AntSaint

Welcome, Beer Northwest Readers!

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-07-08T17:53:19-07:00

Greetings beer lovers and Beer Northwest readers! I hope you enjoyed my article in Beer Northwest's summer edition about brewing a Marriage Beer, a beer for your wedding (and beyond). (If you didn't come here via the magazine, check it out. You can subscribe or find copies throughout the Northwest.)

Exclusive Marriage Beer Update! Since the time the article was written, we've brewed and bottled a second batch of our marriage beer. Monthly tastings are telling us the beer is like a hammer wrapped in velvet. With an alcohol content of approx. 9-10%, the beer should age well for anniversary tippling — but will be served at the wedding only as wee toasts!

About Author and Site — As for me, Anthony St. Clair, I'm a writer in the Pacific Northwest, soon to be married and trying to fit in a few camping trips in between knocking out various wedding tasks alongside my bride. Antsaint is an occasional blog about writing, food and drink, and the Pacific Northwest. Write me at anthony at antsaint dot com, or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/antsaint.

Recent Posts

Subscribe via RSS

Eugene Jazz Singer Halie Loren

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-06-27T17:15:31-07:00

Have you heard Halie Loren? No? Time to do something about that. The singer/songwriter and jazz singer has been touring all over Oregon of late and has become a favorite of mine. Here are some of her latest shows:

Tonight! June 27, 7:30 p.m. at The Loft (behind Turtles on Willamette)
June 28, 8:30 p.m., Sam Bond's Garage
July 3, 8 p.m., Art in the Vineyard (Alton Baker Park)

Learn more about Halie, her music and upcoming shows at halieloren.com.

Firewood and Words

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-06-09T18:45:51-07:00

Each spring, we get two cords of split firewood delivered to the house. The resulting pile is nearly as tall as I am, and as long as our car. Unfortunately, all that oak and Douglas fir doesn't move and stack itself in the woodshed 20 feet away.

It's a lot of wood to tackle, and I'm the one who tackles it. But not all at once. I have a system, see:

4 wheelbarrow-loads per day.

No more, no less. Each afternoon now, I get home from work, walk my dog, write some words, and stack some wood. There's a noticeable dent in the pile now, and the stacks in the shed are getting taller.

Everyone has a writing metaphor, an analogy that helps them comprehend and shoulder the load of working on a project, be it a short story or a long novel. Now, I've got mine.

Words are like firewood.

I can't stack two cords of firewood in a day. Probably not even in a week. But each day I can move just 4 wheelbarrow-loads. Eventually all that firewood will be stacked in the shed, ready for winter.

By the same thought, if I work on my novel just a little bit each day — I'm currently going for a cap of 20 minutes — I'll get my novel done. I can't do it in a day. I can't do it in a week. But I can get it done, if I make it manageable for me and for my day.

This winter, we'll be warmed by the work I do now. Someday, I'll have a book ready to publish, by the few words I crank out each day, every day, no matter what.

New Oakshire Summer Beer

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-06-03T16:15:00-07:00

Tasting at The Bier Stein 5-7 p.m., Thur., June 4

The Oakshire Brewery crew unveils Line Dry Rye, the Eugene brewery's summer seasonal ale. Brewmaster Matt Van Wyk describes Line Dry Rye as "a crisp and refreshing pale ale brewed with 10% flaked rye and 10% malted rye, an approachable but unique rye pale ale crafted with a touch of Oregon Blackberry honey."

Sounds good to me. Oakshire will have Line Dry Rye out for tastings at the Bier Stein on June 4 (and on tap after that), at the annual Sasquatch Brewers Dinner on June 5, and available in Eugene, Corvallis and Portland throughout the summer months.

Damnuscript

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-05-27T19:46:35-07:00

Writer's Word of the Day: Damnuscript

Damnuscript: Noun. The unsatisfactory pile of shite that mimics a manuscript and represents a damn waste of large amounts of time. Synonyms include: rough draft, bird cage liner, kindling.

Meat: Confessions of a Butcher by John Smith

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-05-19T18:38:17-07:00

Ah, meat. So delicious. So versatile. And, oy, so expensive.

If you don't know what to look for.

John Smith (all-about-meat.com) has been there — but on the other side of the counter. He's been the smiling face chopping up chops and selling you cut after cut of often the priciest stuff. But "after 31 years of fleecing the public," he says, tongue in cheek, "I wish to come clean."

And he does. John's slim, 107-page book "Confessions of a Butcher: Eat Steak on a Hamburger Budget and Save $$$" gives you the lowdown not only on different cuts of beef, pork, lamb and poultry, it also explains the cheaper cuts to order instead.

The key to saving on meat purchases at the grocery store or butcher shop is to understand the basics of the different cuts — and what happens once merchandising comes into play. For example, John explains how the humble T-bone steak became so much more:

"The butchers of old would simply grab a short loin (the primal where T-bone steaks come from) and cut T-bone steaks and price them all the same. Then some overachieving butcher came up with the bright idea of calling the first four steaks off the short loin porterhouses instead of T-bones and charging more for them."

I've flipped through John's book numerous times now, and learn something new every time. Above all, though, I've learned how to save at the butcher shop we buy from.

John's book and companion site will be a big help to anyone looking to not only to understand their meat better, but to also understand how to save on meat purchases while still getting quality cuts.

Website: Info on Meat - all-about-meat.com

Book: Meat Savings Book - Confessions Of A Butcher by John Smith

How to Turn Beer Labels into New Beer

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-05-18T20:08:45-07:00

As a homebrewer, I often beg for request empty bottles from friends and local bars. While cleaning up and de-labeling a haul from the Bier Stein, an obvious idea hit me:

Read the labels before scraping them off. You just might get ideas for beers you want to drink.

From just one batch of bottles, this simple insight has yielded 6 beers I want to try:

Double Dragon, Felinfoel Brewery, "The National Ale of Wales"
Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, "Bavarian style"
Biere De Miele, Rabbit's Foot Meadery, "Golden Ale Fermented with Honey"
Paulaner Salvator Double Bock
Bavarian-Weissbier Hefeweisse
Diabhal, Rabbit's Foot Meadery

A rack of clean bottles and 6 leads for new beers? Sounds good.

Eugene, Where Has the Poetry Gone?

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-05-07T20:19:18-07:00

Eugene has long some renown as a poetry scene. From what I gather the renown is still there, but the scene is more decentralized than it once was. Here are some leads and events you can check into if you're looking for some verse and spoken word here in Eugene (thanks to Serena from the R-G for the tips!):

Tsunami Books, 25th and willamette. Email Scott Landfield at tsunami1@opusnet.com
Knight Library, University of Oregon. Check the Oregon Life section in the Register-Guard (in print on Sundays)
Poetry slam? Word is mixed on poetry slams in Eugene. Check the Eugene Poetry Slam's My Space page for info.

Know of Eugene/Springfield poetry events? Let us know in the comments section below.

New, Larger Pizza Research Institute Opening Soon

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-05-06T17:56:02-07:00

The new PRI, on Blair between 5th and 6th, opens soon!

Business: Home | "Pizza eatery expands" | The Register-Guard.

Pizza Research Institute — the non�traditional pizza restaurant with an equally nontraditional business plan — is moving from its longtime home in the Jefferson neighborhood to Whiteaker’s growing retail district. The move on May 1, from 1328 Lawrence St., to 520-530 Blair Blvd., will more than triple the vegan-vegetarian restaurant’s space and seating capacity, owners Will and Usha Boise said.

A Beery Sunset Around Eugene

Anthony St. Clair — 2009-04-29T21:15:49-07:00

With some late sun on me, Sveta the green sidecar motorcycle and I made some beery rounds (buying, not drinking) around Eugene.

The Bier Stein and Oakshire Brewing
First off, the Bier Stein, where Oakshire Brewing (twitter.com/Oakshire) was having a tasting of their new, delicious and approachable Hindsight ESB.

The Stein was packed, and I was impressed with the turnout. Oakshire's been getting some love and attention from the media and Twitter lately. It's good to see this extra attention and recognition for Oakshire, as the lads expand their operation (btw, if you haven't heard, Oakshire plans to bottle come summertime).

With the sun setting, I snagged a Leffe, Hoegaarden, Cinder Cone Red and Pilsner Urquell for the home stash, plus a box of empties for bottling our next batch of homebrew (a clone of Vermont's Magic Hat #9).

New Bottle Shop: Beer Nuts
From the Bier Stein, I swung Sveta down to Beer Nuts Bottle Shop, on 13th & Oak (right across from the Indigo District). Eugene's newest bottle shop sells until 10 p.m., and has been open for about 3 weeks as of this writing. It's good to see another bottle shop in the area though, and a dedicated bottle shop. I love the Bier Stein, but there's room enough in town for more go-to beer places. I also like that in Beer Nuts you can just easily swing by for a bottle or 10. Plus, like Bier Stein, all Beer Nuts beers are sold singly, so you can get whatever assortments you want.

Beer Nuts is starting small, and I think that's smart. There's still room on the shelves and in the coolers for plenty more bottles, and the current selection is mostly strong old faithfuls, from Deschutes Mirror Pond to Dos Equis, but with a few nice imports such as Belgium's Leffe too.

A few more for the home collection: Rogue Kells Irish-style Lager, dos Dos Equis, another Leffe... and the last Hoegaarden (one of my all-time favorite beers. If there's a Hoegaarden, I'm buying it).

And now I'm back home. The sun has set, and Sveta is in the garage, engine pinging as it cools. Our non-homebrew stash has been replenished — and you know what? I think it's time to crack me a Hoegaarden.