matthearn.com

Note: this column was originally written at about 1am while on last week’s business trip.

I am an adventurous man. When opportunities come a-knockin’, your man Hearn gets to a-rockin’, and also quite possibly a-poppin’ and a-lockin’, with just a soupcon of a-jockin’. For example, there was the time in ’82 when I went to the Azores to stop terrorists from blowing up a banana boat filled with finely minced cocaine bound for the CIA. There was also the time that I went back in time and personally kicked Adolph Hitler right in the frankfurter. Even better, there was the time I made all that crap up and wrote it down in hopes I’d be able to use it in a column. This is why I decided, when the opportunity appeared: dude, let’s get drunk and write lengthily about it.

Well, obviously, there’s more to it than that. I don’t get drunk for no reason. Stop snickering! It’s true! There has never been a time I got hammered that I haven’t been able to justify it in some way at some later date. And this time, I can even blame the Jews!

Wait, that didn’t even REMOTELY come out right. Let me start over.

During my stay in King of Prussia, I found myself with a free evening, and one of my coworkers wanted some beer. So we went to Michael’s Jewish Deli, which, among other delights, is purported to have some 500 different kinds of beer. I stood before the beer cooler in great awe. It was an awesome sight. I decided then and there: pick 6 beers that I’ve never had, and preferably never even HEARD of, drink them, and describe the experience.

I also decided, since I was unlucky enough to have to have a smoking room at the hotel, that goldarn it I’ll show ’em what REAL smoke is, so I picked up a little packet of cheap cigars that I may or may not like, depending on if I can breathe (my code was stiww goig strogg at da tibe).

Here are the beers in question:

I started with the Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale, from Belgium. It comes in a transparent brown bottle, and eschews the normal paper/glue label; instead, the necessary graphics are painted directly onto the glass. It was the most expensive beer I bought, so I figured that means it’s probably the best; better to start with it, rather than drink it last when I’d be too hammered to describe it.

Here is how I describe it, while fully sober in mind and spirit: frothy. Seriously, this beer is like quintuple carbonated. It tastes pretty good; it’s very dark, but rather mild, without too much bitterness. It’s hard to say that I enjoyed it much, though, because every time I took a sip I had to immediately swallow it because the sudsing bubbles released so much gas I thought I’d be spraying it across the room. I shudder to think what the gasses are doing inside my belly at this point. I expect there to be much farting as time goes along.

Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale: $6. Grade: C+, mainly because it was too carbonated to taste, and paying $6 for a bottle of beer at the liquor store is akin to paying $27 for a rum and coke in a bar in New York. (Which I have done.)

Next up was the Dinkel Acker CD-PILS, which I assume means it’s some kind of Crack Dirigible Pilsner. Germans like lighter-than-air flying machines, don’t they? I think it was in a movie once. Obviously, this is from Germany, based on the “Brewed with all natural ingredients in strict accordance to the German purity law of 1519,” which is a law I fully support. It’s a good flavor, although it’s hard to tell what’s going on; things taste a little mottled. I don’t get a lot of hops flavoring, and I don’t really get a yeasty aftertaste, but they’re sort of there, somehow. It’s hard to explain. It’s definitely a lighter beer in all respects, compared to the Corsendonk; almost a lager, I’d say, but not quite as refreshing.

Dinkel Acker CD-Pils: $3. Grade: B-

Next on the docket is Lagunitas “Censored” Rich Copper Ale, from Californ-eye-yay. Another dark beer (what can I say, when it comes to beer I got the jungle fever), this one doesn’t have all the carbonation of the Corsendonk, so I can enjoy the full flavor without worrying if it’s going to come spurting out of my mouth like a contrived Jon Stewart-style spit take. And a rich flavor it is, although once again not too bitter.

I just remember that I probably have remnants of DayQuil in my system, so it will be interesting to find out how the beer reacts with that. Probably not going to be good times.

Lagunitas “Censored” Rich Copper Ale: $3. Grade: A-

Out of the fridge comes the Augustinerbräu München Münchner Bier Edelstoff, which purports to have had been being made since 1328AD, a year which I have carefully researched and I have discovered the following tidbits of information:

• It was the year in which England recognized Scotland’s independence following the wars of, uh, Scottish Independence.
• It was the year in which Avignon Pope Benedict XIII was a-borneded.
• They weren’t playing, they’ve really been around since 1328, which is just freaky old.

The beer? She is a tasty wench, and a worthy adversary.

Augustinerbräu München Münchner Bier Edelstoff: $3.75. Grade: B+. Would be a solid A but I can’t pronounce the name because I’ve drunk four damn beers already.

Before we can continue, an aside: Patsy Cline is awesome, I think we can all agree, but WHY, exactly? I’m willing to admit that her recordings were some of the greatest in the history of country music and basically helped create the entire genre, but I see her more as a kind of 1950s Tim McGraw: the right look, with the right songs, at the right time. I think she’s basically famous because the greatest country music songwriter of all time (Willie Nelson) wrote a song (“Crazy”) which someone realized would work best as a woman’s song. Patsy recorded her version and BAM now she’s regarded as one of the top 5 country recording artists of the 20th century. When I listen to her, though, I just don’t hear IT, you know? Of course, it’s very likely that Patsy’s skill was in understating things just right, and I’m not sophisticated enough to pick up on it. I have had four beers, after all. Okay, sorry, back to the drinking and talking about beer. (Yes, I’m playing “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” and the soundtrack just launched into “Two Cigarettes.”)

Now we have officially reached the point in which the brewers feel the need to put the alcohol content of their beers right on the label, to taunt us. This is the Morland “Old Speckled Hen,” y’all, and its 5.2% alky content is up there with that most ghastly of American drunkeners, “Ice House.”

Let us speak not of OE800.

I’m hoping that actual Hens aren’t in the beer, let alone speckled ones.

Morland “Old Speckl’d Hen”: $4.75. Grade: This beer gets an A. Even if it does taste like chicken.

This last beer, La Fin Du Monde (The End Of The World?), is French, which is just wrong. The French aren’t allowed to make beer, are they? Isn’t it against international law for them to make anything but hardy Burgundies and aspersions against anything non-Gallic? I’m behind confused. However, I am happy to report that this beer is 9% alcohol, which is why I saved it for last; if I had drunk it first, this report would be nothing but gibberish and aspersions against whoever decorated this hotel room (soft stucco walls, is all I’m sayin’).

Of course, because I said rude things about the French, this beer had to turn oout to be really really good, although still a bit fizzy. (It took me roughly 4000 keystrokes, half of which were backspaces, to type the previous sentence.) Every time I take a sip it attempts to expel the rest of the bottle onto my lap via the magic of carbonation, although it’s not as bad as the first one, whatever that crap was, I can’t bother to scroll up and see what it was called.

All I’m saying is: I like beer.

La Fin Du Monde: $3. Grade: D for drunkenizer. A for Awesome. M for, uh, Monde, I guess. N for Natty Light Is Not Good. What’s that spell? DIZAAAAAAAAAAMN, if you take some liberties with the spelling, as I am wont to do.

My job doesn’t require me to travel much, which is nice, but when it does it’s never timed well. The first time was last December, a week or so before Christmas, which is a tough time to be traveling into the New York area, even though I did get to see my old buddy Josh and venture into Brooklyn. Last week, as Sarah entered her 9 month of pregnancy, I had to go up to King of Prussia and work long shifts interspersed with periodic naps at a hotel. (Hence no updates.)

In the end, actually, I only had to work a few days before we declared victory and they sent me home, which was very nice. I got to spend Wednesday at Valley Forge, riding my bike around and taking pictures of old huts and pretty landscapes, and then I was home Wednesday night. Plus, our old Protege hit 100,000 miles on the way north, and I got some pictures of that too. PLUS, I had some free time on Tuesday night to drink a bunch of beer and write a post about it, which I’ll throw up (not literally) later this week. But first: picturesez!!! (All of which are heck of clickable if you wanna few ’em in WIIIIDDDDEESCREEEEEEEENNNNNN.)

First, a picture of the interior of my car as it passed 100,000 miles. (Next, a picture of the wreck that was my car at 100,000.2 miles when I drove into a tree ’cause I wasn’t looking at the road. Ha ha! Just kidding! The car’s fine!)

I was completely blown away by my hotel room. It kinda smelled faintly of dog-flavored cigarettes, but it had a bedroom, and a living area, and . . .

a freakin’ KITCHEN, and . . .

Dude, a full size fridge! I immediately stocked up on the essentials.

The rest of the photos are from my little day trip to Valley Forge. You’ll find I enjoy taking pictures from a post-Warholian perspective (I don’t know what that means) in which I try and juxtaposition old things with new things. Like, here, a pretty countryside with an 18th century hut and a cannon, with a bunch of really lame glass buildings in the background (you may have to view the pic in full-size to see ’em):

Ha ha! I’m dork. Next, another hut, with what appears to be smoke from a nuclear plant in the background:

Then, a hut with cars! (Valley Forge has a metric butt-ton of huts.)

This is the interior of the hut. I could find no 20th or 21st century artifacts within. I should’ve held my foot up to the picture or something, since I was wearing 21st century bike shoes.

After a while I got bored of trying to be artsy, and went back to being standard American touristy. I don’t remember exactly what these doodackies were, but I think they have pictures of 20th century US Presidents on the bottom, and they were on the driveway leading to . . .

the National Memorial Arch. Note the stop sign in the foreground: I’m like Herb Ritts, if Herb enjoyed amateur photos of landmarks instead of deep character studies of wangs.

One side of the inside of the Memorial Arch.

The other side thereofs.

A patriotic shot of the Arch with the flagpole in the background, thwarted by the fact that the wind wouldn’t lift the flag up so you can tell what it is. I’ll just have to inform you that it is the Stars and Stripes, beotch, and you had best represent.

A cool shot of the Arch and the surrounding vegetation. Some of these photos were taken with an eye towards printing them out with our new righteous photo printer and putting them on up on our walls so when people come over they think “Wow, dude, Team Hearn sure knows decent art,” which is a major improvement of what they usually think, which is “Wow, Team Hearn hasn’t cleaned this toilet since the Reagan Administration.”

I call this one “Hut and Tractor, 2006.”

This is the Artillery Park, which was developed so that children would have a place to play that they could hit their heads on solid cast iron. Ha ha! Just kidding. It’s named the Artillery Park because it’s where they parked the artillery so it could be moved reasonably quickly to wherever in the camp the British might be rolling up all muskety and bayonetty.

A cool old covered bridge. Probably doesn’t date from 1778, but it’s still pretty dope.

This is a monument placed near the grave of the only soldier who died at Valley Forge whose grave was actually labelled. I do not remember his name.

Detail of the grave monument.

This is the Washington Memorial Chapel, which was built in the early 20th century as an Episcopal Church, which meant they probably had scotch on the premises, but darn if I could find it.

The entrance to the chapel contains a tall room with a big bell in it. This is the ceiling of that room. (The photo of the “Justice Bell,” which had some bearing on Women’s Suffrage back in the day, came out heck of blurry.)

The interior of the chapel. You can probably tell I had to rest the camera on a pew on the back to steady it, because the room was dark, and my camera’s flash doesn’t really do anything on subjects more than 15 feet away.

Some righteous woodwork in the Choir.

The baptismal font.

This is some kind of weird culverty thing near Washington’s Headquarters. I just thought it looked cool; the creek is the “Valley Creek,” and on the other side of the culvert is the Schuylkill Ribbah. This might be a printer-outer as well.

This is Washington’s Headquarters, and surrounding buildings. I think I terrified the poor tour guide ladies inside because I was wearing my bike shorts, which make no effort to conceal my MASSIVE package.

A bunch of the rooms within the HQ.





The kitchen:

This is a train station that was built in the early 20th century to bring visitors to Valley Forge. The advent of the automobile made it as obsolete as figgy pudding.