My Ninth Entry - Great Divide Brewing Company Colette Farmhouse Ale

A friend of mine texted me this week with the news that his son had been ticketed for being a minor in possession of alcohol during a fraternity party.  His son was two months shy of his twenty-first birthday, and had just been handed the beer when a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission raid team entered the party room and started writing tickets to the underage drinkers.

He didn't even get to sip the beer he'd just been handed, much less finish it.

I checked my sources in that town and found a specialist to defend my friend's son.  She told me that she would almost certainly get him deferred adjudication probation (no finding of guilt) with some community service, and he would be eligible to expunge the record shortly completing it.

It was a happy ending, I think.  He's a really good kid and, if he takes care of business, won't have a permanent record. He's also fortunate to be affluent enough to hire a lawyer for something like this.

It also made me think about how lucky I was not to have drawn that kind of attention during the wilder years of my youth. I am not going to overshare here and detail my youthful indiscretions - suffice to say that with a drinking age of 18 back in the early Eighties, I think it was much easier to achieve that unfortunate intersection of impairment and immaturity than it is today (but I could be wrong about the present day - my children don't tell me everything going on in their world, to our mutual relief).

That said, my clear record wasn't all luck. Back then, I was blessed with three saving graces that kept me mostly out of trouble:

• My abiding belief in my future prospects.

• My nascent understanding of the consequences to those prospects if I screwed up.  This comprehension was, I now understand, an extraordinarily beneficial gift to me in my youth. Because executive function is not fully developed for most people until their early twenties, a lot of kids are incapable of thinking twice about playing with cherry bombs and mooning police officers in school zones. Not me - I was very careful about who I mooned.

• A nearly pathological fear of disappointing my parents and their belief in me. 

I had enough self-awareness to know I was going to screw up - as Joe E. Brown said in Some Like It Hot, "Nobody's perfect" - but I also had enough precociousness to make sure that I maximized my chances of minimizing my exposure.

A few of my strategies:

Start drinking bad beer when you start getting drunk. My favorite beer back then was Molson Golden. It wasn't cheap - for a six-pack of Molson Golden, I could buy a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jax, Lone Star, or Dixie, which were all terrible beers, but also cheap. And as a person of limited means in those days, my plan was to get one of each - I would drink the Molson early, and then move on to the cheap beer later, with the idea that in my impaired state from the first six bottles of beer, I would not mind drinking the skunk-brew later.

It never worked. Going from my sixth and last smooth and fruity bottle of Molson Golden directly to my first of twenty-four metallic and funky cans of PBR was like following a plate of Churrasco's sublime tres leches with a can of Campbell's undiluted cream of mushroom soup and a spoon.

I could never finish that first can of PBR, which meant that my night of drinking was pretty much over and I would ease back into sobriety.  I also earned love from my college buddies by donating the case of PBR to them (they were not as discriminating as I was about the finer qualities of beer).

Don't be the designated drunk.  There's an old joke about the two guys being chased by a bear, and one guy stops to put his running shoes on because he doesn't have to outrun the bear: he just has to outrun his buddy. I kind of pursued that strategy when drinking in public - I never wanted to be the most drunk guy at my table. If trouble was coming, it would zero in on the guy least able to handle it, which was not going to be me.

Date (and if you're lucky, marry) girls who are forgiving truth tellers.  I met my patient and loving wife Lisa in college, and we dated through law school before marrying here in Houston. Not a drinker, she has always had the ability to gracefully tell me to stop drinking in those rare instances when I have had too much to drink, and I have always had the grace to accept her advice.

When you're drinking, keep a little money in your pocket for a cab (or have a forgiving truth teller who will come take you home). This is self-explanatory.

At 50, I've made it long past the drinking years of my youth without having done damage to myself or others. For my friend's son as he approaches his legal drinking age, I can only hope that he begins to make the transition to appreciating good beer for what it is - an artisanal drink that is the product of centuries of refinement and the loving creativity of fine brewmasters - and not something you swill from a red Solo cup.

To him, here's my advice:  Drink and appreciate good beer, and you mostly stay out of trouble.  Drink and binge on bad beer, and trouble will find you sitting on a stoop in an alley behind a bar with bad breath and an inside-out stomach.

The choice is obvious.

__________________________________________

I drank and appreciated some good beer this week.  It was the Colette Farmhouse Ale from the Great Divide Brewing Company in Denver, Colorado.

I liked the bottle design, which has some subtle elements that reward the kind of contemplation we only do with beer bottles and cereal boxes.

First, I noticed that there are only three colors in the label: black, tan, and orange, which coincidentally are the prevalent colors in beer. (Do you think that was intentional?  Uh-huh.)

Second, the name of the beer appears three times and the brewing company's name appears four times (once as an acronym).  Great Divide knows that brands benefit from repetition, repetition, repetition.

Third, the label includes some helpful tasting notes (which, as I have noted before, I much appreciate):

COLETTE is our homage to the saisons that Belgian farm workers have enjoyed for centuries. Brewed with barley, wheat and rice and fermented at high temperatures with a special blend of four different yeast strains, COLETTE is fruity and slightly tart, with a dry finish that makes it that rarest of treats — a beer as refreshing as it is complex.

Fourth, it also has a first for the beers in this blog, a food pairing note, which suggests drinking Colette with charcuterie, foie gras, Indian curry, or Camembert cheese. Not having any foie gras in my fridge, I instead paired it tonight with a scallop soup I proudly improvised from leftover stuff I found while inventorying my freezer (homemade chicken stock, a bag of frozen scallops seasoned with Old Bay, chopped onions and celery, frozen corn, shredded uncooked potatoes intended for hash browns, fresh green beans, garlic, thyme, basil, and whole milk).  The pairing did not offend my palate.

Fifth, there's a "bottled on" date (October 22, 2013), another first for the beers in this blog. (By the way, the increasing age of the beers in my fridge is something I'll write on soon.  So far, not a problem.)

Last (and best), there are a bunch of small details that evidence a lot of enthusiasm by the brewers.  A little flag tells us that the company was established in 1994; the label specifies the alcohol by volume (7.3%); we learn that the Great Divide Brewing Company's zip code is 80205; they proudly note that this was a silver medalist in the 2010 Great American Beer Festival; there appears to be a company seal and slogan, "Great Minds Drink Alike" (clever); and twice it declares Colette to be "rustic" and "refined."

As to the beer itself, it was light and yeasty, very easy to drink, which I learned is not unusual for the saison style, which are ales that were originally brewed in farmhouses during the winter months to be consumed in the summer by the farmhands as a hydrating drink. Taking a big whiff as I finished the drink, the aroma did something kind of cool: it changed character from second to second, going from yeast to oranges to something else and then back again.  Try it sometime as you finish a beer in a glass and you'll see what I mean.

Did I like it?  Yep, it was good and refreshing.  Did I like it more than the prevailing champ - the Bittersweet Lenny?  Nope, although the Colette was a really nice beer with a lot to offer, the Lenny still abides.  (And yes, that was a Big Lebowski reference.)

I'll try to get back on schedule and write the next entry on Sunday night after band practice.  (You didn't know I was in a band?  Now you do.)

See you then.

My Eighth Entry - Ballast Point Brewing Company Sculpin India Pale Ale

Time to get serious.

So far, my assessment of beers have been the definition of a lay opinion:

lay (lā) (adj.; Middle English, from Old French lai, from Late Latin lāicus, from Greek lāikos, of the people, from lāos, the people.) - Not of or belonging to a particular profession; nonprofessional: a lay opinion as to the seriousness of the disease.

There's nothing wrong with a lay opinion.  Life is full of them, most of them valid (except when they come to sports or politics).

If you tell me that the tacos are good at Torchy's or El Rey (and they are), I'll take your opinion seriously, even if you've never written a word about tacos and have no idea how they make them (and I don't).

If you tell me that Shudde Bros. Hats makes great hats (and they do) and that you should buy there because they support the amazing Brookwood Community just off of Exit 731 at I-10 in Brookshire (and they do), I'll believe that too, even though I don't know the first thing about how a hat is made.

Beer is different, however. Knowing what goes into a beer, knowing how the beer is made, makes the tasting experience more meaningful. It also helps you have a better sense of what the brewer intended, and whether he (or she) succeeded.

Also, you just sound more intelligent talking or writing about beer if you start with first principles.  So, I am going to educate myself (and you) with a basic understanding of the beer varietals, so that I will be able to intelligently discuss them with you.  In theory, once I know what I'm drinking, I will be able to ostentatiously tell you what kind of beers you are drinking at any time.

(Pop quiz! What are Budweiser and Miller Lite? NO peeking.)

(Jeopardy theme plays: Do do do do do do do … do do do do DOOT do-do-do-do-do … do do do do do do do … DOOT do do do do … do … do … bum bum.)

(Did you know?  They are both Pale Lagers. I always just thought they were Beer.)

So, to begin this tour, let's start with a beer that seems to be a favorite of craft brewers, as evidenced by its ubiquity in the Fifty Beers that Jay and Lisa gave me: the India Pale Ale (or IPA).

Turning to the North American Brewers Association webpage on IPAs for guidance, we find that IPAs were the product of a revolution in beermaking in the late 1700s that led to the creation of the Pale Ale:

Throughout Great Britain's early brewing history beers shared one characteristic - a deep colored murkiness, and it was caused by an error made during the most fundamental step in beer making.

The problem was rooted in their method of malting, the process of converting a grain's starch to sugar. Brewers made their own malt by soaking barley and allowing it to germinate (sprout), but to prevent the embryonic plant from consuming all the fermentable sugars as food, they needed to halt germination. Brewers stopped it by "kilning," a process of drying the wet grain in an oven. Unfortunately, their ability to control the oven's temperature was primitive and often the grain was kilned to a darkish hue, which was then imparted to the finished beer.

By the later part of the 18th century the malting process was becoming more controllable and grains weren't as deeply kilned. Brewers took advantage of this breakthrough and although the beer was still a deep copper color, it was comparatively "pale." Thirsty Britains lapped up the newcomer with abandon and pale ale was soon king of the beers.

So imagine: you're a Brit who has spent your whole life drinking some kind of muddy swill to take the edge off of a day serving your liege, and one day, the barmaid brings you a flagon of pale ale, transparent and golden and watery and refreshing.  (Porters and stouts are lots of things, but they ain't refreshing.)  You think, "I can drink four of these for every one of those flippin' porters they've been servin' me," and you proceed to spend the next twenty years at the pub, telling your bar mates that if you had been at Lexington and Concord and - what's that other one? oh yeah - Yorktown, the colonies would still be the King's property, I tell you what.

So we now know where the pale ale side of an IPA comes from: the lightly kilned barley grains, cooked at usually 95 to 105 degrees Celsius, which yield a pale sweet malt which is steeped in hot water to become the mash, which eventually separates into the wort, which is, in turn, bittered, flavored, and finished by the sequential addition of hops, and then fermented with the addition of yeast. Variations, intentional or accidental, on the sequence or the ingredients yield different varietals.

(I think that's right. I'll check with my friend Brock to see if this basic description of brewing is accurate and report back.)

Where does the India part of the IPA come from?  Again, from the NABA page, we get this cool example from history of how capitalism bred innovation:

In the late 1700's [George] Hogdson was the most popular ale brewer in London. With easy access to shipping from the capital, Hogdson was in position to supply beer to homesick English colonists around the world. Of these, none felt so removed, nor thirsted more for the pleasures of English breweries, than the troops garrisoned on the sub-continent of India. Hogdson rightly believed it a huge market waiting to be tapped, but how could beer survive the trip around Africa? 

Hogdson used three brewing methods to ensure his ale weathered the journey. First, he knew hops were a natural preservative. Indeed, it was this property that first motivated brewers to use hops. Hogdson reckoned an increased hopping rate would help in transit. Next, he took advantage of another natural preservative in beer, and he brewed one with an exaggerated level of alcohol. Finally, he used abundant dry hopping as an additional preservative, and he rightly thought it wouldn't harm the taste because it would mellow during the long voyage. He couldn't have guessed better, the measures not only ensured Hogdson's modified Pale Ale arrived intact, the recipients considered it an improvement. 

Hogdson's modifications resulted in a variation both closely related to, and distinctively different than, pale ale. To differentiate it from pale it was bestowed with the name of its destination, thus the birth of what's known as India Pale Ale.

So to summarize: Hodgson's innovations were to increase the rate of hopping to enhance its preservative qualities; add more alcohol (also a preservative); and adding dry hops when casking. As a result, the beer survived the trip to India and tasted better.

(Here is a more detailed discussion of the IPA genesis by Thom Thomlinson, and here is an interesting dissent on the historical origins of the IPA, which argues that IPAs were being brewed long before George Hodgson started brewing them at his Bow Brewery in London.)

Regardless of who invented them, what do we look for in an IPA?  Higher than usual alcohol concentration, a strong hoppy aroma, and fruity notes.  According to NABA, the hops used in American IPAs are Northern Brewer, Cascade and Chinook (not available in your local grocery store).

Whew.  That's enough beer scholarship for today.  Let's take a break and drink a beer.

_________________________________________

This week's beer is the Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, brewed in San Diego, California. According to the website's tasting notes:

© JDurfee99

A trophy beer that’s a testament to our homebrew roots. Our Sculpin IPA is a great example of what got us into brewing in the first place. After years of experimenting, we knew hopping an ale at five separate stages would produce something special. The result ended up being this gold-medal winning IPA, whose inspired use of hops creates hints of apricot, peach, mango and lemon flavors, but still packs a bit of a sting, just like a Sculpin fish.

The bottle design is interesting: it's dominated by the brewery name, then a colorful drawing of the sculpin fish (new to me), and then in teeny-tiny type, the varietal (India Pale Ale).

I've found that this is not unusual for craft brewers - I guess they're marketing brand-loyalty first, then assigning a distinctive name or label to catch the eye of the browsing imbiber, and then rewarding the repeat customer with what amounts to a password establishing yourself as one of the cognoscenti:

You:  "I'll have a Sculpin."  (Wink.) 

Bartender (nodding with approval):  "Ah, you know your IPAs, sir."

Random Dude:  "I'll have a Bud." 

Bartender (spitting in the glass and muttering):  "Go play in traffic, you simpering vegetable."

© JDurfee99

The Sculpin itself does hit you with that apricot flavor from the first sip. (I'm proud to say I caught it before I read the tasting note!)  The hops are strong but not unpleasant, the alcohol is warming (7% ABV), and it finished in the glass with what seemed to be a citrusy lime note.  I liked it and you should try it.

Better than last week's Bittersweet Lenny?  Not quite.  I think the Sculpin could have had a long run as the champ if we had seeded the beers, but we didn't, so it won't get the chance. Bittersweet Lenny remains the king.

Next week: I look for something - anything - in the Fifty Beers that isn't an IPA.  Will I find it?  Only Jay and Lisa know.

___________________________________


And just because this is my blog, I'm throwing in this picture of me and my son Josh from the 2009 State Bar Convention in Dallas, where he attended a speech I gave and we had breakfast with Channel 13 investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino.  He was a dashing ten-years-old in this picture, one of my favorites.

(Love you, dude, and always will, even if you talk a ton of smack at the ping pong table.)

My Seventh Entry - Schmaltz Brewing Company Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A.

I read a story this week about the great Dan Jenkins, whose golf and football writing I much admire.  In the story, there's a quote about Jenkins holding court at P.J. Clarke's in Manhattan, and his frequent departures for the bathroom:

“He would disappear once in a while,” said David Israel. “You knew nobody had to take a leak that often. He was off writing down all his overheards. That’s what he would call them. Just writing down great lines overheard in bars. He didn’t want to write them down in front of somebody.” Jenkins knew if he didn’t write down those lines — that material— they would float into the ether and he’d never remember them again.

This encapsulates why we write. It's because memories aren't perfect, because we don't remember everything, because we get older and forget. To be sure, there are things I want to forget, but there are other things that I don't.

I want to remember my first margarita.  It was in 1979 in the far reaches of a grocery store parking lot and it had been poured from a plastic bucket of margarita mix that one of my friends had dumped a bottle of tequila into.  (I think it was tequila. I'm pretty sure that was what kept coming up from my stomach as my dad laughed at me in the bathroom.)

I want to remember my first ball park beer. It was in 1980 at old Arlington Stadium, served in a cup with a top that looked like a milk carton. I don't think they sell them like that anymore, probably because of the cognitive dissonance of drinking beer from something that looks like a milk carton.  Like drinking milk out of a red Solo cup.

I want to remember my first jury trial. A no-test driving while intoxicated case in Sherman Ross's court against Cynthia Henley, which I lost when my arresting officer admitted on cross-examination that he didn't really know what he was supposed to be looking for when he conducted his field sobriety tests. (In those days, it seemed like some officers learned their field sobriety tests the way medical students learn a procedure: watch one, do one, teach one. It's much better now.)

After we rested, Cynthia did a solid and sincere final argument. I have this image of her in a sensible suit with the large bow tie women wore in court back then, taking no chances, arguing the case in a quiet and persuasive tone.  It must have worked because reasonable doubt was writ large on the faces of the jury as she ended her argument and sat down.

My turn.

I pondered my strategy.  I had argued cases in law school mock trials, but those proceedings were literally friendly venues ("literally" because the mock trial jury box was always filled with our friends and fellow students).

This was real life, an argument to six strangers (including a Houston Chronicle reporter who I left on the jury for some inexplicable reason). They were not cheering me on - they were ready to render a verdict and go home to their families. I am not kidding: as I sat there thinking, one of the jurors was putting his coat on, and another juror was making a "hurry up" gesture with his hand.

If I was going to win, I had to start strong and sell my case to them by force of personality and sheer charisma. I knew, however, that I was not a force of personality-type of guy. I was solid and sincere-guy, and Cynthia had already staked that territory out for herself. What to do?

I flashed on the guy who, back then, was the gold standard for final arguments - Michael Kuzak. Who is that, you ask? Michael Kuzak was the lead character in L.A. Law, played by Harry Hamlin, and he never lost.

Kuzak's trademark in final argument was to steeple his hands in front of his face while still seated at counsel table, rotate his chair slowly towards the jury box, and begin his argument with a cold opening. Something like, "You never really know someone until you have to stab him in the eye with a fountain pen."  He would then get up, still talking, and walk the length of the jury box, holding the jurors' attention as he sold them on his ridiculous theory of the case, which they always bought.

(Of course, I had forgotten the most important contributing factor to Michael Kuzak's success. He always won because the script said so. He could argue a case in a gorilla suit - and I think he actually did once - and win because the script said so.)

So, the Kuzak approach it would be.  I steepled my hands in front of my face, slowly turned my chair to the jury, and said, "You know, ladies and gentlemen, the streets of Harris County are -"

-WHACK!-

"Get up!" the chief prosecutor hissed from the seat next to me as she elbowed me in the ribs.

As I stared at my chief, I also saw Judge Ross lean forward in his chair and click on the microphone at the bench.  "MR. DURFEE," he said in high fidelity, "PLEASE STAND WHEN YOU ADDRESS THE JURY."

As I stared at Judge Ross, my chief kicked me in the shin.  "GET. UP. NOW."

I got up.

I don't remember my argument. I do remember losing that case. And I remember that moment every time I argue a case.

Memories are not just nostalgia - they are also the residue of experience, keeping us from making the same mistakes, most of the time.  I got better as a trial lawyer over time, mainly because I learned from my mistakes.

Nowadays, I stand when I address the jury.  And I don't drink margaritas out of plastic buckets.

___________________________________________

This week's beer is pretty dang unique.  It's Shmaltz Brewing Company's Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. (Rye Double IPA), brewed in Clifton Park, New York.

© JDurfee99

The bottle label is crammed with detail: a picture of Lenny Bruce, framed in lights; a wrap-around collar label that lists the eight malts, seven hops, and three dry hops that went into the beer, the awards the beer has won, and the birth and death dates of Leonard Alfred Schneider (Lenny's birth name); and a note from the brewer, Jeremy Cowan, in four-point type:

"Satire equals tragedy plus time."
Lenny Bruce  

Emmis, Shmuck! 40 years alive. Over 40 years dead. And shares of Lenny Bruce commodities are still long-term performers - solid! Sure there's been books, posters, films, plays, a box set of course. But the big Four-O inspires innovation, something hip, modern - unorthodox - a taste that really swings…  

Ladies and Gentlemen, Shmaltz Brewing Co. is proud to present Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. Brewed with an obscene amount of malts and hops. Shocking flavors - far beyond contemporary community standards. We cooked up the straight dope for the growing minyans of our nation's Radical Beer junkies. Judges may not be able to define "Radical Beer," but you'll damn well know it when you taste it. Bruce died, officially declared a pauper by the State of California, personally broken and financially bankrupt simply for challenging America's moral hypocrisies with words. The memorial playbill read: "Yes, we killed him. Because he picked on the wrong god." -Directed by, the Courts, the Cops, the Church... and his own self-destructive super ego. Like Noah lying naked and loaded in his tent after the apocalyptic deluge: a witness, a patron saint, a father of what was to come. Sick, Dirty, Prophetic Lenny: a scapegoat, a martyr, a supreme inspiration.  

From Burlesque to Broadway, Carnegie Hall to the Courtroom, Long Island to Lima, Ohio to L.A., savor the provocative spirit of Lenny's R.I.P.A., our HE'BREW monument to the richness, the bitterness and the sacred sweetness that is life... L'Chaim!

© JDurfee99

I love this beer.  As I drink it, the 10% alcohol by volume makes me warm and happy.  I get a dark syrupy aroma that evens out the hoppiness I'm getting on my tongue. The label promises rye, and I get a little of that as I finish the drink, but not like I am eating roast beef on rye - it's more subtle.  It finishes with a little orangey note, kind of like a dark chocolate orange bon bon you'd mooch from the box of chocolates you gave your mother on Valentine's Day.

We have a new champion.  It ain't less filling, but it tastes great, better than the Buried Hatchet Stout, which had a nice run.

Now if they only offered it in a milk carton. . .

See you next week!  (And to my friend at the office - you know who you are - we're here for you at the office and wishing your spouse a speedy recovery.)

My Sixth Entry - Cedar Creek Brewery Elliott's Phoned Home Pale Ale

We were on a roll, my partner and I.  And then - bam! - it was over.

I know I promised to talk about my beer can collection this week.  That will have to wait a bit because I'm still stoked about my weekend activity: the 2014 State Championship "42" Domino Tournament in Hallettsville, Texas.

A little bit of background for the uninitiated:  Texas 42 is a trick-taking domino game that, according to the New York Times, was invented in the late-19th century by two boys west of Fort Worth to evade the Baptist prohibition against cardplaying (which did not extend to dominoes).

A variation of spades, the game takes the 28 dominoes in a double-six set, deals them out to four players who are playing as two teams, who then bid on the number of points they will win.  There are seven tricks, each worth one point, plus bonuses for the dominoes with factors of five: the double-five, the 6-4, the 5-0, the 4-1, and the 3-2.  Thus: seven trick points plus thirty-five bonus points equals Texas 42.

The winner of the bid declares the trump suit (blanks, ones, twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, doubles as trump, or no trump) and gets to lead the first domino.  The other players follow suit if they can, strategically trump in when they don't have to follow suit, and either try to help their partner make his point bid, or try to set the opposing team.

I first heard about this game in the early Nineties at a prosecutors' convention in South Padre Island.  Before then, I had played other kinds of domino games - chickenfoot mostly - in chambers with judges and defense attorneys, but I had never heard of 42.  My friend Keno told me about the tournament and, assuming they were playing chickenfoot, I told him that I wanted to play.

"You know how to play 42?" he asked.

"What's 42?"

He ran through the rules with me.  I didn't get it, so I told him I'd watch and try to learn. I watched, but still did not get it.  I did notice that the players were mostly older and rural Texas prosecutors who did not take kindly to my questions about the game while it was being played.  Still, as a card game lover, I was intrigued and wanted to figure it out.

When we returned to Houston, I told my buddy Gary about the game.  Gary and I have been pretty close friends for about twenty-five years because we have very similar perspectives on life: we're outwardly nice guys and inwardly nice as well, except that we both hate to lose at anything.  I've played basketball, poker, touch football, and dominoes with Gary, and in all of these competitions, he (like me) is the kind of guy who is a humble winner and a gracious loser, but mostly a humble winner because it drives him (like me) nuts to be a gracious loser.

Gary and I got Keno to show us how to play.  Others joined the game over time, including a pretty healthy contingent of our office's investigative staff, and in due course, a regular game ensued.  We played two to four times a week for about ten years and, like these things usually do, became something that transcended the game itself. For an hour a day, we played and talked and razzed and enjoyed each others' company.  Our fill-in players would come and go, but the core group of regulars would show up around noon wherever we were playing that day, and shake the rocks one more time.

Gary and I had a guru in 42 - the Pasadena Legend (if I used even his first name, you'd know who he was and I am trying to keep this blog mostly anonymous out of respect to my friends, so the Pasadena Legend he will be).  We loved playing with him because he was so committed to playing the game right, and because he was entertaining as hell, win or lose.

Example: I'd bid 36, which means I could lose one of the nickels (the 5-0, the 4-1, or the 3-2) and a trick to the other team and still make my bid.  The other players would pass to the Legend.

"Seven," he'd drawl through a mouth full of chaw and then spit into a cup.

"You bidding 37?" I'd say, looking incredulously at the five powerful doubles I'd been dealt.

"Uh-huh," he would say and then, looking at the other three guys at the table, he'd grin, saying, "As my daddy always said, 'You can't score if you don't have the ball!'"  The Legend would then look down at his dominoes, a fleeting moment of doubt crossing his face, then gather himself and declare the trump suit with supreme confidence - "Deuces!" - and slam a domino down in the middle of the table.

And sometimes he actually would make his bid.

This game broke up a few years ago when some of the players (including the Legend) left the office and when the atmosphere for lunchtime game-playing at the office became much less hospitable.

I see the Legend every now and then - he's working someplace else now - and he always asks me and Gary to come to his house and play with his neighborhood cronies. Unfortunately, we never seem to have time to take a Friday afternoon off to join him.

So, if I can change one thing in my schedule this year, it will be to carve out a few hours once a month to relive the old game and the old camaraderie.  Thomas Wolfe said, "You can't go home again," and I am just now really beginning to understand what he meant, but sometimes it's okay to visit a close approximation of the real thing.

___________________________________________

Played in the Knights of Columbus hall on Route 77 about twenty miles south of Schulenburg, the Hallettsville 42 tournament is about as old-school Texas as such things get.  When Gary and I arrived on Friday night for the warm-up round-robin tournament, I was still wearing my work suit, having raced down I-10 to get there before the 6:30 start.

As I got out of my car, two guys getting out of a Ford F-150 sized me up.

"You're a little overdressed for this, ain't you?" one of them said.  I didn't think he was being unfriendly; I think he really didn't understand why I was wearing a suit.

I took my tie off and threw it into the car.  "Just got off work.  I'm from Houston."

He nodded, the mystery now solved.

As they started the warm-up tournament, Gary and I settled in.  We played five matches, won four of them, feeling the old rhythm kick in as I tipped a cold Shiner in a can (my obligatory beer reference for this story).  Much of what makes 42 so much fun is the partnership - you are playing his dominoes along with yours - and when you are simpatico with your partner, you can beat anyone.  As we left for our hotel, we felt good about our chances in the real tournament on Saturday.

The next morning, we got up early, had a nice breakfast at the Hotel Texas (the best hotel in Hallettsville, no complaints), and headed to the hall.  I decided not to wear my suit.

We played some games for fun while they set up the tournament.  The guys we played with were about as excited as we were (this was their first time at the tournament), although they had gotten up early that morning and driven to Hallettsville, so they were dragging a little, waiting for their caffeine to kick in.  We split two matches and neither of our teams lost any confidence.

About 8:30 a.m., the tournament director assigned us to our morning round-robin groups. The teams with the best records out of each group would qualify for the afternoon single-elimination championship tournament.

We played six matches over the next three hours.  We first played two old guys in cowboy hats to start the tournament. (This was a recurring theme.)  We beat them pretty handily.

We played a nice couple of retired ladies, one of whom was using a walker.  They were sharp as tacks and tough opponents, but we beat them too.  (The lady with the walker told me afterwards that her daughter is a county attorney in north central Texas, so I promised to look her up at the next convention.)

We played a husband and wife from Friendswood.  I found out that they play regularly in their senior center.  (I was glad to hear this because my retirement plan is pretty much going to be golf in the morning, 42 at lunch, and poker at night.  I might see my wife on the weekends.)  We beat them too.

We played two guys from Houston next, both wearing cowboy hats.  These were the first non-retiree players we had faced.  One guy was garrulous, talking a mile a minute, particularly after finding out where I worked.  He talked about a mutual friend of ours - a buddy of the Pasadena Legend - who is married to a state senator and who loves dominoes as much as we do.  We lost to these guys, mainly because the other hatted guy (who was as quiet as his partner was loud) insisted on invalidating a hand we'd won because Gary had asked what the bid was midway through the hand.  It turns out this is not a rule violation, but we didn't know that and agreed to replay the hand and lost it.  It was the difference in the game.  We lost to them, 7-6.

We played a couple from Houston who wore matching theme t-shirts and who were deeply involved in Texas 42 leagues.  Gary and I noticed a lot of deference to them from other players in the hall.  We lost to them, 7-6.

We played a couple of retired men from southwest Texas, one of whom told me that he had been his county's water official for thirty years.  (He warned me that a water crisis in Texas is imminent and no one wants to deal with it.)  We beat them.

We got a bye on the next game and then beat two young guys, recent graduates of Texas A&M, and came out of the round-robin 5-2, with our two losses only by one point.

My buddy Gary and the chicken lunch

We had a pleasant chicken lunch, and Gary won a jar of pickles in the door prize drawing.  When they announced the seeding for the championship tournament, Gary and I were seeded 14 out of 49 qualifying teams and got a bye into the second round.

As we awaited our opponents, I dared to dream.  We didn't need to be the state champs - any trophy, including a runner-up consolation trophy, would be a capstone to over a decade of playing.  Gary and I had proven we could play with anyone that morning, and we had made it to the third round of the championship round two years ago.  We could only get better.

But it wasn't meant to be.  We ran into a team from the Dallas area (sporting Cowboys colors) and they kicked our butts pretty solidly and ruthlessly.  About thirty or forty minutes after we started that round, we were done, out of the tournament.  Gary and I replayed our hands, but it didn't seem we'd done anything wrong - the other team had just played their dominoes better than we had.  They shook our hands and went looking for the next team.  We drove back to Houston and planned our return for next year.

With some practice, I think we can do better.  And even losing (and I hate losing), we had great fun: I still played more 42 in a single day than I ever had in my life, and we played with some of the nicest people anyone could hope to meet.

I say this often, even to my poker playing buddies, and I mean it:  Texas 42 is the Greatest Game Ever Devised.  I will preach that to my dying day, which will be when I drop dead, face-first into a domino table, after having made a two-mark bid by walking a naked ace-blank.

_______________________________________

This week's beer is the Cedar Creek Brewery's Elliott's Phoned Home Pale Ale.  Brewed by Jim Elliott in Seven Points, Texas (part of the Greater Cedar Creek Lake area an hour south of Dallas), the sixteen ounce can is kind of gimmicky:

(c) JDurfee 2014

I mean, I get it - Jim Elliott brewed the beer, and he must be an alien or something - but I think the name detracts from the drink.  If you have a beer you're proud of, don't make the customer think that this is something made back in 1982 to capitalize on a brief scene from E.T. the Extraterrestrial.

It really doesn't need the gimmick.  It's a good beer with a super-detailed tasting note on the can:

White Pale Ale is one of our favorite styles. Creating a nice blend of American hops and malts that can offset the German Alt yeast is a little tougher than it sounds. Our goal is a moderate level of hop bitterness that carries over to a soft hop aroma. We are trying some new American hops - primarily Apollo and Bravo - that give some interesting notes to flavor and aroma.  Bravo gives a blend of lemon, pear, and grapefruit notes. Apollo is mostly used as a bittering hop, but because of the great aroma we get from it, we also used it in the whirlpool. As a result, the aroma comes across as a strong grapefruit note.  We think it's out of this world - A Pale Ale to phone home about!

(c) JDurfee 2014

Did it live up to this billing?  I certainly smelled the grapefruit nose deep in the glass, and the hoppiness was muted but there in the taste.  The color was golden and cloudy, I guess from the yeast, which left a small residue on the bottom of the ol' pint glass.

I liked this beer, but didn't love it enough to dethrone the Buried Hatchet Stout, which seems to have some staying power in my personal championship series.

Having lost my own bid for a championship, I feel for Elliott's Phoned Home Pale Ale.  But it's a process, and I'm confident that in time, the Cedar Creek Brewery is going to make some remarkable beers, and, in time, Gary and I will bring home the Texas 42 gold.

See you next week!  (And to my three aunts in New York: I love you very much and I'm glad you're reading this blog.  You are each very special to me and my family, something I don't tell you as much as you deserve to hear it.)