I’m about to divulge a very embarrassing story, but this evening my girlfriend was away at dinnertime — volunteering for Portland Adult Ed — so I thought I would do something slightly romantic for once while she was gone and cook dinner to be ready & waiting when she got home. Well, I improvised a little and created a pretty tasty little pasta dish with some veggies, fake meatballs and some peppers and spices.

Well, for some strange reason I thought it advisable to crush a dried hot pepper by hand and sprinkle it into the sauté; and it wasn’t a bad idea, it tasted quite good actually. But, getting to the point, I must have had some of the oils from the pepper still on my hand when I rubbed my nose post-meal. Well, needless to say – my nose flaired up instantly and it hurt like a SONOFABITCH!

As quickly as I could, I Googled “Hot pepper in my nose” and clicked on the Yahoo! Answers thread which came up first  in the Google results. Much to my surprise, the two most common responses for to how to stop nose pain caused by pepper oil were milk and beer. I threw open my fridge, discovered that all I had was soy milk and grabbed a beer instead (something I did have an abundance of); poured it into a bowl and stuck my face right in (I was in a whole bunch of pain at this point). Well low & behold, a few minutes later, my nose started to calm down and the pain started to subside.

I’m still not all the way back to normal but there’s no doubt that the beer definitely helped! So moral of the story? The next time you get hot pepper oil in your nose, stick your face in beer! Cheers!

American Craft Beer Week — which runs from May 11th-17th — is less than a month away but there are some things you can do ahead of time to prepare for a week of great beer and to show your support for the American Craft Beer movement. I just received the following statement from the press room of the Brewers Association and I thought it important to pass along:

America’s small and independent craft brewers are making special plans for the annual American Craft Beer Week (May 11-17), a national celebration highlighting the culture and contributions of craft beer. These brewers want the week to inspire beer enthusiasts to declare their independence by supporting breweries that produce fewer than 2 million barrels of beer a year and are independently owned. In the works are special brewery tours, beer and food pairing events, special release craft beers and festivals all across the U.S.

A Declaration of Beer Independence is available on the program web site and the American Craft Beer Week fan page on Facebook, which participating breweries are encouraging beer enthusiasts to sign. Local breweries and restaurants will also post a copy of the Declaration of Beer Independence so that patrons can show their support.

I will certainly report on more of the week’s goings-on (espeically any local events) as they become available, but for the time being definitely get onto the ACBW Facebook fan page or AmericanCraftBeerWeek.org and “declare your independence” (’cause really why not?). Cheers.

I know this blog is more about beer than it is personal commentary but let me go off-topic for a minute if you would, please, to make an announcement. After a lot of deliberation and careful consideration, I have decided to take a pretty enormous (although at least a little bit calculated) leap of faith and leave my cushy, full-time (plus benefits) job in college admissions and strike out on my own. I have wanted to work for myself, from the comfort of my own home, every day since the day I started working, so I decided it was finally time to go for it.

The transition, although pretty nerve wracking, isn’t without some security. I have lined up a part-time sales & marketing job (also working mostly from home) with some guaranteed income and some definite security, which is helping to keep me sane. Meanwhile, I will be using the rest of my weekly free time to do some freelance & magazine writing, and to build up and officially launch my own New Media firm, TookMedia; which will specialize in Internet marketing, social media branding & development, copywriting and content creation, blogging, and a few other bigger web ventures I have up my sleeves (which will undoubtedly be unveiled in the coming months).

Back to the Beer

The change will also allow me to put more time and energy into BlogAboutBeer.com, which I’m excited about. It should grant me enough free time that I’ll be able to get back to posting daily, rather than the two or three posts a week I had fallen to. So certainly be ready for lots more goings-on ’round here.

Lastly, if anyone in “the industry” happens to be reading this — I know some of you are — and wants to collaborate on your Internet marketing/branding initiatives, or if you need some freelance writing done, please don’t hesitate to give me a shout. Otherwise, grab my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and get ready for lots more to come. Cheers!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, one and all! Despite my recent gripes about Guinness/Diageo and the holiday’s commercialization, it’s still a fun day and a good excuse to celebrate, regardless of your own cultural heritage. So, in order to celebrate ‘round here, I’ll share a joke that my brother sent me this morning. The original joke, from this video provided by the Baltimore Sun, is paraphrased below. Have a great, happy, safe and beer-filled St. Patty’s Day!

After an international beer festival, the Brewmaster from Guinness decides to take three of his American colleagues out for a pint to celebrate. The four men walk into a nearby pub and head up to the bar. The barkeep asks the Brewmaster from Miller what he would like to drink,

“I’ll have a High Life, the Champagne of Beers”.

The barkeep then asks the Brewmaster from Anheuser-Busch what he would like,

“I’ll have a Budweiser, please, the King of Beers”.

The barkeep then asks the man from Coors what he would like to drink,

“I’ll have a Coors, please, brewed with that Rocky Mountain taste”.

Lastly, the barman turns to the Brewmaster from Guinness and asks what he would like. The Guinness Brewmaster responds,

“I’ll take a Coca-Cola, please”.

“Surly you want a pint of Guinness?” The barman responds.

“If these gentlemen aren’t drinking beer, than neither am I!”

Much to my surprise, good friend @jchristie sent me a Tweet this morning to alert me to the fact that he had come back from yesterday’s Kate Day at the Portsmouth Brewery with a bottle of Kate The Great for me. This will be my first bottle of the supposed Best Beer in America. I’m really excited to see what all the hype is about.

So be sure to check back shortly for a full review of the beer (I had thought about trying to save the bottle for a special occasion but I just don’t think my excitement will be able to wait that long) and my final judgment — is Kate the Great really the Best Beer in America (and the Second Best Beer in the World) or is it all just the result of  The Hype Machine?!

Also, if you’re not following me on Twitter yet, well, why the hell aren’t you? Come say hi @livingstonmedia