Friday, March 18, 2011

St Patrick and his Goat

Happy St Pat's Day,

Like I hope many of you did, I had a great day yesterday. I managed to get to the Drunken Poet right on 12, and over the 8 pints was able to soak up the atmosphere of a real Irish style pub with the best Guinness in Melbourne. I reminisced of my St Pat's Day in Ireland 3 years ago, and traveling through the country.

Just as I was finishing my last pint before the Drunken Poet closed, I get a call from my mate Jimmy, who tries to inform me that Mountain Goat Brewery will be calling me to see if I can work their tomorrow (ie, today). Of course the rowdy crowd made it hard for us to hear each other, but managed to understand enough to get very excited, finish my Guinness and head out of the pub. I managed to sober up enough on the tram trip home and the walk to the Royston so that by the time Jane called me from Mountain Goat (while I was walking past Mountain Goat) I could have a half decent conversation and have it confirmed I will be working their today bottling their latest batch of beer. WHOOOO HOOOOO!

So then I get off the phone and walk into the Royston, high five Stass and get myself a Holgate Empress before sitting down the tell him my good news. Such a good experience having my second favourite aussie beer (sorry, Moo Brew Vintage Stout '08 still beats it) and my brother in beer together in that moment, and reminded me of when we sat down at Beer Delux and tried the Moo Brew Vintage Stout on tap. Another great St Pat's Day moment was made. Then after a feed and a couple Empress', we headed off to the Rainbow for a Twoks gig. The only unfortunate thing was after Guinness and the Empress, it was really hard to find a beer that didn't bring us back to earth. First I tried an Erdinger Dunkel, but the wheat only bloated me a bit, so went harder and Stass and I shared a a Chimay Blue, which while good, still didn't sit well. Anyway, in the end we were able to talk with an Irishman to finish off the day, so it all worked out.

So now I woke up at 5am this morning and had my life in beer flash through my mind as I take this first step of working in a brewery. I look forward to just being in that environment and soaking up the realisation something has happened, I have a start.

Here is to the luck of the Irish, and the steadiness of the mountain goat. Let's see what happens from here.

Cheers,

Beef/Guinness Man

2 comments:

Jarrod said...

Congrats mate! Yes! That is so excellent!

beefy said...

Cheers buddy, thanks for your support and recent challenges to keep me exploring my brewing and beer in general. We hope to be bottling the honey wheat tomorrow. 3 weeks away til we can drink it against yours and Harriet's.