t want to fight for that extra inch after contact, and it’s never permissible to run east to west with the ball.

2) Don’t gloat…

When someone scores a try there isn’t a lot of high-profile celebrating and trash talking. Maybe it’s because rugby can be a very humbling sport. One minute you may be scoring that try, but the next you could be crushed between two tacklers with the wind knocked out of your lungs. Better save your celebrations until after the 80 minutes.

3) But you better cheer like hell. 

That means supporting your teammates with a proper “LET’S GO” every now and again. There needs to be a raw, impassioned spirit around at all times to push your team through exhausting conditions.  This isn’t gloating. It’s encouragement, and there’s a difference.

4) You don’t have to be a bag of muscle to play.

A lot of what people know about rugby is from what they see on an occasional televised professional game. Our rugby players aren’t those tree-trunk-solid Irishmen. If you can deliver a hit, and take one in turn, you’ll be fine. With that said, it doesn’t hurt to hit the weight room once in awhile.

5) Know your body.

Everyone on the team seems to have a reoccurring injury. I severely sprained both my ankles last season. One guy breaks his nose about every other match. Another has dislocated his shoulder multiple times. Know what injury you’re predisposed to, wrap it, support it, throw a brace on it, do what you have to do to protect it.

Players get muddy quickly during games (photo credit: Duncan Walker)

6) After the game, quarantine your uniform.

When my sister visited me last fall, she condemned my room as unlivable. I had piled my soiled rugby uniform in the corner, and let’s just say it smelled less than pleasant. There are few things dirtier than your rugby shorts and socks will be after a game; they’re grass stained, caked with mud and crusted over with dried sweat. So, until you finally get around to washing them, leave them outside, or sealed away in the dark reaches of your basement.

7) Don’t join for the glory.

This is a club sport at BC. And rugby isn’t an NCAA sport period. We don’t get big crowds at our games or much publicity either. We work hard at practice, our training sessions and at games for our teammates and ourselves. There really isn’t anyone else.

8) Join for the stories.

Being a part of the rugby team is one of the best choices I’ve made at BC. The jokes, the laughs, the camaraderie and the beat-up, burnt-out satisfaction that comes at the end of a match make it all worthwhile