Hamburger Man

"You're the guy from the hamburger train, right?" Paul Reubens as Howie Hamburger Dude, Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams

Like Adam Richman and Casey Webb before me, I set out on a culinary course to eat as many hamburgers I could during the 2018 edition of Portland's Burger Week. 49 specialty hamburgers. In the past 3 years, I've tried to tackle as many burgers as I could over this prestigious week. To my credit, I've tackled more and more as each year goes on but this year, I was in the catbird seat. I lived in Northeast Portland, worked in Southeast Portland and had the wherewithal.

Mathematically, it looks impossible. 49 burgers in 6 days. Going into the challenge, I knew I wasn't going to be able to tackle them all. Gosh darn it, I was going to try. Breakfast was not an option, as most places did not open until 11 AM or noon. That left me with perhaps 3 burgers per day. 18 was my goal. Realistic, probably not. Nonetheless, I started out strong. Last year, Home, A Bar had one of my favorite burgers from last year, the Dirty Picnic. This year was the Fat Brando, it was a great start to the week. Later that day, after work, I went with my girlfriend to Double Barrel for the Buckaroo burger. Last year, they had the Poutine burger which was good in its own right. When we went last year, it was roughly 6:30 and it was busy. Working where I do, we went from work to the bar and it was clear sailing.

Planning was everything. I was looking at the locations on a map and trying to strategize. During one such planning session with my friend, he told me he was out for a burger lunch. Our job was throwing a barbecue, warming up frozen beef patties. I was taken aback. We were in the midst of Burger Week - inventive burgers that may or may not be around, for $5 a piece. Why?! "Poor mentality," he said.

I'm not going to claim poverty. My meals were covered. Where we grew up, toaster pastries were a treat, even better if it was name-brand frosted cinnamon Pop Tarts. It was nice when cereal came in a box and not just the bag. If I were going over to my friend's house, I had to make sure that I had eaten before I got there because if I got there after his family had eaten, there's nothing available for the next 24 hours.  Both of us lived in rural Western New York. Walking downtown to pick up a slice of pizza or get something from the convenience store. They didn't eat breakfast either, so, you got while the getting was good. Getting food when it's available was imprinted in us. It was even better if it was free.

It's crazy how that shit can set your way of thinking. Whenever there was free food offered, I'd take it whether I liked it or not. Child psychologists will often attribute a higher IQ to a kid if they can display delayed gratification. They use the Stanford marshmallow test. Walter Mischel would set a marshmallow down for a kid and told them if they waited another 15 minutes, they could get another. If they ate it, they wouldn't. What if the kid came from a house where food was scarce? What if they came from a home where they couldn't trust an adult?

Portland Burger Week kind of became an obsession. I wanted to hit as many places as possible. I wanted to beat out the basement-dwelling neckbeards who had the time to go to the 7+ places per day to eat all of the burgers. While trying to finish strong, my girlfriend and I went to Nick's Coney Island to have their burger but they ran out. It was time to throw in the napkin. As I wallowed in the agony of defeat and a Coney Dog, I realized I made a valiant attempt. Next year, I thought, I could take off of work and make an earnest attempt to eat all of the burgers. Crazy talk, as I dipped my toe into the unhealthy thoughts of gluttony. 

Burger Week was fun. I enjoyed most of the burgers that I had. I enjoyed the camaraderie of my coworkers when we went to lunch. The evenings I spent with my girlfriend was great, we spent time talking about the food and the experience.
I'm ready for Burger Week 2019.

Haze Craze

As I packaged a few beers to send to friends, I began to wonder, maybe the hazy IPA craze is over? It has been a few months since I put beer in the belly and concocted prose. After four solid years, I wondered if I had anything left to give but after dozens and dozens of New England style India Pale Ales, I had something - is this haze craze over?

Last year to the day, I talked about this new style of beer. Growing up in the Northeast, we did not have New England style IPAs. The difference was between East Coast IPAs and West Coast IPAs. Eastern IPA tended to have a sweeter, more floral presentation where the Western IPAs seemed to go for higher IBUs (International Bitterness Units). The higher the IBU the more bitter the beer was. All About Beer had a good write up regarding the new genre. This style goes back to John Kimmich, a Vermont brewer at Alchemist and Greg Noonan at Vermont Pub but this type of beer was secluded to the Green Mountain state. While living in Boston, the closest I got was the unfiltered hefeweizen from Harpoon, which isn't anything like today's offerings from the top right corner of the country.

Portland, Oregon - not Portland, Maine has had the best offerings of New England IPAs. 2017 belonged to Fort George, of Astoria, Oregon, Great Notion, of Portland and Reubens, of Seattle, WA when they brewed 3 Way IPA. My girlfriend and I were enjoying these on a regular basis, but one day at one of our favorite haunts, the bartender told us that this is only a seasonal release. At that point, we started buying 3 Way by the case. I felt like I had to share this goodness with my friends back home. In the summer of 2017, my girlfriend and I made the annual voyage home and a couple of breweries we visited were just getting launching into the haze craze. Nothing really added up to Great Notion. To this day, Great Notion remains the brewery of note for hazy IPAs.

Revision brewery out of Sparks, NV came out like a boner in sweatpants in the middle of 2017. I thought that I had every juicy offering that was put out there. Then, these guys show up. They've had more than a handful of brews, but the differences were becoming more and more subtle. The last great hazy IPA I had was from a local Portland brewer, Ruse. Papyrus, folks, is a great beer.

Ding, ding. I think that might be it. Everyone has had their say and I think it's safe to say we all had a good time. Like going on vacation, sometimes it's good to be home. Do you remember a time before kale? Avocados? Acai berries? We, as humans, are pretty easily swayed by advertising and the power of persuasion. A superfood is great, it seems like you're getting more bang for your buck. In reality, we're talking about an advertising campaign based off of study commissioned by an ad agency. At this point, I'm tapped out.

What's next? I don't know. There are things that I'm just not tuned into. Here in Portland, I'm surrounded by roughly a 100 breweries (drink responsibly) and to try them all is a Herculean feat.  De Gaarde is a local beer gaining national notoriety for their Belgian-style beers. Belgians are malty beers and I think a good hybrid is what the American palate is looking for. At the end of the day, I'm no kingmaker. The Kaiser Chiefs said it best, "We are the angry mob, we read the papers every day, we like what we like, we hate what we hate, but we're also easily swayed."