Category Archives: blab

Out With St. Paddy’s, In With Fruhlingsfest

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The only snakes in Ireland are the roads. Photo by Greg Nagel

I haven’t written a lot about St. Patricks Day, as it’s more of a “drinking” day than it is a “beer” day, and we, as in, you and I, have made the day less of celebrating Irish heritage, and more about:

  1. Putting green dye in gross beer
  2. Eating the world’s saddest corned beef “tacos” 
  3. Flogging some poor gal named Molly
  4. Creepy-ass Leprechauns! 

I’ve been to Ireland, and the beer they drink is BLACK. Corned beef? Turns out it was invented by the BRITISH. The lore behind it is also completely fake, as St. Patrick never drove SNAKES out of Ireland because THE COUNTRY IS TOO FUCKING COLD FOR SNAKES AND NEVER HAD THEM TO BEGIN WITH.  

On St. Patrick’s day, we decorate the house with Irish trinkets, wear green, and cook up a mean Irish meal complete with some beer brewed at St. James Gate, but I’ve seen a trend pop up recently and hope it sticks: Frühlingsfest, aka the German celebration of spring.

Frühlingsfest is sort of like Oktoberfest, but smaller, bringing in around 1.2 million guests as opposed to 6 million in October. Although Germans usually kick their fests off in April (probably due to weather), our first day of spring is March 20th, so why not dust off that old stein, leather pants (lederhosen), and dirndl to get in the mood? Here are a couple events worth checking out:

Maybe more? I’ll update this if anyone else is jumping on the spring festival train!

OCBeerBLAB is Back!

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I feel like every blog needs to have some sort of stupid, “I’M BACK” post, or some fucking lame apology for lack of updates. Truth is, I’ve been busy pushing content on other sites, getting paid the “big bucks.”

In case you missed it, I wrote over 250 articles at OCWeekly. I just crossed 300 on OrangeCoast! I wrote a bunch of words for The Full Pint! I’m still on the FourBrewers Podcast! 

My good friend Kris from High School, recently reminded me of the importance of blogging. There’s a difference between what I write for publications and what I write here. In beer terms, this blog is like an unfiltered IPA, complete with mysterious chunks in the bottom. Writing for publications is filtered, triple distilled, stuck at 300ish words because of your weak attention spans, and listicle heavy. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I just want to blab about beer. OC Beer BLAB style.

 

TOP TEN REASONS YOU HAVE A WEAK ATTENTION SPAN:

  1. WHO CARES
  2. THIS IS A BEER BLOG
  3. AND I’M BACK
  4. BITCHES

My goal is to blog about Orange County Beer and also get the backend of this site up to date, post a new banner, and maybe a new theme if I can figure that out. Will it have event photos? You bet your ass. Will it have beer reviews? 100% Will it have brewery news and other stuff? Yes’m.

I’m still going to continue writing for OrangeCoast and other freelance projects, but will keep it mostly wine and cocktail related, as this is OC BEER BLOG. Will I still write some stuff for The Full Pint? Hell yes, if it’s newsworthy for a larger audience. Will Firkfest ever come back? Yes, if I find a location that has grass, electricity, parking, bathrooms, shade, and isn’t $10,000. Will it have memes? Nah.

With that said, welcome back! Hope you like floaties and chunks.