Sing A Song Of Joy - Utica Club Lives On!

I have to say, one of the best things about having a platform like The Big Lead is the fact that I actually get e-mails from people that have real insider information. That's why I have the following happy information to share about the Saranac Brewery fire:

"...none of the beer was destroyed in the fire. They'll have to outsource it to get it bottled until they rebuild the canning facility that was destroyed. So mourn not."

Beautiful, right? Uncle Charlie is alive and well.

In tribute to the happy news, here's the song that goes along with the above photo. I have to get this as my ring tone. I mean - I have to. It would be the highlight of my life.

A big hat tip goes out to Office Naps where I found the picture and the adjoining song.

[The Utica Club National Carbonation Beer Drinking Song]

Tragedy Strikes The Home Of Utica Club

Somber post this morning as the FX Matt Brewery - better known as the Saranac Brewery - has been burning since yesterday around 4. Saranac Brewery is best known on this blog as the brewer of Utica Club. The brewery is one of the oldest in America at over 100 years old. Utica Club was the first beer sold in America after the repeal of Prohibition.

I just visited the brewery for the first time last Fall. Lauren asked me to run out to get breakfast with her and basically kidnapped me. As we got on the Thruway, I realized something was happening. Here's an actual quote as I figured out something was up:

"Say, Lo. Since we missed the turn for Dunkin Donuts over 12 miles ago, don't you think we should turn around now?"

For some reason she deemed me worthy of a surprise trip to a brewery and casino. (I don't think there's any mystery why I'm with this girl.)

We got to Utica and took a tour of the old brewery. It was an extremely cool experience that I'm glad I was able to have. After the tour we got to sample some beers in the in-house bar. I also got a stein, glass and shirt from the girt shop.
Aside from my trip to the brewery, friends and older readers will know that I love Utica Club beer. It's cheap as hell and it's semi-local. "Uncle Charlie's" remains the only bright spot to Bomber's Burrito Bar on Lark Street in Albany. $2 Utica Club cans are a tough deal to beat in any city.

Hopefully, the family decides to rebuild and continue with the rich tradition.

It Was A Long/Drunk Weekend: Part 4

I really should have just done a 20,000 word post while everything was still "fresh" in my mind.

In which it is now Saturday....

Saturday morning I woke up and made myself a healthy breakfast of an egg and cheese sandwich. The breakfast sandwich consisted of upwards of 3 eggs and a piece of cheese to match each. After eating, I headed next door to see what sort of hard labor Lauren and Heather had planned for me.

I carried chairs, a poker table, hung up Christmas lights (in May) and other assorted tasks before running off to lounge in my living room. I went out and got more beer. I surfed the internet. Just like you're doing right now! (You and I - we are so the same.)

The party was set to start at 4 and I really don't remember much of what happened before it. Mike was at work, working on his 20-somethingth hour of OT for the week. (Keep in mind I was sent home early on Friday.) I hung out next door and waited for the "party people" to show up.

At around 1 I had my first beer of the day - a Labatt. It was delicious. As I sat on my couch drinking it while watching Pee Wee's Big Adventure, I knew it was going to be a good day.

I also knew I was going to have an absolutely banging hangover on Sunday.

So with complete disregard for my future self, I had a couple more beers while I flipped between Pee Wee and GO. (Which has one scene worth watching.)

When 4 o'clock came around I headed over to Lauren's so that I could drink socially greet my friends as they arrived. Of course Foker and Katie (And 4 other friends) were the first ones to show up. I feel like their entrance may have lost something since there was no one there to say "OMG! Hey you guys!" or anything of the sort.

We escorted everyone to the backyard where the drinks were waiting. There were also cigars, fedoras, and fake mustaches. (Havana Nights-theme) Mike put on a fake mustache and since he's a filthy Italian, he looked extremely natural in it.

Kyle and his lady friend were two of the first non-bridal party guests to arrive. Their final decision for a dish to share? 118 Jell-O shots. As they walked onto the lawn, Foker's sister and husband showed up with a punch bowl full of fruit soaked in Everclear vodka. As they approached I noted that, "Unless I miss my guess - we're in for one wild night."*

The party filled up fairly quickly and we broke away for a game of jarts. Kyle and I beat Mike and Tauren handily. Tauren is the longterm boyfriend of the maid of honor. He would make quite the impression before the evening was through.

After the jarts we settled down for a game of poker. Tauren went out first and bought back in. Then he ended up knocking me out and frustrating the hell out of me. (Of course who doesn't when I'm playing poker?)

As soon as I busted out I got up and distanced myself from the situation. By that I mean I grabbed a beer and started bitching from 3-feet from the table. To help me calm my nerves, Foker and I decided to light up a see-gar.


As you can see in the picture above we had Keystone and Bud, but much to the dismay of no one, we didn't have any Genny Light. (Sorry UU) There were also some Nick Lachey's (Miller Lite) and as mentioned previously - Jell-O shots. Back to the story...

As you can see it was chilling time. I smoked that cigar for about 2-hours until it was finally pointed out to me that I was taking way too long. What can I say? I like to take my time.

The cigars signaled the turn in the weekend. The sun was beginning to set. People were starting to buzz. The cooler was getting slowly lighter. The men smoked cigars and drank while the women giggled about unimportant "wedding details" and drank to a lesser extent. And it was good.

Tune in next time for Part 5: In which we watch UFC 85...

*I didn't really quote 300 at this point in the day, but I totally should have. I think it would have been super badass.

It Was A Long/Blurry/Fun/Drunk Weekend: Part 3

As we continue further into the week and farther away from Memorial Day weekend, it's important to remember that in the future I should live-blog long weekends. Without further ado...

In which it is now Friday night...

Having bought the cigars and started to clean up the house, I was understandably getting thirsty. It was Friday night after all and who am I to not imbibe? When Mike returned home from work I greeted him at the door with cases of beer neatly packed with the empties that we had been collecting on our back porch for the last few months.

We started throwing empties in the car until it was just about full and then headed off to be rewarded for our hard work drinking. First we took the loose bottles and cans (those that didn't fit in cases for some reason or another) to Price Chopper so we could appear like the Rockefellars we are as we stuffed the returnables into the magical machines that give us little pieces of paper for our trouble.

Of course anything that wasn't a 22-ounce Bud Light wasn't read by the machines and we had to invite one of the dunderhead employees over to count our remaining bottles. I don't know if you've ever seen a dimwitted upstate New York woman look at an import beer and question its value, but it's worth checking out.

"I've never seen this one before."

Oh, I'm sorry, dumbass. It's Labatts. They don't have that in Menands yet?

Then she proclaimed one can "isn't worth anything" as she turned it over and over looking in every place but the top. We litterally had to take the can from her hand and point directly at the 5-cent symbol. Guh.

After that adventure we headed to the beverage center to cash in the rest of our empties for fresh drinks. We had something like $15 worth of assorted cans and bottles for the lovely Schantz beverage in Watervliet. When you take bottles back there the kids who work there give you a small piece of paper with the dollar value of your returns on it. Seems a bit sketchy, but it works for them.

We grabbed a few cases, some Sparks and headed out. When we got back we decided to order some pizza. (Wait, didn't we just have that for lunch?) As we were putting the money together for the delivery guy, we realized that we seemed to have paid a bit much for the beer. After a few seconds of pondering I immediately realized why our booze bill had been so high - I never handed the clerk our little redemption slip.

Realizing I probably wouldn't be able to go back in the morning and have anyone believe that this piece of scrap paper was really worth 15 bucks, I saddled up and out the door I went. Again. For good measure I picked up another 4-pack of Sparks while I was out.

Then I ran back to Price Chopper to see if there was any sort of Margarita mix for Lauren and Heather. Then I ran to the liquor store next to Price Chopper. Then back to Price Chopper. I ended up buying some cheap mix and finally headed home for the evening.

By that time it was almost time for the pizza to arrive. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited. But before the 'za showed up, Lauren called and asked me to bring a bottle of rum next door. I agreed despite the fact that I knew the pizza was so very near. I also grabbed the bag of cigars to bring next door in case Lo and Heather wanted to start setting stuff up. So with a bottle of rum in one hand and a clear plastic bag full of cigars in the other, I walked out the door.

Right as the delivery guy was stepping onto the porch.

I must have looked like Nelly. The only thing that was missing was a 9mm sticking out the front of my boxers.

The delivery guy set the pizza down and left without incident.

I'm kidding of course. I said, "Excuse me for a moment while I run inside and grab some dolla-dolla-bills, ya'll." After the pizza guy left I dropped the pizza off and sprinted back to the house where Mike was extremely confused.

I hadn't seen him since I returned from the store and he thought the pizza guy had walked into the house, taken the money and (thankfully) left the pizza.

Since the new Indiana Jones movie had just come out and we were both big fans, we decided to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. Originally, when I started writing this, I was under the impression that we watched Strange Wilderness. A common mistake, I know.

Actually, we had watched Strange Wilderness the night before. It was funny, but nowhere near Grandma's Boy-funny. Basically, it was retarded, but it made me laugh. So, yeah - what Upstate Underdog said.

After we watched the Indy flick (See what I did there?) we probably played 72 holes of Tiger Woods and drank a lot of beer. Who can keep track of all these wild nights?

Tune in tomorrow for Saturday!

Weezer's New Video Is Self-Aware

Or at least most of the people in the video appear to be. If you like the internet I think you'll love the new Weezer video.



Except for the nearly inexcusable use of Chris Cocker, it's a good video. My personal favorite cameo is by K-Fed. I wonder if he even has the internet anymore?

I also wonder if Trey Parker and Matt Stone directed.

It Was A Long/Blurry/Drunk/Fun Weekend: Part 2

This is the story of the long Memorial Day weekend I just experienced. To get caught up read Part 1: In which the weekend begins...

In which I buy see-gars....

Under Kyle's sage advice, I went into a new tobacco shop to purchase some Punch brand cigars. As I may have mentioned previously, I know nothing about cigars. So any knowledge I had was limited to what Kyle had told me over the phone in between curse laden rants about fruit salads. (He was trying to find out what to have his girlfriend make to bring to the party. I'll reveal his choice later in this series.)

I walked into the new tobacco bar - that's right, it was a bar of sorts. You know, one of those smoking rooms you hear so much about from guys with purple robes and corn cob pipes. I'm not sure how much of this is real and how much is my imagination.

As I walked in I was greeted by a large dog. This is completely unrelated to the plot of this story, but I like dogs and this one was pretty cool. That's why I'm mentioning it.

The store's employee asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. I dropped the "Punch-bomb" on him and he led me into the walk-in humidor and pointed them out to me.

I have to say, I've always been a fan of walk-in humidors. I don't know why. I like walk-in coolers too. Something about isolated rooms with special environments just do it for me. I can't explain it. Maybe its because when I go into a cooler or humidor I feel like I'm a researcher on a new biosphere project. I guess I just like pretending I'm Pauly Shore.

As I stood in the cigarosphere looking at the 8 or 9 boxes of Punch cigars it dawned on me that I really had not fucking clue what I was doing. The only difference I would be able to discern between any of these cigars were size and color.

So I set about studying the cigars. I compared the length and thickness of the cigars. I picked them up. I looked them over at all angles. I inspected them more closely than anyone had inspected a cigar before.

I figured out nothing.

I ended up walking out of the humidor with a big pile of cigars which made the man at the counter say "Wow." I immediately knew I was doing something out of the ordinary. Apparently 10 separate single cigars are somewhat out of the ordinary. Perhaps I should have gotten a box? Oh well.

I said goodbye to the dog and left with my sack full of cigars. As I started to drive home I realized that I was supposed to have something to cut the end off the cigars. So I stopped at another cigar shop to get a... I had no idea what those tiny little cigar guillotines are called.

When I went in and asked the grizzled old woman behind the counter for a "cigar lopper." Apparently, this isn't the preferred nomenclature. The woman looked at me like I was Pumpkin Romanoff. Feeling like a simpleton, I just shrugged - "Cigar cutter?"

She got that. She walked over near where the hookahs were set up and I expected her to pull out some grand glass piece with a blade. Luckily, she just grabbed a cheap plastic model. I threw it in my pocket and on my way I went.

When I got home I started to clean up the house. People would be coming over after the engagement party the next night to watch the fight so the place needed to be spic and span.

Tune in later for Part 3: In which Mike and I go to the beer store and then play a game we like to call, "Drink the beer."

Also: A review of the Happy Madison production, Strange Wilderness! It should be intriguing!

It Was A Long/Blurry/Drunk/Fun Weekend: Part 1

Since it was a long weekend (Three days = "Wahoo! No Parents!") there are plenty of crazy stories to share. I'm not sure how many parts this tale will be woven into, but I know it's going to take at least three if I want to tell all my harrowing adventures in an adequate and timely fashion. (Warning: Might not actually be timely.)

Part 1: In which the weekend begins....

I'll start with Friday at lunch. Mike (Roommate), Brendan (Old, smelly, balding guy at work who isn't actually old, smelly or balding. You can see why Mike and I are so well liked.) and I went to the local pizzeria for some 'za. You know - like the young people do when they need a good "nosh." While we were there we found some WalMart brand soda with great names like "Mountain Lightening" and "Dr. Thunder."

While Mike and I weren't that impressed with the cheesy knockoffs - who hasn't seen a shitty non-brand name soda? - Brendon was so smitten by the discovery that he changed the signature on his company e-mail to read "Brendan 'Dr. Thunder' Namewithheld." Obviously they didn't have such outrageous pop cans in the 80's. By the way - Brendan's last name really is "Namewithheld." It's Dutch. Like "Gak."

Anyway, after the hullabaloo at lunch (Holy shit! A weird name on a soda can! Gadzooks!) I was sent home from work early. Luckily, it wasn't like the last time I was sent home from work early. (That time I was told not to come back.) This time I was told I could leave because there wasn't that much work to do. I didn't argue because it was gorgeous outside. So I grabbed my iPod and bounced. Of course, I was sweating by the time I reached my car. While I blame the slight incline of the parking lot, I wasn't too surprised because the sun was shining.

When I got home I got to run to the bank to cash paychecks and start pricing cases of beer. See, we were throwing an engagement party for our friends Mike and Katie. (Scroll to the bottom, Eli and Abby are not our friends.) Mike and Katie have been together for like 19 years or something and Mike just recently ruined it for his guy friends who are also in committed relationships proposed to Katie.

When Mike and Katie got engaged, 18th Century Gossips, Lauren and Heather, decided they should throw an engagement party. They did most of the work, all I was in charge of was beer and cigars.

Why cigars? The theme was Havana Nights. As we all know, Cubans are famous for playing lots of baseball and making kick-ass cigars. Since I didn't want to organize a game of softball where we played barefoot and used old milk cartons for gloves, I volunteered for cigar (Or "See-gar" if you want to make it sound gay. Example: "Hey, Kyle. I've got a see-gar for you to smoke.") and beer duty.

Something you might not know about me - I know jack shit about cigars. I'd never smoked one in my life and... well I guess there is no and. I just don't know anything about cigars. So I turned to the one man who knows about cigars - Kyle. He told me to go with Punch brand because they wouldn't - and I quote - "make lightweight assholes puke everywhere."

Sounded simple enough to me.

Tune in later today for Part II: In which I start to drink beers and other things happen... For now, I'm going to lunch.