The Three B's (and Fourth)

My Beer Fridge...It Has Many More Stickers On It Now. Circa Jan. 2019. 

Last Saturday, I was craving normalcy. I am just not sure what it is anymore. I mean is this the new normal, the pandemic era?

I called my local beer distributor to make sure they were still open and the grandfatherly owner answered and said that they were. He has a raspy distinctive voice and it was reassuring and reminded me that things are not quite as Apocalyptic as they seem. He's a good dude and I always like chatting with him a bit as I shop. So, I drove down through the cold rain and bought more brewski. It seems like it has been cloudy and rainy a lot and this might just be my imagination from not being out and about. Every day seems at least overcast.

Usually when I visit, I browse and browse. I like shopping for three things: Beer, Beans (Coffee) and Books. I can be in there for an hour at a time weighing brands, taste, and cost. This time I was quick. I had my eye on stuff for a while and decided to pull the trigger.

The distributor distributes to a lot of other beer places and restaurants and I think it tends to buy back beer that didn't sell elsewhere. So, an after-market is run on a wall next to the counter. To their credit, when a beer is past its expiration date, they cut the price to $25 per case rather than try to sell it at the list price like most shops would. And if one knows what to buy, the expiration date is not a particularly salient issue. Beers that have a higher ABV and/or higher hop profile (called IBU) are good for quite some time, particularly if the beer is bottle conditioned which is just another way of saying that they yeast is still actively fermenting the beer, at a very slow rate. That is what naturally creates carbonation and this is the way that Belgian Styles are traditionally carbonated versus shooting carbon dioxide into the brew which is called Forced Carbonation.

My buddy that I brew with and I both naturally carbonate our beers. We are purists. It does lead to some mishaps and over-carbonation, and at times exploding bottles, but we think that the beer tastes better as the carbonation is a function of internal ingredients. The beer is just better in our opinion. We have had our share of fountainy bottles, exploding bottles, and more often foamy bottles. It is to be expected.

I mentioned above that I like shopping for three things, Beer, Beans (Coffee) and Books. The fourth B is that I love a bargain, getting something of high quality at a reduced price. So, the last Saturday I walked out with half-priced everything and restocked. I believe in the principle of margin that I wrote about last week, to always have a reserve. I know that can deviate into hoarding and selfishness so I try to check myself when I sense I am becoming grasping. I just don't see it as immoral if I am just buying ahead and storing something that I am going to buy later, just in more incremental portions.

So, I tend to stock up on Beer, Coffee Beans, and Books. With Coffee Beans and Books, I can do this type of shopping either in person at a store or online. Walking around a bookstore for example can be fun because my eye may catch something that I had no idea I was looking for--but after seeing it, I know that the book fills some interest that has been latent. Although I think that spontaneous serendipity can happen online also in various ways, too. Beer is typically bought in person at a store here in Pa. We have some of the funkiest beer and alcohol laws of all the 50 States. It like Voodoo. Incantations that only Pennsylvanians can understand. 

Coffee is a bit more of a challenge for me as I know what I like. Here it is: Organic Ethiopian Sidamo Guji (both a region and a method of processing the coffee) which is typical of this region. It is called naturally-processing the Beans which leaves the fruit on the seed (Bean) while drying on beds out in the sun and the Bean gets infused with and absorbs a blueberry-tinged profile. What I find inordinately frustrating is a lot of roasters put too dark a roast on the beans which means all of this wonderfully tantalizing blueberry taste goes up the chimney. Like splashing paint on the Mona Lisa. It is a crime.

So, like the search for the Holy Grail, I keep looking for coffee companies who do this roast right and most of them are off. Which is weird that I know more about the taste profile of their product than they do. And no bargains really exist with this type of Coffee. All the price points are similar as a rule. With Beer, Beans, and Books, I feel as if life is worth living in these odd times. Social Media/Texting/FaceTime/Zoom/GoogleMeets/Emails/Calls have kept me connected to friends and family and co-workers and kids, and my work is entirely online now and I have plenty to do thankfully, Cyber Counselor!

The Corona Virus is a reminder that we don't have life by the tail and neither should we trust in anything besides God for our good. His gifts reflect his character and grace towards us but we cannot put our faith in them. Don't mistake the gift for the giver idea. They are shards of a reality that is present and is to come. Hardship has been the common lot of humanity since the Fall and we have lived in a bubble for unreality for most of our lives. Maybe the bubble has burst, maybe this is just another close call that we are going to skirt and get scraped and scuffed up a bit or a lot by, and then do our best to forget if and when it is over. Until the next revelation of reality.

Be thankful, be at peace. It is later than we think.