I hate new year's resolutions for the simple fact that I've never kept a single one.
So this year I'm going to try and make it a fun challenge.
A New Beer Resolution.
It's so simple: whenever I see a new beer, that's the one I'll have.
A strange and wonderful thing happened at my grocery store earlier this year.
Where there was once just a wall of The Same Beers, there was suddenly a wall of incredible crafty local and not so local smaller batch beer choices with amazing and different tastes and awesome bottle graphics.
It's not like I hadn't been sampling for years, it was just suddenly in the grocery store.
There isn't a Binny's anywhere near me, so this was true progress.
I first had a Bell's Amber at Jake's Pub on Clark probably 15 years ago.
Amazing beer... now in the grocery store... yada yada...
And one day I was coming out of Optimus, which is this great post production place where we do lots of film stuff, and right there on East Grand Avenue I see this Bell's truck:
And perhaps coincidentally or maybe not, I see a new Bell's at Jewel - a Midwestern Pale Ale with a barn on the label!
Later, I had one out by the grill, which was when I kinda got this resolution idea.
And this example is one where that line of thinking really pays off, because Midwestern Pale Ale is deelish (and already gone - maybe it was just available in the Fall or something).
Because I'm now certain that I'll do more of these "new beer" posts, I might take a beer class and learn to really talk the language and say "hoppy" or "bitter" or whatever.
Kinda like being a Cub Fan and learning to say, "OPS" or "Hisanori Takahashi".
He's the newest Cub, by the way.
God.
How much do you miss Haray Caray?
Anyway, read about Takahashi here at MLBTR.
And later today or tonight is maybe a good time to get some practice in on your New Beer Resolution.
Because you know it's a good idea.
For a resolution, that is.
I added this later because I just read it and it's such a great article.
Read about Cubs' shortstops by John Arguello over at The Cubs Den - he's doing position by position analysis.
You'll feel so much better.
