Two More for the Summer 2015

The Texas Monthly is sitting next to me.  It is the issue with the "Best and Worst Legislators 2015" article.  I'm curious and will read it, but legislative sessions, as a whole, depress me.  The Texas Legislature is still hamstrung even 150 years after then end of the Civil War in that it can only meet for about five months every two years. To ENCOURAGE citizen legislators, the pay is low, and to meet only periodically so that real citizens come to the table to make laws for the state.  What is DISCOURAGING about the process is that these are professional politicians for the most part, especially in statewide offices, and they spend time when the legislature isn't in session posturing, pontificating, and building the agenda for the next session. 

The two largest expenditures in the state budget are health and education, and yet few, if any, come from these fields (health overtook education recently I believe, but I'd have to look up the budget and compare the two from what was actually passed and I don't want to look at those numbers).  That's also DISCOURAGING because then testimony and requests are what generate information for them, but it's my opinion that they rarely review the information provided and that job one in testimony is to make the one who holds their opinion look good and to eviscerate the one who holds an opinion contrary to them (I've watched it happen, they are masters at it).  Finally, when all said and done, these citizen legislators who are paid little will receive a retirement after 10 years at the level of a state district judge (one a system that is based on years of service, average salary, etc).  How did that happen? I asked when I first learned that, to which my informant called me a dumbass and said, "They passed a bill to make it happen dumbass."

So, when I see a list purporting to claim who was BEST and WORST I'm inclined to think they are all bad personally.  They don't start out that way (most of them don't), but the system encourages them to forget from whence they came.  Nice offices and a few butt kissing tours from your voters asking you to consider this and that and soon you are part of the system.  If you are bitten by a snake and act surprised, the common sense response is, "You knew it was a snake."  Logically, if a politician disappoints you, you have to make a similar observation, "You knew he or she was a snake."  Anyway, what's this have to do with beer?

Personally, I'd rather see magazines devoting their pages to meaningful things, like craft beer.  That, I can understand, and that, I can appreciate.  If a beer is good, it is because it met your expectations on the taste spectrum.  If a beer is bad, it isn't because the beer was ugly or deceitful (well, the major manufacturers may be an exception to that), it just didn't satisfy your expectations.  See, these guys and gals come and go, make promises and then lie to you telling you how they were out for you, the little guy (who made millions in their respective industries of oil/gas/law/insurance/telecommunications) while the real little guy benefitted little from anything they did of consequence.  Not beer, beer doesn't lie.  It doesn't lead you with deception.  In fact, at the end of the day, if you can actually have a beer with someone, it helps you in the relationship side of whatever you are engaging in.

Sierra Nevada Brewing has a beer for the summer called Summer Fest and St. Arnold's Brewery has one for the summer called Summer Pils.  These two beers are classic and straightforward pilsners with a full-bodied tastes but light (in terms of hops and color, not calories).  Unlike the other beers we've looked at this summer, these are pilsners in the classic sense and not flavored by fruit, spice or some other flavoring.  In fact, upon have a couple recently from both, I'd have a hard time distinguishing between the two.  Pilsners, by tradition, are lagers (cold storage, longer fermentation time than ales), and are historically named from a town (Pils I believe) in the Czech Republic.  Both sites insist that their beers are best served cold, like revenge.

That takes us back to politics, a business of vengeance.  I'd personally recommend taking a couple of these and going into the back yard in the evening and forgetting about such non-sense as politics for awhile.  Neither, if this is your kind of beer, will disappoint you.

Enjoy.

The World Has Lost Its Mind...

Again.  No student of history, or historian, looks at the present and anguishes, but merely compares.  Go ahead, get it off your chest, these time are the worst ever, and perhaps attribute all this as signs of the impending apocalypse.  Somewhere out there lurks the anti-Christ, destined to start whichever version of end times you use. 

I prefer the one where the world just ends, and a new world is created.  It fits within my belief system. If God gave me another 1000 years to clean my act up after the life I've led after 55 years, I'd just say, "Okay, starting in year 990 I will atone." This fits with how we achieve goals.  "How much longer do I have?"  So, I'm not inclined to read apocalyptic scripture the same way some do who come up with the 1000 year analysis (millennialism I believe).

As a student of history, I'm more inclined to think that we have managed to come back to a point much like the 1960s where there was chaos in our culture.  Norms were being redefined, roles were being challenged.  Toss in the early 1970s where the Arab states flexed their political muscle, and I think we have a similar point in our history.  Yet absent in that era which we have now was one ingredient that gets us through such turmoil - the craft brew market. 

We were just 40 years past the lifting of Prohibition and so there were only a few beer makers around with the accumulated wealth to start back up and produce and distribute beer.  They dominated that era, and when you went to the store, your choices were Schlitz, Miller or Budweiser.  We didn't even have the concept of lite beer yet and Coors was still a craft beer created in Colorado. Today, there is a myriad of beer choices to help you pull through the crises that we experience.

In the summer, we get some of the lighter varieties of beer that have a fruit added, namely the lemon, which creates a very good effect.  Sam Adams Summer Ale, Leinenkugal's Summer Shandy, and Shock Top Lemon Shandy all hale an element of the lemon, or a derivative (lemonade).  These are beers fit for summer with that taste, and these are ales that have not created a bitter aftertaste or a taste that can start to become bitter while enjoying perhaps a six-pack.  They are my personal favorite of all seasonals with the lemon, but for beer drinkers looking for darkness or the bitterness of hops, these will not set well with you.

Just the other day, as I was listening to the news of the day, I went to the refrigerator and opened a Summer Shandy.  Within minutes I completely forgot whatever the news was that upset me and found myself relaxing in the back yard with this in my hand.  On Father's Day, I put some in the cooler along with my own concoctions (witbier with orange) and was able to put current events well out of mind and enjoy my family.

I highly recommend these as a change of pace and a way to enjoy a hot summer day.  If you find the news bothering you, turn it off.  Better, take a vacation from it, perhaps the entire summer.  With that, a backyard smoker calls as I prepare the fatted calf for some friends for tomorrow, and yes, while out there, I will have some summer ales.

Enjoy and remember this simple truth, the more things change, the more they remain the same.  Nothing is more noble than a fine ale and that IS the truth.