Let’s start with the numbers:

My goal with this race was to run with the 3:45 pace group.  This roughly comes down to 8:35 per mile.  Given that I ran the Rock N Roll Half Marathon in 1:41:30 (7:45 per mile), it is no surprise that my half marathon split is about as on pace as expected.  Then things started to go badly.

Around mile 12, I realized that I was running far ahead of my pace team.  This meant that when I turned my head side ways or full around 180 that I couldn’t see anybody holding the pace placard.  Now before you go thinking that this is my fault, they suggested that people who want to walk or go more slowly through the aid stations go ahead a little bit.  I had been doing that and basically just got a bit too far ahead of myself.  So then I made my first mistake on race day; I started to slow down and eventually even walked through the next aid station until the pace group caught up to me.  Now I could lie and say that this was all for getting back to pace, but if I’m honest with myself, I was tired and thought that I could use this accrued time to recuperate so that I could start feeling not so tired.  Why was this a mistake?  Basically, that was my mental moment where my foot came off the ‘race’ pedal(accelerator).  When you give in to things like that, it’s very hard to stay pumped and in attack-mode ready to pass any runner.  Suffice it to say that when the group caught up to me, they were going a bit faster than I would have liked and it was a mental downer to have to speed up to get back onto the right pace.

As I approached the half way point, I experienced a problem that was unfortunately familiar: my knees and hips started to hurt.  I say familiar because this was why I didn’t stay on pace for the 20 miler preparation run 3 weeks before this race.  It’s hard to describe the pain.  It wasn’t as bad as “Oh crap, what am I going to do” but it was definitely not as good as “I love this and I want to do this forever”.  Perhaps the best way to think about it is, if I keep going this will only get worse and eventually I won’t be able to move along at the pace I want.  Not to mention that it really makes it hard to keep a spring in your step when all of your springs are complaining.  Fear not, dear reader, as I planned for this eventuality.  I had two packets of Advil (Ibuprofen) in my men’s fanny pack.  I was worried about any side-effects during the long run, but I was willing to risk those to avoid the crazy hip/knee pain.  But.  And there’s always a But.  I bought these the day before at a gas station.  These are foil packets that contains 2 200mg pills per packet.  I couldn’t open the packet.  Since I didn’t train with this drug (or form factor), I was not prepared.  So I tried tearing with my sweaty fingers.  I tried biting.  I tried swearing.  Alas, none of these techniques worked.  And so I tried begging.  I ran over to the side where there were people handing out water and screamed “Open This!” to some very frightened young dude.  He was about as successful as me in the beginning but thankfully was able to get it open.

So now I’m running west on Adams passing the 14 mile mark.  And one of the day’s fears is realized.  The sun is out and there isn’t a cloud in the sky.  This part of the run (i.e. the second half) is very unprotected from the sun.  And the temperature is probably around the low 70s.  The Advil has not kicked in yet and I was tired already.  This was the moment that I let go of the pace group.  I wasn’t worried about knowing the pace.  I knew that I was about 3.5 minutes off of the clock time and I had an arm band telling me where and when I should be pace-wise.  But I now was losing any sort of camaraderie that would have kept me going.  So why didn’t I just keep going?  After all, I’m mentally tough, my pain killers would kick-in at some point soon, and I’m not *that* old.  Hard to explain.  I guess the evidence would point to the fact that I must not be as mentally tough as I thought (ignore the irony).  And so began my stretch of walking and running.  I would walk for a bit (aggressively, dammit) and then start a slow to moderate jog.  Unfortunately, the jog wouldn’t last and I had to walk again.  But at least I was fighting.

I wasn’t doing too badly at this point.  My music was playing and I was running a little slower (current pace-wise) but I was still going to meet my goal of sub 4 hours.  I kept thinking that I just had to maintain this walk/run thing for a bit and then everything would be ok.  By a bit I mean that I would meet Su at the 20 mile mark (which was a little past the 30k mark).  So that gave me some motivation.  And as luck would have it, I started feeling better at the 30k mark.  So I picked up the pace (not sure what exactly, but faster than I was going before) and started to pass people.  At last, I thought, I’m getting my second wind and I’m going to accomplish my goal.

Then I started to get a cramp in my left calf.  I thought, no big deal, I’ve gotten cramps before.  I just need to run through it and all will be well.  This cramp was persistent.  I had to do something.  So I pulled to the side and started stretching it out.  Helped a bit.  So I was going to stretch the right one for good measure.  When I stopped stretching the left, I experienced pain.  Physical pain like I have never felt before.  I screamed.  There was a spectator who asked “Should I call an ambulance?”.  I said no.  I tried to stretch it again but the pain was ridiculous.  Eventually, for no reason, it subsided and I started walking again.  This may sound crazy, but then I felt really good.  I started running.  Then sprinting.  I was feeling like a million bucks.  I thought Su will miss seeing me because I’ll be a blur as I pass her.  Well, *that* didn’t happen.  The euphoria lasted only a few minutes.  No biggie, I will just keep on the non-sprinting pace and all will be well.

I met Su and gave her a sweaty hug.  She said “You’re doing great!”.  I said “I’ve had some cramping issues”.   She said “You can do it!”.  And so I thought I could.  I thought this cramping thing is behind me and I can finish with a respectable pace.  There was only one problem with that strategy: the cramping thing was not behind me.  In fact, it just kept getting worse.  It started with the left calf.  Then it moved to the right calf.  Then it was both calves.  Each time, I would start walking and wait until the pain subsided.  Then I would start jogging for a bit.  I couldn’t call it running anymore.  I had gel.  I had bananas.  I had water.  Nothing made the cramping pain go away.

And the heat was starting to get oppressive.  The long stretch heading North on Michigan was a real bear.  Very unprotected.  My body heat level was getting very hot.  I tried using the sponges (which were awesome) and wet towels (also awesome), but nothing seemed to get me back to normal.  As I approached the Roosevelt bridge without about 200 yards to go, I kept hearing people shout “Come on, you can do it!”, but I really couldn’t.  I was exhausted and in a lot of pain.  I managed a few smiles for the camera as I crossed the finish line, but that’s about all I could do.

Right at the finish line, I saw that they had more Gatorade G2 (which is what everybody considers to be the normal stuff) and I’m like no, don’t need need that.  I need my G3 recovery drink.  So I had water, a banana and sipped my recovery drink.  I made my way to the Gear Check tent.  I put on my sandals and changed shirts.  I texted Su that I was now heading to the agreed upon meet up in the party area.  I didn’t even have a 312 beer yet because I wanted to avoid going to the med tent due to dehydration.  I’m at the North side of Buckingham Fountain.  I started walking North to get to the party area.  And the cramping starts up and I feel woozy.

Yeah, that’s right.  I get put into a wheel chair and get carted off to the med tent.  (Welcome Back Dave!)  The doctor thought all of the cramping was because I didn’t have enough electrolytes.  He asked did I have any Gatorade during the run?  I said not really because the nutrition people said not to mix gel with gatorade, but I had 5 gels, bananas and water.  And so he had me drinking G2 gatorade to try and replenish the electrolytes.  In the meantime, the cramping got real bad.  There were about 6 different masseur and masseuses working on both legs at different points in time.  When I thought everything was ok, one leg would just start up again.  This was the crazy kind of physical pain.  I was screaming.  I probably had 2 bottles of gatorade at that point and I didn’t really feel better.  The doctor was like “An IV is what you need as that will get electrolytes fastest to the muscles”.  I’m thinking why the **** didn’t you give me that in the first place.  I had already been there for 1-2 hours at this point.  That’s when the real fun began.  It took 6 tries (that’s right 6) for 3 different nurses to try and find my vein in order to put in the IV.  I didn’t mind the sticking that much, but I really wanted the cramping to stop.

In the end, I got the fluid.  I never made it to the post race party.  I never had a single beer at the event but still managed to get dehydrated and visit the med tent.  The doctor said “See you next year”.  Can’t wait.

So what did this experience teach me?  I think that perhaps some people are not meant to run a marathon.  I think that I’m part of that group.  At a minimum, I will not be running any more warm weather marathons.  And definitely no marathons for several years (if ever again).  Hear I am, 10 years after running a marathon with no training at 4:12 (or so).  I trained and ran it 6 minutes slower.

Anyway, I have a bunch of excuses:

• The weather was hot.  Now, to be fair, it wasn’t as hot as 2010; however, as anyone who has done any type of distance running will tell you, the cooler the better.  And this means that snow would have been preferable to sun.
• I didn’t fuel correctly during the race.  This is the one of the most frustrating aspects of this event.  I borrowed a book about nutrition for endurance sports, I went to a “breaking the wall” seminar that included the nutrition book author, and I followed (as best I could) all of the advice and instructions.  The seminar panel said “You shouldn’t mix gel and gatorade” and I listened.  I bought a gel belt and fueled up often during the race; unfortunately, the lack of gatorade most likely caused the unbearable cramping.
• I still didn’t manage the last 2 weeks correctly.  At the seminar which took place 2 weeks before the race, they said that you can’t do anything to improve your race; you can only mess it up.  I’m pretty sure that I ate too much during the week.  I tried to do the right thing, but I really didn’t know what I was doing.  The result was that I didn’t feel great on race day.  I felt heavy and annoyed that I didn’t run as much as I was supposed to in the last 2 weeks.

How did I improve from last year?

• Got a new set of head phones that didn’t activate the voice control functionality of the iPhone.  They worked like a charm.
• I created a play list.  This worked pretty well for the entire 2011 season.  Ironically, I ran into non running songs at the end when I wasn’t running.  I really didn’t expect my time to be that bad.
• My shoes were much better.  I ended up running with Nike Lunar Glide 3 shoes.  Combined with my orthotics, they are a very good combination.  Slight mistake here that I should have replaced the orthotics after the 20 mile run.  Not doing that caused a bunch of nasty blisters, but I don’t think they had a negative material effect.
• I used Vaseline instead of Body Glide.  Not really noticeable during the run but made all the difference in the world in the post run recovery.
• I improved on my nutrition.  Though I still had issues, I think I had net improvement.

So what’s next?  I think that a half marathon may be the max distance in pure running for me.  I know that I don’t need to train that much for it and that it doesn’t require much in the way of in-race fueling.  And perhaps most importantly, I don’t run into all of these *other* issues like hip pain and cramping.  I’ve got my eye on the ING Miami half marathon but before that there is the good ole Turkey Trot.  I’ll see how it goes.

With editing in place, the playlist was setup to finish with ‘Wet Sand’ around 1:45 (1 hour and 45 minutes). As it turns out, I ran this a bit faster, so I finished before that song ended.

As always, the event was hosted by Greg Browne (who is the brewmaster at Mickey Finns).

1) Smuttynose Barleywine

Malty but not that sweet.  ABV: 11%.  I thought the lady on the bottle label was pretty ugly.  This is a bottle conditioned beer which means that more product is added as some of the beer evaporates.  It was a fine starter, but nothing brilliant.

2) Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine

Very malty, smooth and rich.  ABV: 8%.  This beer is only released once a year.  It was first released in 1975.  Greg mentioned that this shows how long Anchor has been in the game and how unusual it was in that time to release such a craft beer in the US.  I think this was the beer of the night.

3) Lagunitas Olde Gnarleywine

Hops on the nose.  Crazy fruity flavors, really makes you go wow.  ABV: 11%.  This was a very interesting beer.

4) Avery Hog Heaven Barleywine

Had what I would call a roastiness to the flavor.  Hops and malts very balanced.  There were flying pigs on the bottle label.  I thought the beer was great.

5) Moylans Moylander Imperial IPA

Resiny.  2x Hops, 2X Malts (than I guess their regular IPA).  I really didn’t like this beer.  Even the bottle label was busy and not good.  There was a lot of beer tech talk going on.  Something about how hops are natural preservatives.  Then Julian said something about “hop oiling the bitch”.  Not really sure what it all means and that’s one of the many reasons (not the least of which is my laziness) that I don’t brew my own beer.

6) Three Floyds Dreadnaught Imperial IPA

Very hoppy, not much finish.  I consistently get confused with the name/flavor of this one and the Behemoth.  But make no mistake.  The Behemoth is an awesome beer; the Dreadnaught not so much.

7) Arcadia Hop Mouth Imperial IPA

Buttery popcorn flavor (which apparently is considered a defect by beer enthusiasts).  Defect or not, it wasn’t very good.

Great Divide Hercules Imperial IPA

Very smooth, not too hoppy.  I would say this was my 2nd best beer of the evening.

9) “Pineapple Express”

Greg brought in a special brew that he basically dubbed Pineapple Express.  I suppose there were supposed to be some kind of pineapple flavoring but I don’t really remember.  ABV: 11%.  It wasn’t anything special except for the fact that it was home brewed.

It was a great night of drinking/talking and of course learning about 2 of my favorite styles of beers.  I can’t wait for the next class (as long as it isn’t brown ales).

So I have seen: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, True Grit, and Winter’s Bone.  I have the dvds for Toy Story 3 and Inception, but for (non-)obvious reasons, I don’t think they will do anything interesting from an awards perspective.

Without further ado…

- Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) – It’s a simple as this: the ‘retard’ theory always wins.  Go back to every Best Actor winner and you will notice that the winner always plays some kind of affliction.  Besides that, I think he really made it believable.

- Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter) — Same theory above applies.  The only real contender is probably John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone).  Not sure why Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech) is even on the list, but does anyone really care that much about the supporting actor?

- Best Actress: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right) — I’m taking a bit of a guess here and going with a blue chip talent.  I thought Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)  both did great jobs, but I don’t see how they could pull it out.

- Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) – She actually brought the movie out successfully.  No rip on Jeff Bridges, but she was the star.  I don’t think either of ‘The Fighter’ chicks did anything special.  That being said, it wouldn’t surprise me if Melissa Leo (The Fighter) got the nod just because she was so creepy as a mother.

- Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3 – I actually saw “How to Train Your Dragon” and thought it was great; however, I suspect the Toy Story juggernaut cannot be stopped.

- Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland — I’ve seen all of these minus what I already listed.  This movie was just plain beautiful.

- Cinematography: The Social Network – Really tough to decide here.  I feel like Black Swan lived and died on the camera movement too.

- Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland — This should win on originality alone.  I don’t see how rehashing western(True Grit) or early 20th century clothing (Speech) should win anything.

- Best Director: Black Swan — I could see this going many ways, but I really think the director got it done here.  He really made the movie flow and got the best out of the cast.

- Film Editing: 127 Hours — The integration of the flash backs and the progression of the understanding of the main character is perfect.

- Best Picture: Black Swan — This is (yet again) another tough decision.  I think that The Social Network could win here too.  I find it amusing that Toy Story 3 made this list; it has no chance of winning.

- Writing (adapted screenplay): The Social Network — the writing is what makes this movie.

That’s all.  I don’t really have anything more to contribute in the other categories.

Updated: On request, added the relevant movies where not otherwise listed.

My goal for the winter will be to try and run 3-4 times a week with an emphasis on long, slow distance.  The cold and snow won’t stop me.  And I think we will have a lot of the former if not the latter.  Come the spring, I should be in good shape to start attacking the race scene.

With respect to multitouch gestures, Jobs said that Apple’s research has shown that multitouch doesn’t work on a vertical screen. “For a notebook, that’s why we’ve perfected our multitouch trackpads over the years,” Jobs said. “That’s the best way we’ve found to get multitouch into a notebook.”

Unfortunately, this is exactly what the iPad Keyboard dock does.  In addition to not being able to dock the iPad, apparently it’s really not good for you.  To be fair, I thought the combination of touch/keyboard usage on the iPad was already crap.  Good to know that Apple feels the same.

Which points to my big feature request for Apple for the keyboard interaction.  I want more more more.  I want command-tab to switch between the running (or even most recently used) applications.  I want the down arrow to work after I searched for something in Safari so that I can pick a search term.  (Same applies for url typing).  And so on.

Come on Jobs.   I know you’re reading this blog.

The keynote started with a long description of how great the Mac was by Tim Cook (COO).  I don’t know if was trying to channel Steve Jobs, but he kept saying amazing and fantastic and it sounded very contrived.  It goes without saying that I’m not a big fan of sales numbers and all of the powerpoint mess that they were doing.

Next up was a (long) review of the new iLife version.  I like the apps, but I was not compelled to spend $50 on the software or buy a Mac just to get the new version of iLife.  Don’t get me wrong.  I always think I’ll make a great vacation movie (and the trailer templates were neat), but I lived through the practicality of actually trying to get enough raw video during a vacation.  In short, it’s a pain in the butt.  Maybe video capture on the iPhone 4/3GS makes it easier, but only time will tell.

Fortunately, things got interesting with a demo of Mac OSX 10.7 aka Lion.  I’m really a big fan of full screen interfaces.  I think the one window model has really been invigorated and all apps need to jump on board.  As a developer, Xcode 4 can’t arrive soon enough.  While watching the keynote live, I kept thinking of this other video I saw more than a year ago.  I think there is a big push to focus on one task at a time (which doesn’t preclude multi-tasking).  People don’t like distractions (unless of course they are bored with the focused task, but that’s really an entirely different issue).

Next up was Mission Control.  I think this is a great idea to merge all of the window management concepts.  Again, the video comes to mind.  I never really got into spaces because it was kind of a pain to know what was going on.  Maybe this is the silver bullet to solve window management issues.

Mac App Store.  About time.  Now I run as much beta software as the next programmer, but I like the idea of a standard and vetted apps that get vetted, updated and installed auto-magically.  It really makes sense to have that process be as turnkey as possible.  As a developer it’s great because you don’t have to worry about library incompatibilities of the hardware/os version because the application meta data (and the app installer) will do all of that heavy lifting.  As a developer, I like the idea of a well known marketplace (but I’m still not keen on Apple eating 30% of my lunch).

One last thing: new Air hardware.  I really love the look of the Air notebooks.  I think Apple nailed it with the unibody design several years ago.  I just wish that Apple and I could agree more about the priorities of the devices.

The good:

• full size keyboard
• high res screen
• 2 usb ports
• re-install software on usb stick (very cool)
• 4 GB RAM (finally)
• Flash only storage (with base at 64GB)

The bad:

• Too heavy
• Slow processor

I really don’t need a 30 day standby on anything.  This includes my iPad.  Until I never have to plug it in, it will never be long enough.  I would rather have the laptops be lighter (2.3, 2.9 pounds) and give up all of that crazy battery weight.  I can’t believe that they still put in a 1.6GHz processor.  I’m pretty sure that’s the original one from several years ago.  That is just crazy slow.  Especially when the plastic mac book still for sale at $1000 has almost 2x the power.  I know they need to make money, but really it’s a bit ridiculous.  In hind sight, I guess Apple and I agree more than not and time will tell if I get a notebook (to replace the ipad as my home theater remote?).

Since I don’t know if the Chicago Marathon site will remember everything, I’m attaching the relevant timing/result data.

participant

race info

splits

So yesterday, I finally did my second marathon.  In short, it was a terrible day for me.  One thing went wrong after another.

Here is a recap of the day’s timeline:

- 5:40 get up

- 6:30 leave the house

- 6:45 dropped off at wells/jackson, have to walk east to the start line

- 6:55 get in the port-a-john line (because it’s better to take care of this before rather than after) (lack of a certain item left me unhappy)

- 7:19 get out of port-a-john and hear the national anthem playing.  Try to get in the chute.  Have to walk south to finally enter.  Keep trying to walk north.

- 7:28 finally get to pace group.  No sign of Ken or Pete.

- 7:30 race starts

- 7:36 cross the starting line

- 7:40 ish left foot hits a pot hole while crossing under michigan ave.  I twist my left ankle and hit the ground with my knees and hands.  I didn’t see the pot hole because it was extremely crowded.  Like a wave on a rock, a bunch of runners broke around me.  And a few tried to help me up.  I sucked it up and started hobbling forward.

- 7:50 my left thumb is still killing me from the fall, but I finally catch up to the pace group.  At this point, I also realize that similar to the Shamrock Shuffle, the GPS runkeeper couldn’t quite handle the huge underpass in the beginning and gave me more mileage than was my due.

- 8:04 I cross the 5K marker at roughly 27:19 which was the same as in the Bucktown 5K

I lose track of the time, so I will start talking about it at milestones.

- 5 mile marker I take my first Gu gel because my energy level isn’t great

- 10 mile marker I take my second Gu gel — still feeling tired.  Hard to avoid all the people sprinkling water via hoses.  Didn’t factor that in to my iphone.  Had to try and stay in the middle of the street to avoid water damage

- 12 mile marker the pace group begins to pull away from me.  I basically took too long in the aid stations and didn’t have the energy to catch up exactly

- 13 mile the voice control on my iphone keeps activating.  This is because the headphone controls got too much moisture.  Unfortunately, this has happened before.  It was so annoying that I had to take off the head phones and pack them away.  I was still carrying my iphone in hand.

- 13.1 mile (halfway) I actually cross the line pretty much on pace, so the pace group was arguably going a little fast.

- 14 mile pace group is still in my sights, but my fatigue and lack of music is really taking me out of the zone

- 15-16-17 mile sun and heat are really building up.  I’m having a lot of trouble moving and I walk a bunch.  As a side note, I’m a crappy walker.  Old people (80+ years) walk faster than I do, so it really starts to eat at my pace

- 18-19-20 mile I’m moving like crap and really off of my pace.  I’m supposed to meet Su and friends at 18th and Halstead so I try to get some steady pacing going.  I see them and I’m pretty sure I looked like death jogging.  Not exactly a Kodak moment.

- 21-22-23 mile  I really feel like crap and am mostly walking.  Gatorade, water, gel, bananas.  Nothing seems to be able to give me back energy.  The sun is really beating down on me and the shady spots are few and far between.  I went to completely walking after simultaneous blisters burst on my left and right big toes.  For some stupid reason, I didn’t go to an aid station to get it wrapped.

- 24 mile text Su not to meet me at 18th street (25.2 mile marker) because I wasn’t really in mood to race anymore; however, I wanted to finish and earn the medal beer.

- 25-26 mile  I can’t believe how long this Michigan leg of the run is when you’re walking at turtle speed.

- 26-26.2  I sprint at 50 yard dash pace so that I can feel good about something at the end.

4:41:46  cross finish line

- few minutes later, drink some water and some gatorade, have half a banana.

5 min later start drinking a wonderfully cold and refreshing Goose Island 312 beer.

20 min later try to get up to fetch another beer, feel woozy, sit down

20 min later try to get up to fetch another beer, feel woozy and nauseous, on request guy next to me fetches someone with a wheel chair to take me to the med tent

I passed out on the wheel chair and dropped my iphone, but it was recovered.  After lying me down on a cot, they start stuffing me with ice like a sausage.  It feels really good.  They said my blood pressure was low and want to give me fluids.  It’s safe to say that I appreciate the help from the med tent, but I think the nurse who had to prick me 3-4 times (and failed on all of them) really ought to think about a new profession.  The better nurse gave me an IV in the back of my palm and that really hurt.  The best nurse finally added an IV to my forearm and that was much better.  I went from being too hot to too cold so all of the ice was removed and blankets added.  It was not the best “hospital” experience to say the least.

Finally, they let me go and I had to walk pretty far to get picked up by Su and Sandi.  My original plan of walking back to 18th and State was aborted (obviously).

So why did it all go so wrong?  I have a few theories:

- My lack of running before the race.  Because of the foot problems I had from the long practice runs, I wasn’t allowed to run for almost 2 weeks right before the race.  This not only got me worried, but really removed a lot of conditioning from my body.

- I hadn’t done a long run using the new orthotics.  I think that created the blister dilemma and really had me running in a different form than I would have liked.  I think the answer is that I need to abort the Nike Frees (even with the orthotics) and go back to a more supported shoe.

- My stomach had been bothering me since Tuesday.  I never really shook it until maybe Saturday and that really hurt my attitude as well as being able to stock pile the right foods in my body.  I (stupidly) ran a 2 mile run on Saturday 3pm to help with the stomach.  Though it did help with that, I think it wasn’t the best thing to do about 16 hours before the big race.

- The pot hole.  I think this really changed my stride.  Post race, my left ankle is severely swollen and makes walking and climbing stairs very difficult.

- The weather.  Regardless of all of the above, had it been a wonderful 40 degrees, I think that I could have pushed through a lot of things.

In summary, am I whining a bunch about what happened?  Absolutely.  Now I can put this mess behind me and ponder whether I’ll do it again.

So the event took place last night at 6pm. We tasted 10 beers. For snack food, they had fresh (but not hot) Bavarian pretzels with sweet mustard. All very tasty.

1) Reissdorf Kölsch

• Draft
• 1st Impression: Refreshing
• A Cologne style beer. Actually an ale, but lager-like in that the fruit is muted. There are many varieties that all vary by brewpub (in the Cologne region).
• In the region, generally served in 200ml cylinder glasses. Don’t worry if that doesn’t seem like a lot because the wait staff is constantly carrying trays of these glasses. They mark your beer coaster per beer and that becomes your bill.

2) König Pils

• Can
• 1st Impression: Tastes just like PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon)
• Lagers are the typical German beer and this is a typical example of a lager. After several sips, the beer was better than PBR (which doesn’t say much), but I thought it wasn’t nearly as good as the first beer.
• Other classic pilsners are Bitburger and Warsteiner.

3) Schneider Edel-Weisse

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Bananas
• This beer was the best so far. The freshness of the bananas/cloves really makes the beer quite yummy.
• Typically served in a bottle so that it can be highly carbonated. (which I think helps with the freshness quality)

4) 1809 Berliner Weisse

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Sour!
• He used fancy words like ‘citrusy’, but this beer really smelled terrible. We were given some red or green syrup to sweeten the experience. Though the color changed and it tasted better, I couldn’t really get over that horrible smell.
• I personally had the red syrup which was dubbed “Himbeer”.

5) Spaten Oktoberfest

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Boring
• I wish I liked this style more (given how much the host waxed lyrical), but at the end of the day, it reminded me of a Brown ale. And I really don’t like Brown ales (with the notable exception of any beer that is aged in a bourbon barrel).
• Fun fact: Only 5 companies are allowed to make an Oktoberfest beer at the festival
• Fun fact: The dark color that Americans associate with this style only occurs here. In Germany, the beer has a much lighter color. The hosts theory is that they can sell more of it to Australians (who as we all know love Fosters).

6) Uerige Sticke Dusseldorf Altbier

• Bottle (w/ resealable cap)
• 1st Impression: Amazing Flavor (pepper/spice)
• Sticke means secret which apparently means in beer terms that this beer was a special treat. I thought this beer was pretty special too. Really awesome.
• Dusseldorf is right next to Kolsch, but they have entirely different beer styles. Apparently, they don’t like each other very much either. Wouldn’t be uncommon for a person of one region to have never tried the beer of the other region.
• Fun fact: Up until 5 years ago, you had to actually go to Dusseldorf in order to get this beer.

7) Kostritzer Schwarzbier

• Bottle? Draft? (we saw a bottle, but not sure)
• 1st Impression: Light stout, roasted
• Schwarz means black and (surprise, surprise) the beer is very dark/black in color.  It really isn’t like a stout at all.  The black color gives that impression but that’s where all of the similarities end.  It is very light and lager-like.  Probably because it uses lager yeast.
• It was very drinkable.

Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Malty/Smoky
• At first, he cited this beer as being 7-8% ABV, but we later determined it was only 6.7%. That is funny because it tasted very alcohol-y. Or it could just be that I’ve had one too many high alcohol Belgian beers and my taste buds are biased.
• Fun fact: Bock = Goat. So lots of goat pictures/paraphenalia on the bottle.

9) Schneider Aventinus

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Bananas
• It was our second Schneider beer of the night.  So perhaps not really surprising that they both tasted like bananas.
• This is considered a “holiday” beer probably because of the 8.2% ABV.
• Delicious beer.  Would have been good to end the class with this one, but I wasn’t the host.

10) Schlenkerla Fastenbier

• Draft
• 1st Impression: Nose: Smoky/Bacon Flavor: Tar/Bitter
• It’s safe to say that the majority of the class didn’t like this beer.  If you’ve never had a smoky beer, this would be a rough introduction.
• I’ve had a lot of smoky beers, but the best probably has to be the Goose Island Bourbon County Stout.  This wasn’t close to that (and not because it wasn’t barrel aged in bourbon).  It really just was too bitter to be good.