THE INSTITUTE...

Imagine a place where the beer is free, the pool tables are free, and coolness rules over the domain... such a place may seem unimaginable... unless you're hanging out at some rich guys place and freeloading off his beer. But I'm speaking of a place that exists outside our imagination... I speak of... THE INSTITUTE!

The Institute serves as a training ground for bartenders and Labatts employees during the day, and a kick ass little bar for employee access only at night. Last friday night my friend who now shall be referred to as "The Beer Man" brought myself and a few other friends downtown to crash at his apartment across the street from The Edge 102.1 Studio, and to provide us with an experience that none of us will soon forget. There were so many different beers to drink that you almost wanted smaller portions just so you could jump to the next beer... seeing as how that's the wuss way to drink beer, we just ended up consuming mass quantities of beer really quickly, resulting in kerschlammered goodtimes. Keep in mind that Labatts isn't just the Blue, Export series of beer. They also distribute Alexander Keiths, Stella, Hoegaarden, Becks, Leffe, Bass, Budweiser, Boddingtons... the list goes on. All those beers... on TAP! I mean honestly, so cool.

Now I'm just sitting here trying to think of something cool to write that isn't beer related, and it's quite difficult. Oh well, I'm not going to fight it anymore, at least the enthusiasm for beer making is causing me to blog again.

Do you have any idea how hard is to purchase beer bottles without the beer in them? It's hard. The beer store won't sell you any because if you get sick from a dirty bottle they can be sued. The homebrew shops either only have bottles with the twist tops (which you can't use for bottle capping because they don't seal properly), or they sell the right ones for a RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY! Honestly $27 for a case of 12 bottles?! I could buy beer and re-use their bottles for way less. So those people in my opinion are simply daft to sell that high. Anyways, I needed bottles to bottle me and my co-workers second beer, an Irish Red Ale that we made the same night we bottled our first beer. I've been looking everywhere but couldn't find any bottles until Lindsay sent me a link for some guy in London, Ontario, who wanted to sell a crapload of his beer making stuff for only $30! So for that much I got 83 beer bottles, 12 pint sized beer bottles, a carboy, a hydrometer, and a bunch of other beer making stuff. So last night Linds and I drove out there and got the stuff, I figured for $30, the gas to get out there was worth it.

Confession for the Day: I woke up last night with a giant puddle of drool where my face was, I flipped the pillow and then touch the drool by accident with my hand... it was gross... I hate it when that happens.