Beer Review, August 2015 - Geneseo New York and Some Life Lessons

Keg-Gremlin here to discuss some more fun topics.  Currently, I am on work travel in upstate New York, specifically in the Geneseo area and I took the time to sample some local beers.  If I had more time I would have also sampled a lot of wine, which the Finger Lakes area of New York is famous for.  Plus the countryside is gorgeous up here, in more ways than one.  My work in this part of the country has also linked me up with an interesting cast of co-workers, which I will talk about later in this post.

In my travels I got to visit two breweries, and though sadly I could not try every beer, I got to try a good bunch.  Also fair warning, most of these are probably hard to get in general, and I have never seen them 3 states away, so this is more of a 'if you get the chance to visit' sort of post.  So without beating around the bush, here are the reviews.

Brewers:

CB Craft Brewers (http://www.cbcraftbrewers.com/):
These guys started out as a contract brewery and branched out after.  While I was there, I tried both their beers and some of the ones they made on contract.  In general CB offered a lot of high percentage beers, especially on the IPA front.  IPAs are their flagship in general.  My two favorites IPAs were their Silverback Double IPA and their contract GC "Fat 20" brand IPA.  Their current list is found at here, but sadly I do not remember the name of the GC brand IPA.  Of the ones listed it was my preferred.  My other favorites were their Scotch style ales including CB's MacBubba and the contract Roger's Hound Dog.  The last one was by far my favorite drink on tap.  One of my coworkers was along for this ride as well and recommended the Three Head "The Kind", another IPA.  He is primarily an IPA drinker, so I would take that as a good recommendation.  Overall a good spot with a nice bar and reasonably priced tasting.  I would heavily recommend it.

VB Brewery (http://thevbbrewery.com/):
I know, what are the odds we would go to CB and VB?  Well anyway, this was our second stop and the tasting was little less comprehensive than the first.  Sadly they were out of my first choice, which was a Belgian style ale.  This brewery was also very heavily bent towards IPAs, with a full 1/2 of their choices being IPAs.  Here is their current beer selections.  My coworker concentrated on the IPAs, and found them not to be up to the level of the prior brewery, but this may be due to drinking too many bitter pours.  We both agreed that their #6 Petite IPA was one of the better IPAs we've had.  However, I found that #7 their Black Magic IPA was probably a head better.  I also tried their number's 8 and 10.  8 was decent, but 10 was disappointing.  At both breweries I tried a brown ale, and was not very impressed.  Typically I find that type excellent, but not these.

Both are in nice spots, in or near very nice small towns.  IPAs and Scotch ales seem the way to go.  If I had more samples I would have added the Altbier at the first place and the #11 at the second place (which was the not available of course when I was there!).  However, I feel there is a little too much focus on IPAs in general between the two.

Life Lessons:

My coworkers on this job are a true cast of characters.  One of them was discussing money with me, specifically how much he had made on some past jobs.  It was mind boggling, he was throwing out that as his bonus on some jobs he was making as much as some people make in a year.  Don't get me wrong, he is good at his job.  However, it appears he is very strongly fitted to that work hard - spend hard hedonistic treadmill.  Yet, he still complained about work and travel a lot. 

He has been working for a long time, I get the complaining, but he also makes a pretty great paycheck.  Perhaps he loves his job, but then why is he complaining?  Truth is he probably could solve a lot of his problems through DG-investing (or similar) and living a more frugal existence.  Frugality does not make life any less enjoyable.  No more dragging your progressively aging and aching body to a job that you may not care to do.  Considering his salary, he could have quit years ago with cash and time to spare and spend as he deemed fit.  Instead he is worried about the things at home he is missing and the fish he sadly is not catching.

For these reasons, I pushed myself even harder being here to save a few bucks and make some new investments.  This gladly brings me to the conclusion that I have opened a position in Hershey (HSY).  It is a small Loyal3 slot, but I hope to really expand it over the next few months and I plan to add Walmart (WMT) soon too!

I hope everyone is safe and having a great August.
- Gremlin
- Long HSY