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Hello and good evening.

I realize it has been a few weeks since I last blogged, but that is good news for you because I have been getting charged up for these next few posts. I realize that it is currently the Christmas season and you are doubtlessly salivating mentally at the prospect of discussing winter seasonals, which we will do. Later. We have more pressing things to discuss.

My travels have begun and so has my exploration of new biers from the far reaches of the world (sort of). I have just returned from a trip to Oahu and still have the taste of Hawaiian micros on my tongue.

My first stop in Honolulu (bier wise) was a well-hyped bier bar called "Yard House", of which there are many in the southwestern US, as well as the Midwest and Florida. They boast of having 150 biers on tap and want to appear to be THE place to throw back a glass of something fermented. In my second post, you may recall that I broke down what I deem to be the important elements of a great drinking establishment. If you really paid attention you may have noticed that I said that bier selection makes up a quarter of the pie-chart of bar-excellence. Well they get that quarter because the selection was pretty good. The bar itself, while being nearly half full, was still too noisy for decent conversation due to the music being turned up to 11. There were many TVs showing videos of extreme sports which came in handy since conversation was getting the short end of the attention stick. Service was a little slow, and the booths were about 12' deep which meant that bathroom breaks necessitated asking a half dozen people to get up. Food selection seemed decent for a restaraunt, if not pricey (hello Waikiki). Overall this bar was somewhere in the realm of decent to tolerable. However there is a single remaining detail which managed to upset my bier-nerd sensibilities and single-handedly guarantees that I will never be found in another Yard House again.

The glassware. Hearkening back once again, you will notice that I briefly mentioned the importance of appropriate glassware in my second post. I did so briefly because I did not want to reveal to you, dear reader, the full extent of my bier nerdiness and thereby possibly scare you from my humble blog. I promise not to get too nerdy this time either, just bear with me for a paragraph.

The importance of aroma is an element often overlooked by the casual bier drinker, but not by the serious brewer. As he or she prepares their recipe for what will undoubtedly be God's gift to bier, careful additions are made in the malt and hop amounts and hop boiling/steeping schedule to ensure that this baby will smell like a gift from God. Now, where does aroma come from? It is released by the head on your bier. Ahhhh, hence the importance of combining the perfect ingredients with the correct extent of carbonation and the proper pouring technique. Now you are on to it. If a bier is poured without an appropriate head, or if it never had the proper ingredients/carbonation level, then there is a great chance that the aroma Mr. or Ms. future-brewmaster intended for this brew is not finding its way into your nostrils in proper fashion. Granted some biers are meant to have a ton of aroma, and some are meant to have a little. I will contend here, in the safety of my blog, that all biers are intended to be smelled. Do not for a second neglect that most important of senses. If your nose can alert you when it senses the pheremones of someone to chase after, it certainly also is there to make a great first sip as good as a smelling the perfume on someone during a great first kiss. With that in mind, the hopeful brewer may as well have never gone the extra mile for your nose if some hurried bartender poured a bad pint, or even worse, some frivolous bar owner chose inappropriate glassware.

At the Yard House they pride themselves on serving bier in goblets (they mean globes), pints and "half yards." Sigh. A half yard glass is an 18" abomination that holds 32 ounces, is extremely fragile, and does nothing for your bier.

It would be hypocritical of me if I declared myself too snooty to try out this container of such mysterious repute. I ordered one up like a good tourist and asked for it to be filled with a Hawaiian micro I was not yet aware of called Hawaiian Sunset by a brewery called Keoki. I knew I had really done myself in when I saw that the bier was almost exactly the same color as the one I had brewed for 7 months. Upon further inspection, I found that my eyes had not failed me as this bier was almost exactly the same as the one I had spent a year of my life covered in. I drank the whole thing like a good tourist. Why not order two pints? I definitely should have, that way I could've changed biers after the first.

So here's what I learned. 1.) Once you've consumed about 2/3 of your half yard, every time you tip it back for another drink the bier is foamed up by air rushing through the narrowest point in the neck as the helpless beverage attempts to follow gravity's commands to your mouth. The result? A foamy, aerated, unavoidable mess not unlike the aftermath of incorrectly drinking a boot at the Stube, which can be avoided given proper orientation of the toe (sideways is safest). Bear in mind that unlike the boot, no amount of rotation will fix the half yard's fluid dynamics issue. Only a universal boycott of such a silly container can save the bier. Do it for me. 2.) Those Hawaiian breweries are noble in their desire to make good handcrafted drink for their fellow islanders and visitors alike. Unfortunately, hops just don't travel very well, especially in such warm, moist climates. The result was that the biers I tried commonly tasted of stale hops (or just plain not fresh), or were severely under-hopped, likely due to the hop crisis mixed with the expense of having hops shipped across 2,500 miles of ocean. Under-hopping might also be a taste issue- perhaps they prefer much much milder biers? I'm sure I'm in danger of not giving them the benefit of the doubt here, so correct me where I'm wrong. 3.) Wailua Wheat is fabulous. Kona has added passion fruit to this bier for a tasty twist on the well-known hefeweizen, which I enjoy as my palate is a lover of tropical fruits. This is also a clever ploy given the hop issue- there was little, if any noticeable hop bitterness in this bier, but that's not too outlandish given what is common for hefeweizens from the western US. So really it's a great adaptation to their conditions. Brilliant.

I hope you didn't miss me too much. I'll do my best to be more regular in my posts, given internet access and a keyboard as I head into Montana and Colorado in the next 10 days. Until we meet again, go out and drink a bier from the glass the brewer intended for it. Prost!