This is a good start.

Last night as my fantasy baseball team’s championship dream crumbled on the TV in front of me there was a glass of beer next to me. It’s the first weeknight, sit-and-chill-and-watch-baseball, casual beer I’ve had in months. And it felt…missed.

As I sat there refreshing my Yahoo fantasy sports app I realized just how much I’ve missed beer and writing. I’ve come to realize the two do not have to go hand in hand. In fact, the only correlation between beer and writing for me at the present moment is that beer reminds me of writing and I have this website I used to write about beer on growing digital cobwebs. It felt like it was a good as time as ever to grab the laptop and start punching away at the keys.

And before I knew it I had hit the light and passed the heck out. Whoops. That single Starr Hill Oktoberfest Lager did me in. Thankfully the urge still presented itself to me today. So 19 hours later I’m awake and punching keys and will soon hit publish.

Back in August I retired shortonbeer.com. It was a nearly two year long project where I wrote and published something just about everyday. Man it was grueling. Man I was over it by the end. But man do I miss having a place to go and just write.

Will this become that again? Maybe. We’ll see. This is a good start. I have a super secret project I’m working on that I’m not quite ready to share with the world. I’m still feeling it out and seeing if there are any legs to it or if it’s even possible. If so though I’ll be documenting it somehow, somewhere in some way.

It’s good to be back behind the keys. Thanks for reading. If it’s been awhile since you’ve read anything by me, welcome back! If you’re new around here, welcome!

– Josh

A Founders KBS for One

Tonight I drank a Founders KBS. BeerAdvocate ranks it a 100 FWIW. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ve had it before.

I don’t seek out rare beers. If I’m in a new city I’ll check out a bottleshop and see what they have. But you’ll never catch me standing in line for some rare release only at the brewpub where I have to sleep in a tent in the rain in order to get it.

I actually didn’t even purchase this KBS. My wife did! While I was at my fantasy baseball auction of all things! She was even able to talk her way into buying two.

With these rare/special beers I usually share them. Beer is meant to be shared amongst friends IMO. Drinking with others is always better than drinking alone. Or at least most of the time. I should have shared this one.

KBS runs over 12% ABV and I feel it. Whoops. Guess that’s what it takes to get me back writing about beer.

That’s all I have for today. More soon hopefully.

– Josh

Pounding Pilsners

Victory Prima Pils

I realized the other day I write in a lot of places. Here, new SOB, EVF, Screenlight, Avid and soon to be maybe more locations. All the while my original site, this one, that’s dedicated to my journey into, through and around [craft] beer gets pushed aside. My bad, y’all.

Enough about my writing tendencies; I’m here because I actually have something beer-related to write about.

The past two-ish months I’ve had more Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Lite, MGD and many other light American Lagers/low-grade Pilsners than probably the past three years combined. Don’t ask. It got me thinking that I’ve never really been into Pilsners. And I think like a lot of beer drinkers it took having other styles to actually get into beer. Even today I don’t love Pilsners. They just remind me of college.

I picked up a variety case of Victory for $28 from Costco last week. I saw it and thought it was a steal! $1.17 a bottle…Doesn’t get too much better in the craft realm. Six of the 24 bottles are Victory’s Prima Pils (the one in the picture above).

Prima Pils is a German Pilsner. To my surprise it gets a 91% on BeerAdvocate but only a 3.45 on Untappd. But pretty much everything gets around a 3.5 on Untappd so take that with a grain of salt. To me, it’s a “decent beer.” Yes, hard-hitting analysis on this one. It’s light and if it was a little warmer out I think I’d enjoy it more.

According to BJCP a German Pilsner should have the following:

• A light grainy Pils malt character and distinctive flowery or spicy noble hops
• Straw to light gold, brilliant to very clear
• Crisp and bitter, with a dry to medium-dry finish
• Medium-light body, medium to high carbonation

IMO, this beer hits the first three bullets almost perfectly. For me and for this bottle, well I don’t really know how to classify “medium-light body.” I’m not really sure how much lighter or thinner this could go. This bottle was not anywhere close to medium, let alone high, carbonation either.

So there you go! My not-so hard-hitting analysis on Victory Prima Pils. Give me a break… I’m just getting back into this beer writing thing.

Have you had Prima Pils before? Ever been to Victory? Leave me some comments so I don’t lose track of this site!!

Unleash the Pumpkin Beers

Beer friends! What’s up?!

I’ve been cranking away at SOB 2.0, oh… wait… you haven’t heard? Earlier this summer I finally purchased shortonbeer.com and I’ve been writing there every single day. It’s not just about beer though. Actually beer only comes up every so often. It’s about me and life and being a creative professional and about anything I feel like writing about.

That’s not why I’m writing this post. I’m writing this post because I’ve had my first pumpkin beer of the year. I fought the season creep and held out to almost a week into September. Pretty good, right?

I’m helping my wife help my friend craft some paper for welcome bags for her wedding next weekend and knew it was time to break my pumpkin beer yearly seal. Since Starr Hill was so gracious to send me their Boxcarr Pumpkin Porter I felt that it’d be right to start with theirs.

Maybe it’s because I had it at the end of the season last year. Maybe it’s because I’m sick of crafting. Maybe it’s because it’s my first sip of pumpkin in months. Maybe it’s because they changed their recipe (I have no clue – I was bad and didn’t read the letter that came with the beer!) But this beer tastes leaps and bounds better than last year’s.

I have no hard-hitting or in depth analysis. I just dig this beer tonight. I’ll probably head into the garage and grab my other one soon. We’ve crafted 17 of the ~80 things we need to make. And we’re pushing close to three hours…

Time for another beer. Time for a pumpkin beer.

Before you go, what’s the first pumpkin beer you had this year?

The Root Beer Beer Thing

This weekend I had Small Town Brewery’s Not Your Father’s Root Beer, or as I like to call it: The Root Beer Beer Thing. It was…different.

Quick Info:

• Brewery – Small Town Brewery
• Beer – Not Your Father’s Root Beer
• ABV – 5.9%
• Style – Herbed / Spiced Beer
• BA Rating – 87%
• Untappd Rating – 4.19
• Where Did I Have It – Brazwell’s in Charlotte, NC