Reply, recap, reactivation, and recovery

Thanks sooooo much for all the birthday wishes from you guys via pressies, blog comments, emails, sms's, skype messages, phone calls and buying me drinks in person!

I've replied to most of your messages but I don't remember if I replied to all and I don't want to miss one. So here's a big shout out to everyone: THANK YOU!

Recap of a few replies of choice cuts:
Yes, Adam, the club of old single people is awesome and we have loads of fun here. You'll join in a few months so I won't give it away just yet.
Jezza, I agree with you that how lucky rike me one can be to have a birthday on a Saturday. Yeah, a belated Happy 35th to you, too.
Arunka, forgot to tell you that believe it or not this time I even replayed a few of our dancing moves from last year's Jenski's D'n'B Till You Stink Birthday Celebration Program. It felt so futsking dobře!
Sathe, thanks for the birthday drinks. Don't worry about your drinking skills... it's not you, it's just that when me and shots get together crazy things do happen. You've lived up the legend well and you are still THE legend.
Digs, thanks for calling. I hope our drunken call for return later on did wake you up and confuse you. Have a great trip along the silk road and talk soon, POS.
Claire, when are you coming over to drink that bottle of beverage with me? Bring cucumbers.

I still can't get over how many friends I managed to meet up this weekend and how many of them I haven't seen for over 2 years. I've stopped feeling surprised of how small the world can be especially after AIESEC, but when the reactivation of friendship really happened this massively and condensed within 2 days in a city that half of us don't even live in, I was still so overwhelmed that it's so hard to let go, beyond belief.

And this incredible mixture of happiness of reunion, sadness of having to leave soon, and awareness of how many people I have to catch up on how many topics in how limited time, would inevitably lead to one sole solution for all of us: drink like there is no tomorrow. It worked, perfectly.

Thanks again for the great time and all the birthday wishes. You guys are all so futsking amazing and the one reason I'm proud that I've lived so many years to meet you and are never worried about getting old regretting my life wasn't incredible enough.

From Brussels with love.

Highlander

When you think "Highlander," beer doesn't normally come to mind. When you think "beer," whiskey malt doesn't usually come to mind. Well, Highlander Whiskey Malt Beer has defied all convention and gone with an unlikely combination.

It's a bit too "unlikely" for my tastes. Not having been born in Ireland, Scotland, or England, I do not appreciate the subtle nuances of fine malt whiskey. And I, therefore, certainly wouldn't appreciate the subtle nuances of a whiskey malt beer.

It was a tough finish, I must say. On the bright side, it motivated me to have another beer to rid my mouth of the whiskey malt taste.

Rating: 2

My Rating System

As mentioned before, I will be rating the 17 bottles of German beer I got as a Christmas gift from my good friends Benjamin and Johanna. Before I make the inagural rating, I need to introduce you to my rating system.

It's a fairly simple "1-5" system, but pay special attention to what each number is:

1 - Only good for washing my mouth out after vomitting from better beer
2 - I'd consider feeding it to my dog
2.5 - I would only drink it after a few better beers
3 - I would actually pay for this beer at the bar
3.5 - I wouldn't be embarrassed bringing this beer to friends' houses
4 - I would keep it in the house
5 - If this beer and bratwurst were the last things on earth, I would choose this beer

Scientists crack beer-froth enigma

guinness
Originally uploaded by jennyhu.

There is the nagging question of whether life exists other than on Earth. The enduring mystery of who made us -- and why.

And then there is this: Why does the foam on a pint of lager quickly disappear but the head on a pint of Guinness linger?

Answers to questions 1 and 2 are still being sought, but the Great Beer Riddle, at least, may soon be solved.

Why thinking hurts

The brain-damaging effects of alcohol strike women more quickly than men, a new study conducted in Russia confirms.

Female alcoholics performed worse on a number of tests of neurocognitive function compared with males, Dr. Barbara Flannery from RTI International in Baltimore and her colleagues found.

However, Flannery cautioned in an interview with Reuters Health, the findings aren't good news for alcohol-dependent men. "Women are vulnerable to the extent to which they will experience the negative consequences of alcohol abuse and alcoholism more rapidly than men, but men will also experience it -- the same kinds of effects," she said. (Reuters)

Ah is that why it hurts everytime I try to think? Wait, what did you say again? I heard something about alcohol... don't remember any more. Never mind. Pass me a pivo prosim.

Prazdroj and Budvar roll out fres

For the first time in their modern history, Plzeňský Prazdroj and Budějovický Budvar have introduced beers to the Czech Republic that are wholly divorced from their respective flagship brands, Pilsner Urquell and Budvar.

The new beers — Budvar’s prole-inspired Pardál and Prazdroj’s history-soaked Master — together represent a jostling to the yeasty vat that is traditional Czech beer culture, and a new level of competition between the rivals. (The Prague Post)

Pardal or Master?

Reasons Why I Love Kenya One: Tusker Rocks.

When planning for Egypt I was looking for a back-up plan in case Egypt didn’t work out due to various reasons. A conspiracy of invading Kenya for a week was revealed and the timing would fit just perfectly. I then enthusiastically initiated a half-self-invitation (half because me thinks the plan was “randomly” revealed to me for a reason) and one of the original organizers, a dirty old Turk, generously accepted it (gasp!) and indicated that he wouldn’t mind me since my job was to look pretty and bring him juice boxes. It wasn’t so hard to fool him even though he knew for a fact that I wasn’t good at either. Note to self from this part of the story is keep your self-esteem severely low, if still any left, when you travel and good things will happen.

So wandering down a street in Cairo I walked in a travel agency and bought the cheapest flight tickets. Next thing was to convince Pilli that arriving in Nairobi at 4am and having 10 hours to kill alone before she came in wouldn’t be that bad of an idea. It failed. Of course, what was I thinking, Pilli is the most superb host ever. I luckily ran into a lady at Nairobi airport who was waiting for her friend to pick her up and offered to give me a ride and drop me off in downtown. I loved this country already. When I had gotten to know most of the hotel staff and was just about to exchange meaningful life stories with them during the 4 hours in Hilton Nairobi, Pilli’s brother collected me from the lobby. All good times have to come to an end but the end of one is just the beginning of the next. The moment I showed up at the door as a totally random foreigner that they had never met before and was greeted warm-heartedly by Pilli’s whole family I knew that was bound to be a great time.

And it was, absolutely.

To be specially pointed out is that Tusker is THE beer in Kenya and it rocks. (It’s obvious that I need to prove that this entry is valid for this blog and that my personal travels do matter for a good reason.) It will apparently go extremely well with Nyama Choma too but I didn’t get to try the combination. Can’t complain though because at least I had the delicious Nyama Choma and didn’t miss out on the experience. Al is going to keep calling me “fucking culturalist” for this one even though I still don’t know what that means. I mean of course you get attention talking about culture shit and I like attention; and actually if you could do deep and thoughtful about cultures you probably get respect too instead of just attention but I guess I’ll live with what I deserve. I still prefer hunting wild animals and tossing baby zebras on BBQ with other Asian tourists on the grassland while lions are ripping up and devouring buffaloes to answering why Chinese eat dogs; and I still don’t bother to pretend I’m a better person because I don’t eat animals (most of the time) and I’ll keep ordering pig ears, salty snails and chicken feet for foreigners for their “cultural experiences”.

Thanks for the great time, to everyone we met on the road, to all the old and new friends, to Tusker beer, and to the breathtaking African motherland. Till we meet again.

Beer is the basis of modern static civ­ilization

"Beer is the basis of modern static civ­ilization," began Bamforth, Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science at the University of California, Davis. "Because before beer was discovered, people used to wander around and follow goats from place to place. And then they realized that this grain [barley] could be grown and sprouted and made into a bread and crumbled and converted into a liquid which gave a nice, warm, cozy feeling. So gone were the days that they followed goats around. They stayed put while the grain grew and while the beer was brewed. And they made villages out of their tents. And those villages became towns, and those towns became cities. And so here we are in New York, thanks to beer." Another syllogism ended his address: "He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. The logic is impeccable."

Poor barley harvests threaten beer quality

The homegrown barley that’s a key ingredient in Czech beer is a delicate, fickle crop, and has suffered through tough growing seasons in recent years. Increasingly unreliable barley harvests have left Czech brewers with two choices: import barley and raise beer prices, as Pilsner Urquell manufacturer Plzeňský Prazdroj did last year, or lower their standards and make beer from lower-quality barley. - Oh No!

At the Agricultural Research Institute in Kroměříž, south Moravia, researchers are experimenting with growing a strain of “naked,” or hull-less, barley, which could create a hardier crop that also produces higher yields for use in malting and making beer. Such strains have been grown for years in North America, mostly for feeding livestock, but have not been sufficiently tested in Czech soil and climates.

And, at the Research Institute of Brewing and Malting in Brno, researchers have been working at manipulating varieties of sweet pea, chickpea and cowpea plants that could replace barley as the malting grain in beer. - Wayhey!

Both projects are funded by state research grants. - Ta da!

(The Prague Post)

From Greece with love

Mythos, Hellenic local brew.

Words of Wisdom

Best Thing for Getting the Taste Out

Woman #1: My throat hurts. I guess I need another beer.
Woman #2: Mine too. Good idea.

--72nd & Central Park West

Overheard by: A. Pincus

via Overheard in New York, Apr 5, 2007

Alcoholic Drinks that Help Lessen your Hangover

A piece of helpful and important information for you. Let me know if any of them helps. I hope I could find it out myself one day but my problem is that I don't get hangover. Most of the time I'm still drunk the next morning...

Blogging from Beerse, Belgium with love.

The beer in the machine

Probably not for the first time, beer has inspired new technology.

Ladies and gentlemen, smart beer vending machines on Prague's streets for you from now on. Welcome to Czech Republic!

Are you joking? I don't know, but I'm laughing!

Funny Beer Brewing

"Israeli entrepreneurs reportedly have developed a beer that contains laughing gas...two Israeli chemical engineers have come up with a way of incorporating nitrous oxide into an imported Czech beer."

As if things aren't already funny when you're drinking pivo, this pair just had to take it one step further. People would have laugh at my jokes whether they liked it or not! Can't wait until this hits the market!