Love Good Beer

Two years of Love Good Beer

Sunday, December 19th, 2010 | Beer | 1 Comment

We created this blog over two years ago now, with no other goal than having a good time.  Having a beer blog has made us do a lot of things we likely wouldn’t have done otherwise, as such we’ve been successful in our one goal.  This past year we’ve posted quite a bit less, but have done a lot more living.  Erik is enacting some grand beer related plans and I’ve enjoyed many epic European beer experiences.  This past year I’ve gone to Portland for the first time, sampled many British pubs, visited the Great British Beer Festival, and experienced Oktoberfest.  If all works out well weather-wise I should be on my way to Belgium in a week’s time where I plan to hit up many a beer cafe and also visit the legendary Westvleteren monastery.  It’s been a good year.

I wrote a post after our first year and I thought I’d do so again this year.  Turns out that, despite posting less, we’ve doubled our traffic.  A lot of our old posts get quite a bit of traffic from google.  In the past year we had just under 22000 unique visitors and almost 43000 page views.  Here are the top ten posts of 2010, where most were actually written in 2009:

1. Stanley Park 1897 Amber
2. Turning Point Brewery – the inside scoop
3. Rickard’s Dark Review
4. Bud Light Lime is an Abomination
5. The Beer Cellar: how to cellar beer and why
6. Kona Brewing and other Hawaii beer stuff
7. Beer and Meat
8. Review: Bowen Island Brewing
9. Gluten Free Sorghum Beer
10. Dix Brewery Closing Down?

Those ten are also pretty close to our top ten of all time.  Can you believe we’ve had just over 31000 all time unique visitors?  Me neither.  So what’s in store for Love Good Beer?  I’m not sure.  We’ll likely continue to post sparsely whenever we come across cool beer related stuff in our travels.  I’ve got some lofty goals for 2011, to drink beer on at least two additional continents and to drink a beer after playing The Old Course in St. Andrews.  I’m hoping I can talk about those as triumphs the same time next year.  I wouldn’t mind heading to Oktoberfest again either.

Happy Holidays!

Chris

Tags: 2010, 2011, goals, love good beer, oktoberfest, year in review

Experiencing Oktoberfest in Munich

Saturday, October 16th, 2010 | Beer | 2 Comments

I’ve always suspected that Oktoberfest might be one of those epic must-do experiences to have before I die.  Well I was right and I can now die a little bit happier knowing I didn’t miss out.  Many people have written about Oktoberfest (including my wife) and most people know what it’s about, so I’ll spare you the general details and just share with you the not so obvious things I learned (after a few pictures):

The first tent we saw, Lowenbrau

Inside Lowenbrau, the pictures don't capture the bedlam

Outside Lowenbrau in the biergarten with our first festbiers

• Everybody Goes: The Oktoberfest spirit really takes over Munich.  Not just everyone in the city, but everyone in Bavaria makes a point of visiting Oktoberfest.  We immediately started noticing dudes in lederhosen when we hopped on the train from the airport.  In fact, I’ve never felt so under dressed, and for not wearing lederhosen!  Men would wear their lederhosen and women their dirndl all day at work in preparation for that evening’s festing, where I’d say close to 75% of people were dressed for the occasion.  People of all ages were present at the event, from little kids to old people.  I can’t imagine that sort of crowd at, and the same level of support for, a giant drinking party in a field at the middle of a big city anywhere else in the world.  It’s respected tradition.
• It’s enormous: It’s bigger than I imagined.  There are fourteen big tents and twenty smaller ones, where the big tents hold thousands of people (close to ten thousand in the biggest ones). As we walked into view of the field from the U-Bahn, we couldn’t help but be awestruck by the sheer magnitude of the grounds, which are a mile long and almost as wide. We were again awestruck walking into one of the tents for the first time, where thousands of people were standing on the tables drinking, singing, and dancing.  There is also a theme park with respectable rides (puts Playland to shame) built around the tents.  There is no equivalent anywhere else in the world.
• The service is fantastic: It’s astounding that I’ve never had better table service than in a giant field sitting in a tent with a few hundred thousand other thirsty people.  As soon as you show any interest in another beer, a giant one litre mug of delicious festbier is delivered by a tiny old German woman that you wouldn’t dare mess with.  The same goes for pretzels and roast chicken, which is all the more impressive considering it takes at least an hour to roast a chicken.  Oktoberfest has had two hundred years to perfect their service, but many restaurants should still be ashamed of themselves.
• It’s civilised: In another situation you’d think putting a few hundred thousand drunk people in a field would be a recipe for disaster, but it wasn’t.  If the same event was held in Canada, the US, or the UK (particularly in the UK, yikes), World War III would break out.  I was at Oktoberfest for twenty hours spread out over three days and I never saw anyone throw up or get in a fight.  Sure there were some wobbly people and it did get a bit loud, but I was remarkably impressed at the overall composure of the crowd.  I would feel comfortable taking my grandparents to Oktoberfest.
• You’ll make friends: You need to be sitting at a table to get served and the whole point of being there is to get served.  As you can imagine, table space is hard to come by and people will fill any available seats as soon as they become available.  This means that, if you spend any amount of time at Oktoberfest, you’ll be sitting with any number of frequently rotating fellow festers.  The one day we managed to reserve a space inside a tent we were in Schottenhamel, one of the more traditional and local tents where Oktoberfest actually kicks off.  We met many local Bavarians, all dressed for the occasion, who were happy to share their local knowledge with us.  We learned to look each other in the eye when prosting (seven years bad sex if you don’t!) and we learned a few local drinking songs, which I totally remember the words to, not.  The local colour only served to enhance our experience.
• Watch out: The beer served at Oktoberfest is called Festbier or Marzen.  It’s a malty sweet lager that is a bit stronger than usual, often around 6% ABV.  It’s delicious and, considering that it’s served in one litre portions, extremely dangerous.  The earliest we started was 2PM one day.  I can recall thinking at 3:30PM, two one litres beers already in me, that I might be in a bit of trouble later on (also, I really had to pee).  I slowed my pace and managed to stay in control throughout the night despite the 4.5 festbiers consumed.  However, while standing on the table and singing along to the German songs (I’m sure I was really awesome at this), I fell off the table for no apparent reason.  I wasn’t the only one, my father did the same and also managed to escape the tent with his giant mug under his coat.  We then had some trouble getting back to where we were staying; the half hour journey took 2.5 hours and nobody remembers why.  Turns out I also forgot to eat all night, which did not help how I felt the next day.  If you go, watch out.
• The beer and the tents: You need to get into one of the fourteen big tents to experience Oktoberfest properly.  To get in, you’ll need to be there by 4PM on a weekday and by noon on a weekend, then don’t plan on leaving for the rest of the day.  The fourteen big tents are supplied by one of Munich’s big six brewers, those being Spaten, Lowenbrau, Paulaner, Hofbrau, Hacker-Pschorr, and Augustiner.  Each brews a lovely example of the festbier, none of which are too different from each other, so I wouldn’t worry about trying them all.  Any distinguishing features fade away after you’ve had a one litre mug, so don’t sweat it.  As for the tents, they each have their different characteristics, so pick the one that sounds the best to you.  If you can’t get in, most tents have outdoor beer gardens that can be almost as fun depending on the weather.  We stopped in on two evenings and were able to find seats outside at three of the tents, one each from Hacker, Lowenbrau and Augustiner.  You can make table reservations inside for a fee if you have a large group.
• Plan ahead: Leaving from London, we found no affordable way to fly into Munich when booking four months ahead of time.  We found it was cheapest to arrive from Vienna and leave via Prague, which made for a lovely extension to our holiday.  Also, accommodation books up fast, we ended up renting an apartment a ways out from the city center using HomeAway.  If you plan on visiting any year, you should book as close to a year ahead as you can, which isn’t to say you can’t make it work planning later on, you’ll just pay more.  You’ll also have a much easier time with every aspect of Oktoberfest if you plan to be there during the week and not on a weekend.

Munich is a really cool city and I’d love to go back when Oktoberfest isn’t on.  We did stop in at a non Oktoberfest beerhall, which were both plentiful and enjoyable.  I’d also be happy to return to Oktoberfest.  Next time I’m wearing lederhosen.  If anybody wants to go next year, I’d be happy to join them, but we’d best start planning now.

Festbier, Bratwurst, and Pretzel

The Hippodrome, where the celebrities go, we peeked at the hipness and it was 100% lederhosen

My new Bavarian friend in Schottenhamel, kept telling me I was going to have seven years bad sex then laughing hysterically

Rachel's new bavarian friend in Schottenhamel, she was really nice

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: augustiner, dirndl, festbier, hacker-pschorr, lederhosen, lowenbrau, marzen, munich, oktoberfest, paulaner, schottenhamel, spaten, weisn

Love Good Beer goes international

Monday, April 5th, 2010 | Beer | 2 Comments

Jet lagged in Guildford two years ago

My wife and I moved to London, England last week.  We’ve been staying with my gracious great aunt in Guildford, Surrey, an accessible train ride from the city. We’ll hopefully be able to continue doing so until we find our own flat (British for apartment), which will hopefully be soon.  It is true that everyone here talks funny and drives on the wrong side of the road, but I suppose we should be thankful the British sent all of their smart, good looking people to Canada (and their dumb and ugly to the US) 400 or so years ago to improve upon their language and culture.  Even though Canada is eleven times better than the UK, we decided to come experience the old country and the rest of Europe before we became bored enough to try having babies.  In all seriousness now, it was time for a change in our commute heavy and not entirely fulfilling lives, so here we are.  I mean no offense to people who have babies (we’ll be them soon enough) and very little offense to the UK (come on, it isn’t perfect here).

What does this mean for LoveGoodBeer.com?  Not a whole heck of a lot really.  We’ll continue blogging, Erik from Vancouver and myself from here.  And while I’ll miss the burgeoning BC beer scene, there will be plenty of new beer experiences for me to have and write about.  I’ve already been to two British pubs (the Lamb and Flag and the Grantley Arms) and sipped real ale, but I also plan to visit Belgium, Oktoberfest, and more of the UK, including the GBBF, in the coming months.  Erik plans to visit twice too, meaning our entire staff of writers will be reunited, however briefly, across the pond.  Back to things that I’ll miss, I don’t know how I’m going to live without Brewery Creek and the Alibi Room, not to mention my friends and family, for however long we’re over here.  Hopefully the experiences will make up for any sense of loss, but I’ll just have to hope everything isn’t too different when I get back.  I will miss Vancouver and those close to me there dearly.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: alibi room, Belgium, brewery creek, camra uk, england, grantley arms, guildford, lamb and flag, london, oktoberfest, real ale, surrey, uk

New Year’s Beer Resolutions

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 | Beer | 3 Comments

We had a good year in 2010, but didn’t exactly close out the year strong what with our posting becoming increasingly infrequent.  Despite our lazy December, we managed to have a really good first full year of LoveGoodBeer.com.  Some of the cool stuff that happened to us:

• We received free beer a few times
• We attended a lot of cool events (one with a press pass)
• We had a few restaurants ask us for help with their beer menus

While that stuff was awesome, it’s time for us to step our games up.  To make sure we reach higher this year, I’ve decided to set some lofty goals via New Year’s resolutions.  I haven’t talked to Erik about these, but he’ll just have to deal with it.

Westvleteren, we'll be there

New Year’s Resolutions:

• Get Erik intertube access – Erik bought a new house in late November and has been busy renovating and moving in, but still doesn’t have the internet.  This explains why he hasn’t posted in well over a month, even though he has rad things to write about.
• Drink more awesome beer and less crappy beer – There is a lot of good beer out there, so why bother drinking crappy beer?  Also, we need to try every good beer ever made and, therefore, have no time to waste on crappy beer.
• Exercise more -  If we are going to drink more beer, we’ll have to exercise to stay really, really, really ridiculously good looking, probably at least three times a week.
• Go on at least three beer pilgrimages – We haven’t even been to Portland yet, so we’ll need to do that.  Oktoberfest in Munich and Trappist Monasteries in Belgium come to mind.  Westvleteren here we come.
• Post thrice per week – Collectively, we should be able to post three times a week every week.

I was also going to add “take over the world”, but felt it didn’t apply because we have pretty much already done this.  Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: Beer, Belgium, munich, new year's resolution, oktoberfest, pilgrimage, portland, westvleteren