With the Block 15 Altbier in the fading light of a Saturday, after helping steward at the Oregon Beer Awards, I am thinking about all the things that need to come together to accomplish anything.
The nose on the Altbier is faint, but a little roasty with almost a pinch of smoke. It’s interesting and drinkable but would definitely go better with some pub grub, I think. The flavors are strong enough that washing down something salty with this would be about perfect.
This is the first weekend of OBA judging and of the over 500 beers we had to process, we did well over 300 of them. As a result, tomorrow’s entries mostly consist of final round evaluations and people should be able to enjoy a short Sunday of work.
Don’t doubt; that is what it was. There is something about standing on concrete for eight hours that gives me an appreciation for people who have to do physical labor every day. It isn’t that I couldn’t do the job, it is more that it would take a toll on my body that I would have to work up to, and eventually pay for in ways I can barely imagine.
But between nine people we managed kick out a butt ton of beers to thirty six judges and get all of this work done in about nine and a half hours. (Credit to the judges too: they have to be on their game so that we can go home).
And that is just one thing, in a life full of little things, where people came together to make something work. From the music I was listening to on the way over-who wrote it? Performed and recorded it? Published it so that I could hear it? Produced a device so I could play it? Made the device-and on and on and on.
I wonder if the MAGAs really realize what they’d be disrupting, in order to see their hatred wear the crown for a little while, since they don’t have a vision for a better world-just one where the are “in charge” while everything else stays the same.
Because that’s all it would be-either because we’re all gonna die due to their horror, or because we’re going to say: No, fuck right off.
So I am trying to appreciate all the unseen and small but eventually massive forces that create a net my life can walk on.
A pint for Dionysus 