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

Berlin! Come Back to Me: Seven Things I Miss About Meine Lieblingsstadt

1)   The Bahn.  I took a flight from Berlin direct to Boston and when I hopped on the T, Boston’s subway system, I was already missing Berlin.  If you’ve ever ridden on the T then you probably know that ‘hopped on’ is actually never a verb associated with it.  You usually have a painfully long wait before another two-car subway comes screeching leisurely down the tracks.  Nine stops, forty five minutes and two homeless men later I had arrived back home.  This is a far cry from the humming efficiency and cleanliness of Berlin’s public transportation system.  It gets you anywhere you need to go, and it gets you there fast. 

2)   The Parks.  Granted I studied abroad over one of Berlin’s longest and coldest winters recorded, but in the finals weeks I still got a taste of how enjoyable the public parks and gardens could be.  Aesthetically the parks themselves couldn’t hold a candle to others, like say, Paris’ parks, but that’s not why I miss them.  Take Gorlitzer Park located in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood for example.  It’s very Berlin—a mash of cement seating areas and steps amongst a fair, but not thick, stand of grass laden with cigarette butts.  However, I’m certain as a center of intrigue, Gorlitzer Park goes unmatched.  The locals scour the terrain, playing music of every kind, barbecuing, throwing Frisbees, picnicking, chatting, drinking and doing it all in that authentic, carefree, stylish way that only Berliners can do.  If you enjoy people watching, I can imagine no better place in the world. 

3)   Open Containers…  And why won’t I ever enjoy a park as much as I enjoyed those in Berlin? Open container laws.  Oh how nice it is to sprawl on the grass with friends, music and a cold, sixty-cent beer you just picked up from a kiosk down the street. 

4)    … And Open Airs.  Once the weather starts warming up in the spring, Berlin puts on free public concerts in the parks, open airs.  They are really just a mass of dancing, drinking Berliners surrounding a DJ booming his track into the dense of the night.  A club without the club. 

5)    German, and Germans.  I think you’ll find a lot of people who have the perception that the German language is harsh and unpleasant.  I believe quite the opposite is true; German can be fascinating to turn an ear toward.  I’m not sure what my love for German is founded on but I suspect it’s the German people themselves.  The way the Germans carry themselves, interact and function is entirely different from Americans.  Each one I imagine has a brain-chest of interesting ideas and stories if only you could break through their shell.  And you can’t, which makes them mysterious and all the more fascinating. 

6)    Late Nights, and Laaaate Nights.  If you end your weekend night at four in the morning here, you say to yourself, “Wow, what a late night.” And it is.  If you end your night at four in the morning in Berlin your friends might tell you, “Why are you going back so early?” Eight in the morning was the new four in Berlin.  And others had impossibly late nights that lasted into Sunday afternoon.  Berlin redefined the word nightlife for me, and nowhere in the States even comes close. 

7)    The Subtleties.  This was probably the one time in my life when I was not traveling, not visiting, but I was living in a different country.   And there were so many things everyday that brought me back to this fact—clocks attuned to military time, Mercedes taxi cabs, little or no tipping at restaurants, strict adherence to cross-walking signs, mayonnaise on french fries, getting a haircut and them leaving more hair on the top than you wanted (German style), supermarket cashiers who sit in a chair, different cereals, different currency, different toilets—all of the differences, good or bad, that reminded me everyday that I was in a new, exciting place and made me glad to be a part of it all. 

A brief debriefing

Boston College’s 2013 Commencement is over, and with that the 150^th class has been pushed out into the “real” world.  There’s no good way to make your exit, really.  Two thousand plus seniors just pack up and leave campus (on the same day as the graduation ceremony, no less), each one heading off in a different direction as though the past four years have been an extended summer camp. 

Before the beginning of the rest of our lives happens, I want to take this chance to pause and look back.  Elaina, a recent grad of BC, has been so kind to answer a few questions about her time at Boston College to get a little more perspective on these past four years.

What is one perception you had coming in on your first day of freshman orientation about Boston College or college in general that held true and one that was completely off base?

Elaina—I think that one perception that didn’t hold true for me was the feeling that I had that I wasn’t going to fit in at BC.  To say I was excited for Freshman Orientation would be an understatement.  I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in this new college culture.  However, when I entered the elevator on campus with my penguin shaped backpack and glow in the dark Converse, I was hard pressed not to ignore the judgmental glances the mothers in their Express outfits were throwing my way.  When I read that BC’s campus was a J Crew catalogue with a slight hangover, I thought that was an exaggeration.  I’d never even been in a J Crew before!  However, after four years at the school, I realized that there was more to the school and the student body then their brightly colored cardigans.  And I’ve still never been in a J Crew.

One stereotype that did hold true was the crazy college parties a la Animal House.  Long live the Mods.

You have one million dollars to donate to Boston College, how would you improve it?

Elaina—As a Studio Art Minor, I’d give it to the art department in a heartbeat.  The art students can only nourish their creativity and inspire awe on the change left over after supporting the football team and the bio department for so long.

What is the most important thing you learned while in college?

Elaina—During my time at BC, I definitely learned how to deal with different sorts of people.  From adjusting to living with complete strangers freshman year to realizing that living with your best friends senior year doesn’t always go as planned, BC puts you in situations where your people skills are really tested.

You’re eighty years old, and your two grandchildren who are about to enter college want to hear a story from your college years.  What do you tell them?

Elaina—I would tell them how I got to meet James Franco once while at school, but they probably wouldn’t even know who that was, which is depressing.  I’d probably end up telling them how I met all my roommates since the grankiddies would only be about 18 at the time and I wouldn’t want to give them any ideas.  I’ll have to think on that one over the next 50 plus years.

Give the incoming freshman a piece of advice that the OL’s aren’t going to be telling them.  

Elaina—I’ll tell you what I told the yearbook: the Comm Ave bus, while a convenience in trying weather, is not a necessity on a day-to-day basis.  Or rather, should I say a night-to-night basis.  Walk to the party on Foster Street.  Standing on a full capacity bus of intoxicated students is not a great way to start your night.  Especially not on Halloween, trust me.

What will you miss most?

Elaina—Without a doubt, having all of my friends a short walk away.  The people who have grown to be my family over these past four years are now all over the country.  It’s a necessary change with life, but I’ll definitely miss running across the hall to see the girls who crept their way into my heart as sisters.

Special thanks to Elaina Donofrio for setting this Q&A up with me, and good luck.

The economics behind why my college house is a complete mess, always

Last year as a sophomore I lived with seven other guys.  We had one main central trash can in the kitchen and it was implied that it was everyone's responsibility to take out the trash when it was necessary, yet our trash can was always spilling over with old banana peels, pizza boxes and scrap paper.   One roommate of ours had especially poor trash emptying abilities and to test him we quietly refused to take out the garbage until he would.  After a week there were trash piles on the floor and one day he burst into the common room—to empty his personal trashcan into the main one—balancing his pieces of trash onto the existing piles like stacking blocks so they wouldn't topple.  "Someone really needs to take out this trash" I remember him saying.  Yes, someone does need to take out this trash I thought.  Now I live in a house off campus with eleven other guys and this same basic problem still exists.  In fact it is much much worse.  Our house is a filth pit, enough said.  Why is there this problem? Simple economic theory has an answer: the free rider problem.  A free rider is someone who benefits from a service (in this case a clean house) without paying for the cost of the benefit (in this case the effort to clean the house).  My friend I mentioned was the ultimate free rider.  Why should he take out the trash if he knows someone eventually will take it out?  (And yes, eventually we all gave up on the experiment and just took out the damn trash)  He got all the benefit without any of the cost.  Of course if everyone thinks this way what we get is a house my mother would cringe at.  And that is exactly what my house is today.  A complex supply and demand analysis to support my theory:

Beacon Hill's Charles Street Meeting House—History with Functionality

A piece I wrote for...whatever reason. Get your daily fix of history here:

Take a casual stroll through Boston’s neighborhoods and you are likely to discover Boston’s rich, layered history tucked away somewhere amongst the high rises, sports bars and local shops and businesses.  Boston is a living scrapbook, with each block a reminder to the bustling crowds of locals, businessmen and students that Boston goes back…way back.   Perhaps no other city in America has integrated its history into the workings of a modern functioning city more so than Boston.  And there is no better example of this than Beacon Hill’s Charles Street Meeting House. 

             The Charles Street Meeting House was completed in 1807 for the Third Baptist Church.  It was built along what was then the bank of the Charles River—long before the Back Bay began to be filled in—so that baptisms could be conveniently performed.  In 1836 the church’s segregationist seating arrangements, which kept blacks confined to the gallery, were challenged by a white abolitionist, Timothy Gilbert, who invited black friends to sit with him in his pew.  Gilbert was expelled from the church and he, along with fellow abolitionists, would go on to found the first racially integrated church in America, the First Free Baptist Church in Boston.  In subsequent years, the Third Baptist Church would change their position on slavery and the Charles Street Meeting House prior to the Civil War would become a locus for abolitionist activity.  Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass all spoke there.  The Church would undergo a series of transformations, first into the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1876 and then into the Charles Street Meeting House Society in 1939.  Conservations efforts began in 1949, although the structure would remain fully functional as a Universalist experimental church until 1979. 

            The real success of the Charles Street Meeting House has been its adaptive reuse into an office space for local Beacon Hill businesses.  The Meeting House has never stopped serving the Beacon Hill community since the final brick was laid in 1807, but at the same time it has not allowed people to forget its iconic role in Boston’s history—It is now a National Historic Site and a part of Boston’s Black Heritage Trail.  If you walk by the Meeting House this summer, or maybe grab a pastry from the downstairs Café Vanille (they’re good, real good), you might find businessmen taking a break right alongside tourists snapping a photo of the structure’s octagonal cupola.   Business and history both thrive here.   Inside, the Meeting House has been adapted to accommodate three levels of office space and acts as host for a diversity of respected, local, Beacon Hill companies such as Argopoint a management consulting firm.  After the transformation of the Meeting House to accommodate these office spaces, The American Institute of Architects conferred the Charles Street Meeting House in 1984 with an Excellence in Architecture award for its renovation and reuse.  

            The Charles Street Meeting House both serves and reminds.  It is a perfect example of how Boston has been able to showcase its special place in American history and continue to progress as a world-class, modern city.  On your next stroll down Charles Street, stop to appreciate the architecture and all of the years of history bound up in the bricks of the Charles Street Meeting House.  And did I mention the pastries?    

Information gathered from iBoston.org, and the National Park Service at NPS.gov

You will undoubtably be wasting your time by reading this blog, I assure you.  And I am undoubtably wasting my own time writing this blog.  But the damage will be limited I'm sure, this blog is tucked away under the most obscure folds of the internet.  I am merely speaking to myself for the most part, thought exercise I guess.  Blogs are silly things aren't they?  So why am I writing one?  Trust me, I never would if it were completely up to me.  So here, in my introductory post I have given you proper warning and as for what this blog will actually be about, well, that's not very clear either.  I promise not to just tell my day-to-day, because God knows there's enough of those out there.  Let's just see where this goes.