Birthday Cheer and a Year of Beer.

It’s my birthday today. And since I missed Schoonerversity’s birthday (it was sometime in June, I think), I figured I’d do a little post on my actual birthday. A glance back at beer over the last year.

Like that time I went with a mate to bravely drink all those sour beers even though I’m not a sour drinker and we all described one of the beers as ‘wet dog/sock’. (And for some reason, from some of the people there, that was a good thing.)

Or that time I first wore the Captain’s hat as Schoonerversity, and watched people riding kegs in the water at the BrewsVegas Pool Party.

That time we went to the Founders takeover at Newstead Brewing, and we all got tasting paddles, and we all got double Dirty Bastard.

(Or the time Nick introduced me to Dirty Bastard in the first place!)

That time I finally got to try Red Bellied Black (by Bacchus Brewing), after my friend Stu has been telling me about it for years, just waiting for it to be available again. Spoiler: It’s a freaking incredible beer.

What about that time we won beer trivia at Mr Edwards?

…which ended up giving us the starter kit for the inaugural Beerunch.

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Beerunch is an excellent idea.

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That time we went on a city-wide bar crawl with Brews and Bacon, and EVERY OTHER beer blogger in Brisbane.

That time we hung out with Dennis and Grant from Modus Operandi. Twice. (They knew I was only using them for their delicious Former Tenant, but they couldn’t help it.)

That time we had Black Dog Coffee Brown Ale, coffee, and hash browns for breakfast.

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Coffee brown ale. Coffee. Hash browns. Breakfast at its best.

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That time I ‘helped’ with some brewing at Newstead Brewing Co while wearing thongs (if you’re some kind of government person reading this, I am lying—Newstead always holds to safe and responsible practices when they let ring-ins touch their big shiny equipment).

That time I finally found a Rogue beer that I was happy with—the Double Chocolate Stout, which I sampled at The Scratch’s Weekend of Darkness. A group of us were all drinking it at the same time, while sitting out in the rain. Happy.

That time Costa’s infectious passion won me over on farmhouse ales.

That time Christian shared his Barrel-Aged Narwhal with us. We discovered that Dave hasn’t seen any of the Indiana Jones movies, or The Lion King. What a wasted childhood.

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The legend is real. Thanks for sharing, @christiancyril!

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That time we were Backseat Bandits with none other than the Beer Tragic himself, en route to Brewski for some Mismatch Negroni IPA.

That time we hung out with Jimmy and Dave from the up-and-coming Aether Brewing and accidentally stayed in the half-built brewery until midnight and accidentally drank all of their beer.

Or of course, the time I got a lovely haul of beers from friends and family… for last year’s birthday.

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A bounty of beers bestowed upon me.

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I was actually halfway through writing another blog post when I decided to put together this little scrapbook (oops). But I couldn’t help it. Once I started remembering some of these times, more and more kept flooding in. Because the truth is, the memories of the beers are lovely, but the memories of the people linger with an aftertaste that beats out hoppy bitterness any time.

Cheers for the year, friends of Schoonerversity. I love you all (except one—you know who you are).

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