The Local Pub

Ahhhh... the overwhelming calm that sweeps over me when I walk into my favourite pub.
These days it is The Southern Sun in South Boulder, where the mostly familiar faces are there to greet me... and the new ones there to ask for my ID. Funny, I think, how someone barly old enough to serve beer needs to ask. I'll take it as a compliment rather than sum it up to their complete and utter forgetfulness... or need for empowerment...

What I like about the Southern Sun beer is how one or two is enough. It is quite simply the hoppiest beer I have had in a long long time. As you may know, hops are related to cannabis. So there you have it... beer that makes you high. Well, almost.

Brewers mainly are interested in the flowers from the female hop plant, which is in the same family as cannabis. The cones are 1 to 2 inches long, with papery green scale-like petals.
For those of you that know anything about cannabis harvest, (and I am sure there are enough of you out there... even some of you reading this post RIGHT NOW... ) you will recognize that this is pretty much exactly the same scenario, minus the papery green scale-like petals. So it would make sense that anything produced with these flowers might, just might, have the same effect.
And, just like the celebratory harvest of cannabis, it is said that in the 19th century, the hops harvest was a big social event—that being because you needed as many hands as possible plucking off those little yellow cones. How might you ask is it that I know anything about the correlation? Well... lets just say I looked it up on my Iphone. Really.

When I was in culinary school, the local pub was Gaffney's. Mrs. Gaffney, if you didnt know her on a personal level, was a crotchety woman who would make you slink out of the joint by one look in the eye if she didn't like you. But, if she did, and such was the case with my group of friends, you were like family. You see, Mrs. Gaffney, and you dare not ever, I mean ever call her by her first name... um.... which was.... uhhhh... anyhow... had been left this pub after her husband died and inherited all the drunks that came with it. We were the new generation of drunks that were lucky enough to get invited to her annual Saint Patrick's day event, where she made the usual fixins... including her famous irish soda bread which crumbled at the thought of being picked up by your fingers. But what was so special, unbelievable in fact, was that SHE made everything... for 300 people. This kind of hospitality, deep down from the bottom of a person's core, is a rare find. I was lucky to be a part of it.

What I drank mostly at Gaffney's was Black and Tans... poured over a spoon, perfectly separated, just the way many Irish wish their history with Britain had always been. Basically, the Black and Tans were former British soldiers brought into Ireland by British goverment to in their efforts to keep the I.R.A. down. The soldiers' uniforms were the source of the name of this drink, as the name says, Black and Tan. The mixture of a Pale Ale and a Stout or Porter never seemed to phase me as a symbol to a derogatory unpopular group of soldiers, mainly because it is just so damn good. Hey, I'm Jewish, I drive a Volkswagon. So what.

So when you visit your local pub, try to pick out something special that sets it apart from just another bar. You just might learn something interesting.