I'll just have wheat thins and beer - if I get sick the toilet is near

Sorry it's been so long since I posted kids. Here's the final chapter on the beer.

One great thing about having a varied group of friends is that it often feels like you can accomplish or fix anything. Computer problems? Get Tripp on the phone. Need a big truck to move your stuff in? Call Steve. Want to brew some beer? Needle Jesse. Want a cool label on the beer? Get in touch with Carter…

I'm sure that when Carter decided to go to Yale for design classes her ambitions were a loftier than putting together labels for some

weird New Yorkers kitchen made beer, but that wasn't going to stop us from tapping her expertise. We gave her a three different

names/concepts for the beer and let her run with them. In return we promised a sample of our yield and an FM modulator so she could watch

the Style Wars DVD that Tripp gave her for Xmass.

This was the pitch:

First up, a little bit about the beer itself. The beer we're brewing is an original recipe, but it's in the style of a classic bitter.

with either "Bitter", "Pale Ale", or "IPA." (your choice). To these suffixes we came up with three names/concepts:

Rainy Day - When we did our big shopping road trip it was one of those dreary winter days where it rains off and on all day. So

running around Long Island in search of brewers ingredients and empty beer bottles was a good way to make the best of it. This is a beer

that will taste great on a day like that too - with a characteristic bitterness and enough alcohol to flush your cheeks and warm you up.

Resolution - After a fair amount of heckling on my part about how Jesse talked a big game about brewing his own beer I hadn't ever

tasted any in two years of knowing him. So he stepped up to the plate and made a new years resolution to get back into brewing.

Boulevard 83 - You know how graffitti writers used to pick tags based on where they lived? Like Taki 183 was from 183rd street.

Same concept, I live on 83rd street and we brewed at Jesse's place on Queens Boulevard. So the name suggests both the pedigree and the

origin of the beer. It doesn't mean that the label should necessarily look like
graffitti though (although it could if that's what you're feeling) - go any way you want with it.

That's all the direction we want to give you at this point. We want to give you as much latitude to be creative with it as

possible.

Carter came back with three interesting preliminary designs based on our pitch and Jesse and argued over them for a week before deciding

on the Resolution concept. After a few revisions, Carter gave us our final design. After a fairly comical (and totally unnecessary) fit of

apologizing for "being a bad friend," she sent it over just before Jesse arrived at my apartment, twelve pack in hand, for our first

tasting.

Within no time at all we were pouring our fresh brew.

Overall it came out great. Just the right color, assertively hoppy, a success. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't something a

little funny about the taste, but nothing to get too excited about. It's beer and as Charlie Papazian (he literally wrote the book on

brewing) says, "Nothing ruins the taste of a beer more than worrying." Flush with our success Jesse and I poured ourselves another one.

Here's a great shot of our baby, with Carter's dope design proudly on display:

Flush with our success, Jesse and I had a couple of our home brews along with a couple Sam Adams that I'd had in the fridge before

embarking upon an epic night of debauchery and self abuse. First stop was the Heartland Brewery, a brewpub down in Union Square. We started with their Indiana Pale Ale, it was a little better than

our IPA, but then again they have an actual brewery to use. Then we sat down to eat and washed down burgers with the Heartland Seasonal

Sampler - a tray with 5 oz. samples of each of the eight beers they had on offer at the time. Heartland's food leaves a little something to

be desired, but their beers are pretty much all good.

When we finished our meal we headed over to McSorley's Old Ale House. McSorley's is a wild scene. It's supposedly the oldest continually operating bar in the

country, having opened in 1854. Apparently it was a popular place amongst politicians during prohibition so they just kept serving. The

place kicked our asses. There's no shame in it. I'm sure in the last 150 odd years it's kicked plenty of peoples asses. It's just too damn

easy to loose count there. To begin with, they serve you two beers at a time. YOu walk in and some irritable old waiter asks, "Light or

Dark?" That's all they serve, light ale or dark ale. You tell him what you want, he seats you with some total strangers and comes back with

two beers for you.

This much I know, I drank a lot of beer:

So did Jesse:

I don't know these people I'm pictured with, but apparently we were having a good time:

I'll spare you the sordid details of how the night went from there…or maybe I won't, here's the down and dirty. We got shitfaced and

split sometime around 1:30 (I think), each going our seperate ways. I somehow found a subway and managed to make my way home without any

calamities occurring. I got home and crashed hard. I felt no pain. Then I did feel pain, and lots of it. I puked over the side of my bed.

It wasn't pretty (is it ever). I managed to get to the toilet by the second heave, but I finished my night cleaning up the puke in my room.

It came off the hardwood floor without a problem. The area rug was more problematic. I managed to scrub the stain out, but the smell was

impenetrable. I moved the rug into the living room for the time being, it would have to wait until morning. That's when I discovered my

sneakers. They were on the rug and they hadn't escaped. I scrubbed furiously at the first stain on the toe of the left shoe. No dice. I

shifted my grip, shoving my thumb deep into the shoe and encountering an unexpected puddle. "Oh no!" That's right they were toast - right

into the shoes I'd puke, like I was aiming for them. The challenge was too big I took them right out to the trash bin.

I was still recovering on my way out to a Super Bowl party the next day when I got a text message from Jesse. "Did we get thrown out of

the bar last night? I can't remember leaving…" Homebrewed beer: 75 cents a bottle. One night of drunken revelry: priceless.