My family and I spent the weekend beer and loafing in Westport Washington. I spent very little time on the beach. Two reasons. First, an invasion is afoot in Westport, Washington. Yes, there are millions of dead glassy purple, jellyfish-like sea creatures that look like sailboats stretching as far as the eye can see. Known as “by-the-wind sailors,” Velella velella typically live in the open ocean, but when warm water and storms draw them near shore, the wind blows them onto beaches, where they die in stinking piles — emphasis on stinking. Beach strolls ended up as eye rolls, so
How much do I loooove Cinco de Mayo? Every Fifth of May I bathe in salsa and ride a burro around Tacoma’s Proctor District handing out chimichangas and parasitic water. But even though Cinco de Mayo is dominated by idiots mainlining margaritas, it is, in fact, an actual holiday. Apparently, on May 5, 1862, a French army landed in Mexico to collect outstanding debts from the newly elected government of democratic president Benito Juarez. Well, there would be no dinero for those greedy dudes as 4,000 scrappy Mexicans beat the pommes frites out of the French army and protected their
Times have changed since the halcyon hedonism of yore, when Hunter S. Thompson — the most celebrated master of the fine art of spending a spell in a faraway locale, imbibing and debauching on someone else’s dime — was staggering drunk, weaving his half-remembered adventures into fabulist prose. Nowadays, when a beer at lunch is looked at askance, there’s a palpable button-down mentality that frowns on overindulgence. I prefer zippers. So when the folks at the Brewers Association gave me the green light to hang at the Craft Brewers Conference for a few days and a few hundred pints, I
