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Question For My German Friends

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Hefeweizen, roll or swirl the bottle on final pour?
A long time ago I was stationed in Germany for 2 years and I never remember seeing anyone do either. Is this a new thing or did I just miss it?
Also, I remember Hefeweizen mostly being served with a lemon. Most American beer geeks scoff at this. Is this not correct?
Example YouTube videos are below.
*edit 1400hrs
In my studying for the Certified Beer Server exam I keep coming across statements claiming that Bock Beer originated in Einbeck, Southern Germany. I’m not German. I was only in Germany a short while. I’m not sure how you put Einbeck in Southern Germany. I blame this as the source: Tasting Beer, 2nd Edition: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink
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Olympics

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I love watching the Olympics. Like many of you I watch what I can. So many great athletes. So many great stories. I dreamed of being in the Olympics as a kid. Scoring a goal, piloting a bobsled… I admire and I’m a bit envious of all the athletes.
There are also some bad things that happen around the Olympics. You’ve got the press fawning over the sister and representative of a ruthless dictator. You’ve got entitled people who have no idea what the Olympic spirit is. You’ve got  an ignorant network analyst. And, what kind of a**hat tries to hack the Olympics?
My favorite events: Hockey, all the downhill skiing and jumping, all the snowboarding, curling, bobsledding, luge, skeleton…basically anything except…
My least favorite events: Figure skating.
Speaking of Hockey. I watched the USA vs. Finland Women’s Ice Hockey game yesterday. I’ve been watching hockey of various stages my whole life: NHL (Flyers), AHL (Richmond Robins), IHL (Saginaw Gears), ECHL (Richmond Renegades), college, every Olympics in my lifetime. All the players are so much more athletic today. IMHO this is especially true of Women’s Ice Hockey. 20 years ago you had a handful of elite players mostly concentrated in Canada and the USA. Today there are so many great athletes on the ice from many different countries. Honestly I would love the all Women’s teams to create an all-star team and challenge the men. I think they could take some of them. (This isn’t intended to be condescending or sexist.)
Got a favorite athlete at the games? Favorite sport? What team are you rooting for?

Super Bore

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I don’t care about the ads (dilly, dilly). I don’t care about the halftime show (unless JT sings dickinabox). I don’t really care who wins the Super Bowl. I’m a Washington Redskin’s fan with the Oakland L.A. Oakland Las Vegas Raiders being my second team. My teams have sucked forever. However, at least they have won some Super Bowls. In as much as they are our NFC East rivals, I would just as soon the Eagles not win. It is so much fun shutting down any smack talking with a “Zero Super Bowl wins” comeback.

Craft Beer

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If you’ve hung around here for a while you know I’m in to craft beer. Yelp says I’ve checked in to 45 breweries in the last 2 years.

I’ve decided to learn more about this whole craft beer thing. Lately I have:
– Taken: P’s & Q’s: An Introduction to Craft Beer course, offered by the VCU Office of Continuing and Professional Education.
– This morning I got my Beer 101 Certificate (took less than an hour)
– I’m on Chapter 9 of Tasting Beer, 2nd Edition: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink

Next up is the Cicerone Certified Beer Server exam.

Not sure where I’m headed with this. Maybe I will try and sling some beers at a local brewery and see if I fit in to the craft beer culture.

Anyone out there into craft beer? Anything to share? Got any tips or advice?

Good Movie, Bad Movie, Bad Experience

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Please Stand By
“Dakota Fanning stars as a woman who escapes a group home hoping to get her Star Trek script produced in Hollywood. On the way she must conquer a new world full of challenges.”
This is in theaters but is also on Comcast PPV which is how I watched it. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Hostiles
Way too long and too boring. I’m not sure what the message was except, “all men suck, especially white men”.
It was well acted.

The Movie Theater
I’ve gone off on the movie going experience before. We walk up. +100 people in line. The kiosk/auto ticket line is shorter but only one of the two computers are operational. 20 minute wait. Get inside, a 10 minute wait for the ticket taker. Someone cuts and the teenage ticket taker lets this happen. Since I am almost next I speak up on behalf of the multitude,”Why would you let him through, he obviously cut the line.” Before he can answer an off-duty but uniformed Barney Fife sticks his nose in, “There are 2 lines” he says. “No there is not”, I answer. “Yeah”, says the woman in front of me to the cop. He backs off and I let it go. Now the concession line. They have one of those winding rope patterns set up for it. It looks to be at least a 20 minute wait. No popcorn for me.
There are 7 movies previews. There are commercials for the Coke and popcorn that apparently they think I paid to watch. There reminders to STFU. There are reminders to silence your phones that several people obviously ignore. Ditto for texting.
And they wonder why people don’t go to movies.