Can You Imagine These Stinging?

My father was killed by bee stings and I have a definite fear of all stinging things, wasps, hornets, bees, it doesn’t matter.  I probably would have a heart attack if I were to enter a building and see this.

Look at how mad these wasps are.  If you’ve ever been stung by one, once is enough to know you don’t want it to happen a second time.

Internet Users Reveal Their Most Embarrassing Moments

It doesn’t take much today to upset someone over just about anything so some of the things these people did in front of other or told to others are really honestly in line for some of the most embarrassing moments ever.  I have to say the woman on her first date must have felt like crawling into a hole when she said what she did.  These are pretty amusing and just the thing to make you feel better any embarrassing moments YOU may have had.  If you’ve got some incidents that can top these, make sure to write us a comment and tell us about it. We can’t wait to hear.

Internet Users Reveal Their Most Embarrassing Moments [via]

Jim Koch Taught Me How To Drink All Night But Never Get Drunk

Now here’s an article borrowed from Esquire’s pages and written by Aaron Goldfarb that everyone here at Lets-Have-A-Beer.com should be very interested in reading.  I do believe this is right up everyone’s alley!  I have never understood people saying they like the taste of beer because I never did like it, I usually only drank because like the mountain, it was there, or because I wanted the buzz.  I don’t drink beer at all anymore and I really can’t say that I miss it, but I know that there are a lot of you who just can’t wait for that first cold one.  More power to you, and more power to you doing it all night long with the help of this article:

HOW TO DRINK ALL NIGHT WITHOUT GETTING DRUNK

Jim Koch knows beer. He also knows a beer trick that may change your life.

By Aaron Goldfarb 

“That guy from the TV commercials!” That’s what they call him, either because they don’t know his name, or are by now too drunk to remember it. As the co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company, he has appeared in countless Sam Adams commercials over thirty years. And, while this always-smiling man is a regular guy like you and me while walking the street, the second he enters a bar Jim Koch becomes a celebrity.

We met at a midtown Manhattan monstrosity called The Keg Room, where at least four people stopped Koch to say hello as we made our way to a table. One apologized for currently drinking something yellow and fizzy as opposed to a Boston Lager as we sat down.

“So many beer lists are poorly arranged, but this is pretty nice,” Koch noted. “A good mix of styles, not just a bunch of IPAs like most bars have nowadays.”

Seconds later, he learned that one of the two Sam Adams offerings on tap was their new IPA, Rebel. We ordered two, though there was another surprise: they arrived in shaker pint glasses, which “aren’t right,” he said. “You won’t get all the aromatics.”

He reached in his bag and withdrew a Perfect Pint glass, the shapely, angle-rimmed piece of glassware his brewery helped design back in 2007 and sent the waiter back to the tap. “I always carry one with me,” he said. “You’ll see…

He was right – I did see. And then I saw a whole slew of beers almost magically appear on our table. Nitro stouts, sours, two big bottles from their Belgian-inspired Barrel Room Collection.  That’s when Koch snapped into full salesman mode, enthusiastically talking about Brewing the American Dream, his brewery’s micro-lending program which has helped over 300 food and beverage startups over the past half-decade. But as much as Koch likes to pitch his company, what the man really loves to do is drink beer.



He popped the top on Tetravis, the brewery’s version of a Belgian quadruple. I had never had it before and was blown away by its freshness and bursting dark fruit flavors, atypical of most quads, which are usually muted due to aging and oxidation. Noticing my pleased reaction, Koch quickly moved to uncork the second bottle, a Belgian stout named The Thirteenth Hour.

“I’m gonna be wasted before this interview is up!” I laughed.

That’s when things got dead serious for the first time all afternoon. Koch leaned in toward me, stared straight into my eyes, and whispered.

“You wanna know my secret? How I can drink beer all night long and never get drunk?”

In fact, I had always wondered that. Though this was the first time I’d ever formally met Koch, I’d “met” him in the past at a few beer festivals. Those sorts of events are always kind of Bacchanalian shit shows, with people imbibing dozens of beer samples in a short period and soon stumbling around large convention halls drunk of their asses. Brewers included. But not Koch, who I’d long noticed was always lucid, always able to hold court, and hold his own with those much younger than him. This billionaire brewing raconteur was doing likewise with me at 4 PM on a Thursday afternoon despite the fact we were both now several beers deep. So what was the secret?

“Yeast!”

“Yeast?”

“Active yeast. Like you get at the grocery store.”

Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann’s dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable.

“One teaspoon per beer, right before you start drinking.”

He’d learned the trick from his good friend “Dr. Joe,” a craft beer legend in his own right.  Educated at Harvard with a troika of degrees (a BA, a JD, and an MBA), Koch is no slouch, but the late-Joseph Owades was a flat-out genius. With a PhD in biochemistry from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and an early job in the fermentation sciences department at Fleischmann’s, Owades probably knew more about fermentation and alcohol metabolism than perhaps any man who has ever lived. Koch calls him, in fact, “The best brewer who’s ever lived.” He used that immense knowledge to eventually become a consultant for most of the progenitors of America’s early craft brewing movement such as Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, New Amsterdam Brewing in New York, and, yes, the Boston Beer Company. There he became good friends with Koch, helped perfect Boston Lager, and passed on to Koch his little yeast secret.

You see, what Owades knew was that active dry yeast has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH). Roughly put, ADH is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Which is the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in its liver. Owades realized if you also have that enzyme in your stomach when the alcohol first hits it, the ADH will begin breaking it down before it gets into your bloodstream and, thus, your brain.

“And it will mitigate – not eliminate – but mitigate the effects of alcohol!” Koch told me.

In his final years Owades even patented a product called Prequel, an all-natural pill similarly designed to limit drunkenness. No companies wanted to deal with the potential liabilities of the product, and Owades died in 2005 at the age of 86.

Of course, I had to honor my longtime hero Koch, and a new beer hero I’d just learned about in Owades, and try this trick myself. So the next day I grabbed a six-pack of beer and a packet of Fleischmann’s and went to work. The older I get, the more of a lightweight I surely become, but after shoveling down six teaspoons and tilting back six bottles I felt nothing more than a little buzzed. Koch told me he keeps a breathalyzer around at all times just to assure he’s never too drunk. He never is. And, though I had no tangible “proof,” besides the fact I was still awake, I was pretty sure I wasn’t all that drunk either. Forever more I’d be yet another guy discreetly carrying a white powder around at bars. I’d advise you do likewise.

via Jim Koch Taught Me How to Drink All Night But Never Get Drunk – Esquire.

The Beer Dictionary

Beer Dictionary

The beer dictionary is a collection of beer terms we use frequently. Some are very funny, and are right there in  layman’s terms for everyone to understand. Some are just outright hilarious. Enjoy!

ABV
Alcohol By Volume. A standard measure of how much alcohol is in a beer. The “average” beer contains about 4% to 5% ABV. You usually don’t find too much above 12% ABV. An average bottle of wine is around 12% to 14% ABV.

Ale
Any beer brewed with top-fermenting ale yeast. Ales are brewed and served at higher temperatures than lagers. They tend to be sweet and strong and can have higher alcohol contents than lagers.

Australian Longneck
A 25.4 ounce (750 ml) bottle of beer.

Beer Goggles
A side effect of the alcohol content in beer, especially when quantity is the main focus instead of quality. This leads to another focus on quantity over quality when choosing a partner.

Bomber
A 22 ounce (650 ml) bottle of beer.

Breakout Beer
The single beer you try that gets you over the rank domestic hump and into the realm of beers that actually have taste.

Conversion Beer
A beer that exemplifies a style but with a lighter intensity than the norm or extreme. Used as a stepping stone to a craft beer newbie into a style without scaring them off.

Dark Side
The place where Beer Jedis go after they’ve gotten lagered out. Here they find stouts and porters and other wonderful beers.

Dunkel
A dark beer, usually German. Dunkel is German for dark.

Growler
A 64 ounce (1890 ml or half gallon) glass jug of beer.

Hophead
Someone who really loves hoppy beers, such as IPAs.

Hops
The flower of the hop plant put into beer to provide bitterness, light aromas (flowery, fruity or citrus) and longer shelf life.

Hop Shock
The awkward taste in your mouth you’re convinced may be your taste buds burning as a result of drinking a beer that is too hoppy and bitter.

IBU
International Bitterness Units. A standard scale that measures the bitterness of beer. Most beers will be between 10 and 100 IBUs. The higher the number the more bitter the beer.

IPA
India Pale Ale. Usually a very hoppy beer that has a distinct bitterness to it.

Lager
Any beer brewed with bottom-fermenting lager yeast. Lagers are brewed and served at cooler temperatures than ales. They tend to be light and smooth and represent the vast majority of beers produced.

Lawn Mower Beer
Any beer that meets the criteria of cold, wet and refreshing that you guzzle quickly after you mow your lawn on a sunny 95+ degree day.

Longneck
A 12 ounce (355 ml) bottle of beer.

Malts
Grains (barley and wheat are the most common) that have been soaked in water and heated that provide flavor (dark and deep flavors like caramel, roasted and chocolate), body and alcohol to beer.

Nasty Out
What happens to a substandard beer when it warms up over 60 degrees. See also the marketing for American beers whose mountains turn blue when it’s cold enough to stunt the taste.

Pilsner
A type of pale lager that gets its name from the city of Plzen in the Czech Republic. Pilsner drinkers are notorious for thinking that pilsners are the best beers in the world because they’ve learned through TV commercials that Miller has true pilsner taste.

Radler
Mixture of half beer and half lemonade. May also be called an Alster, Shandy or Panache.

Session Beer
A beer with a low enough alcohol content that you can drink many of them in one sitting without becoming all sloppy drunk.

Skunk Beer
A beer with an aroma and taste that punches straight into your sinuses.

Spider
The last little bit of beer that settles in your bottle a few minutes after you’ve poured the entire contents into your glass.

Sweet Spot
For many, the goal of drinking beer is to find the sweet spot. This is the area between feeling shitty because you’re sober and feeling shitty because you’re sloppy drunk. Somewhere in between is the sweet spot where you feel warm, toasty, slightly buzzed and all your aches and pains go away.

Wort
Liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer. Wort contains sugars that will be fermented by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol.

The Beer Dictionary is brought to you by the awesome team at The Beer Fathers, check them out here!