End of the Year Section Party

May 1, 2015 by Taco

So, even though exams are still looming, most of the “End of the Year” stuff has already happened. Be it for journals, SPOs, individual classes, or most prominently the section – everyone is wrapping up. I think its kind of ironic that most of this comes before exams (which for the majority of classes are all that really matter), but I suppose it helps to lift people’s spirits in the face of the coming storm.

My section was no exception, this past Friday (4/24 – the last day of 1L classes) we had our section party. But before I get to that, I’ll discuss exactly what a section is. I’ve alluded to my section many times in the past, and even mentioned them as far back as Law School 101, but I’ve never really fleshed the idea out.

So what exactly is a law school section? Well, to be more correct, we need to ask what exactly is a 1L law school section, as no other year has sections. The idea of a 1L section can be traced back to none other than Harvard Law (the same can be said for the entire modern system of legal education). At its core, a section is a variably sized group of newly minted law students who are thrown together for what is undoubtedly the scariest year of law school. The size of a section varies by quite a bit. Some schools have about 60 people per section, others have as high as 120 per section. Here at Harvard we have 80 students per section and it tends to pretty rigidly stay at 80 students, whereas other schools adjust from year to year. In fact, Harvard seems to have designed its entire physical infrastructure around that 80 person number, so if they ever did want to change it they’d have some issues. The number of sections is also variable, some schools have as few as 2, others have as many as 7 (Harvard – I’m not sure if that is the highest or not). So as you can see, there are lots of variables as to how big a section is and how many of them there are.

What doesn’t change is the basic idea behind a 1L section. A section takes either all, or almost all of their 1L classes together (depends on the school). The section is also graded against one another (e.g. in my 80 person section all 80 people are in direct competition with each other for a limited number of grades). And, again, depending on the school, the types of classes each 1L section takes are the same (again, this can be traced back to Harvard). The “core” 1L curriculum that sections must endure is generally: Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Property, Torts, Contracts, Constitutional Law*, and Legal Research and Writing (Which is split into 2 groups of 40 per section).

[*At Harvard 1L Constitutional Law has been replaced by Legislation and Regulation, while Constitutional Law has been moved to be an upper level (2L & 3L) course offered as two classes focusing on either the 1st or 14th Amendments]

Also at Harvard 1Ls are required to take an international elective, mine is “International Law & Human Rights” and these international electives combine sections and are the first class a HLS 1L has that isn’t confined to their section. As Harvard is pretty much the originator of the modern law school curriculum, most schools mimic that course setup pretty closely, though they often take less credits – as, to be frank – their schools are easier.

At Harvard (not sure about other schools) each section is also given a Section Professor – who commonly comes to be known as a Section Mom or Section Dad. Basically this professor helps coordinate events for the section, holds special office hours just for that section, generally shepherds them through 1L, and also teaches them in one of the “core” classes mentioned above. The Section Professor is actually a pretty cool idea, it helps “soften” the introduction to HLS, which is a school known for being anything but warm and welcoming. The section professor, if good (mine was), also brings the entire section closer together.

So, while that is all well and good, the real takeaway point is that a section experiences 1L together and is graded against itself. This is paradoxical. One one hand the law school goes out of their way to make sections feel like a fun and comfortable group, giving us section funds, building orientation around the section, etc. But at the end of the day, these are the people you are competing against. Further, because 80 people really isn’t that big of a group, things get a bit too much like high school for my liking. So, like high school, you get clicks within the section, romances within the section, feuds within the section, and oh-god-so-much-gossip-it-burns within the section. Nevermind the fact that these are Harvard Law students, they are still human, and most of them are competitive type A personalities. The result is a social environment that tries very hard to be inclusive, but just beneath the surface there is a palpable tension.

That being said, your section is your section, and only you are allowed to hate/love them. Your section may not be perfect, but they are yours. And you walk through the fire together, even if you’re planning on stabbing them in the back once you get to your destination.

So, when the end of 1L rolls around, you kind of feel like you should celebrate with these people – even if they aren’t your most favorite people in the world. Despite my extraordinarily anti-social attitude, I joined in some of the festivities.

The celebrating actually started last Wednesday (4/22), at the end of Legislation and Regulation. While this wasn’t our last class, it was the end of the last class as a section. Never again would we all be together in a classroom. Turns out, it wasn’t even all of us, some people skipped class, or left before the toast. And toast we did.

The section brought in champagne (and sparkling cider – since somehow there are freaking infants in law school who are not yet 21 – those people must have sad lives) and we toasted our year together. It was my kind of celebration because it was very short and I was in the room anyways. However, our real celebration wasn’t until Friday.

It was divided into two parts, the first part was at our Section Mom’s house, then the “after party” was at the Hong Kong Restaurant, which NO ONE calls anything other than just “The Kong” and which is known for massive amounts of drunk Harvard student revelry and stupidity (especially from the feared/admired “Scorpion Bowl“). My section actually rented out the entire upper floor of the restaurant. I really, really considered not going to either of the events, but eventually broke down and went to the party at our Section Mom’s – but knew from the get-go that the Kong wasn’t happening.

The thing was, our Section Mom’s house was far away, and most of the bus lines didn’t do me too many favors. Plus, I needed to run by Staples and pick up a poster that our section was having printed for another professor (which was out of the way from the best path to the party). So, I set off on what would become a tour de force around Cambridge. As I mentioned before, at the end of the day I had logged about 11 miles of walking.

The adventure started off on a sour note, despite saying the print would be done “within an hour” Staples said it wouldn’t be ready until the next day (meaning that it would be too late for everyone to sign it) and also that their printer was broke (it ended up not being ready until the following Wednesday, so they lied twice). That meant I had gone a sizable distance out of my way for nothing – fun times. So I headed off, the only upside to my detour was that I got to go walk down along the Charles River, which was nice and pretty. After a lot of walking, I found my way to our professor’s house, which was located in a very nice area of Cambridge (quite near Tory Row actually).

A nice distant view of Longfellow House.

Upon arriving I realized that the party was actually being catered, complete with fancy appetizers, drinks (but not beer, just wine, WTF), a full course meal, and desert.

As you can see from the photos above (taken before the vast majority of people showed up – I arrived pretty much exactly at 4:30) most of the event was outside. That was fine at first, but as the afternoon turned into evening and the sun went behind the clouds it actually ended up really chilly. Fortunately I had worn a sweater and I kept my jacket on, so I wasn’t nearly as miserable as some of my more fashion-oriented classmates. The upside was that the pool-house was heated, as was the pool (though our professor expressly said no swimming, sadly) so a lot of people just hung out in there once it started to get cold.

After snacking on some appetizers and having a few drinks (sparkling water for me, since this was a “Too-Cool-For-Beer” party) it was time for actual dinner. I’m not sure who the party was being catered by (all the people where just in traditional black catering garb) but the dinner was really good. There was this one kind of cheese.. bake.. thing that was super good and gone almost instantly. Luckily I was the 5th or 6th person in line so I got a bit of everything. Dinner was back outside, and by this point the wind was starting to pick up, but the food was nice and warm.

After dinner we presented our Section Mom with our “gift” to her, which was a 500$ donation to the Marshall Project and 210$ to the Boston Ballet (she loves ballet), both of which were in her name. After that, we went back inside and mooshed into one room where our Section Mom and a couple of section alumni performed some live music for us.

She started off by saying “This is proof that I am not perfect” and then she of course proceeded to play the piano perfectly. The songs were actually really funny, they were based on our experiences through the past year and likely would largely make no sense except to someone who was on the backside of my section’s 1L experience. After our serenade, it was time for dessert, which was of course back outside.

Like with dinner, I was quick to the front of the line, and boy did they have some yummy options!

I ended up going with a Vanilla-Bean-Raspberry cake and a small fruit tart. Though fruit-and-yogurt tarts, a chocolate cake, cookies, brownies, berry bars, and some lemon cream tart were also available. It goes without saying, the dessert was pretty awesome.

What wasn’t awesome is that it was now just downright cold. Apparently when they did this party last year it was about 15 degrees warmer, with sun. It wasn’t too bad until the wind decided to show up to the party as well. By this point it was getting close to 6:30 (official end of the party) so a lot of people started packing up and heading off to the after-party. I had brief conversation with my professor before I left, and she gave me a hug (as she did to everyone else – I’m not that special). It was kind of nice to see the “human” side of the “professor” – If you’ve ever been in college this will make all sorts of sense to you.

As I already alluded to, I wasn’t about to go to the Kong after-party. It just wasn’t my thing, plus it was SB and I’s Friday night and we had plans to meetup at new restaurant. So I was off on the next segment of my long walk for the day. The good news is that I was able to see a new area of Cambridge, including this awesome fat bunny statute.

So, while I won’t ever really be gathered with my section again in a classroom setting, I’m sure we will stay at least reasonably close in the next couple of years. We do have a Facebook page after all, which counts for like 75% of social interaction these days. In the end I’m glad I decided to go to the party, which isn’t a sentence I say very often.

For now, its time to start dealing with exams.

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – Speaking of exams, it looks like the firms are starting to reach out. This firm, Jenner & Block, is from Chicago and sent me a lot of Chicago-themed goodies.

1L is (Almost) Over

April 27, 2015 by Taco

So I’ve now had my last 1L class. As of 11:50am (EST) on Friday, April 24th, 2015 – I have finished all my class meetings.

[Also worth noting, there were snow flurries in the morning, yes, on April 24th]

Of course in law school this sadly doesn’t mean a whole lot. When your entire grade comes down to an exam, the exam period actually ends up mattering more than all those classes you crawled out of bed and went out into a blizzard (literally) for.

But, I can’t complain about all my classes. For you see, LRW is finally done.

Now that its out of the way, I’ll explain how the grade breaks down and how my oral argument turned out.

The written Brief is 85% of your LRW grade. The oral argument is 15%. Since you “share” a grade with your partner, it basically looks like this for the oral argument portion:

10% is your argument score. Each judge gives each person on the team a grade of 0 – 10. So 3 scores per person, 6 per team. These six scores are then averaged into one score, which is how much of a % out of the 10% each member gets. So if one person rocks it out of the park and gets 10-10-10, but their partner, I dunno, dies and gets 0-0-0 the final score would be 5% for the argument points. Then, there is the extra 5% reserved for whoever wins. So you could argue really really well, but if you lose, you’re automatically docked 5%. The problem in this system, which I suppose mimics the real system, is that “quality” of counsel and judges will vary wildly. One team’s 9/10 winning argument, might be another teams 5/10 losing argument, all depending on the judge.

Oh, and by the way, these are real judges. Yes, actual bona fide judges.

I was on the side of the Appellee (Defendant) which means that we speak after the Appellant’s (Plaintiff) side speaks. The downside is that they get a chance for rebuttal at the very end. Within my team, I was the first speaker, which is the most difficult because the judges pretty much come out of the gate trying to destroy you. Generally speaking, in real courts, the first oralist is the most experienced and skilled attorney, I was neither, but I was first.

Interestingly enough, in the beginning of our argument the opposing counsel waived their rebuttal time, which meant that they had five extra minutes to argue, but no chance to respond to us. I thought it was an interesting tactic. The first person on the other side got hammered pretty hard, but then the second person went rockstar. By the time it was turned over to me and I got my introduction:

“May it please the court, my name is Taco and I, along with my co-counsel Mr. Partner represent the Appellee Mr. Bojangles. I will be arguing the contractual dissafirmance issue and Mr. Partner will be arguing the employee compensation issue. I ask to reserve thirteen minutes for myself and twelve minutes for my co-counsel.”

..I was pretty much already getting interrupted by the judges. The “Chief” Judge was especially hard on me, and I had a really hard time getting them to let me lay out my argument, but eventually I did. My partner then was able to do his spiel, though he got questioned a little less aggressively than anyone else had, I think by that point the judges might have been getting bored or something. Anyway, long story made short, we ended up winning the argument (Yay!) by a little less than 2 points and I actually won the most points overall. I still don’t know what my final grade is, but at least I know we got the extra 5% added onto our score.

The fun thing, this entire semester (Brief and Oral Argument) we were trying to prevent a little girl who got her fingers chopped off from getting any money from a big corporation, we shut her down like a little biotch. Being a sociopath is awesome. (The case isn’t real, before you flip shit)

While the Brief had been handed in and the oral argument completed, I still had one more class of LRW. It was largely a blow-off class, and they (The LRW teaching people) did have a party for us at Tasty Burger (which I didn’t attend because it was cold and raining and I’d rather go home and eat not-greasy food and drink better beer), but it was still a class that needed to be sat through. And so I did. Which means that LRW no longer exists to me. I am now completely, totally, done with 1 out of my 5 classes. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find ways to complain about LRW retroactively.

So that leaves one paper and three exams. Then 1L is over. The Harvard Law Review competition begins right afterwards, but I’m not even sure if I am going to do that. The bad news is, its going to take all the flipping way until May 14th before I’m done with exams. Oi.

But for now, I will bask in the warm glow of being done with 1L classes and also the sun (I’ll pretend it didn’t snow a little bit earlier – made easier by the fact I was still asleep when it did flurry).

So, aside from finishing up classes what have I been up too? Well, quite a bit, as usual. I was kept pretty busy finishing up SPO and Journal stuff, in addition to a bunch of other miscellaneous things. Such as meeting more guests at the law school.

That is a bad photo of David Kirby, author of Death at Seaworld which at least partially inspired the Blackfish documentary. It was one of the more interesting presentations I’ve seen thus far. I actually really enjoyed his perspective, which was very non-emotional and lacked the extremism of most animal-rights people. If you need anymore convincing that Seaworld is a horrible place for both the creatures and their human caretakers, then this is the guy to talk to.

That is another bad photo, this time of the former president of Finland, Tarja Halonen. Her talk was about gender equality and to a lesser extent environmentalism. Finland has done quite well when it comes to narrowing the gender gap, far far more so than the United States. I was really expecting a fire-harpy feminist, but she actually turned out to be really moderate and acknowledged that men and women are different and always will be different, but that doesn’t mean that society can’t allow them equal access to things. Since she was President of Finland for 12 years (2000 – 2012), I’m guessing she did something right.

I’ve also been spending more time outside of the law school (literally). For starters, things have been getting warmer (even if slowly) and thus I’ve been out and about more. Its such a nice time of year, when it isn’t reverting to cold and raining that is.

Photo taken from the commuter rail as SB and I headed to Lowell, MA – more on that in a moment

And even with those minor “cold day” set backs, Spring seems to be fighting the good fight and slowly creeping back into the barren wasteland that Boston had become.

The squirrels have been out playing behind our apartment as well! (Not to mention the billions near the law school)

The fellow below was quite angry and “barking” at something that only he could see.

Divest Harvard (an organization whose purpose is to get Harvard to divest from fossil fuels) also took note of the warmer weather and actually staged a week-long protest at various locations around Harvard. The primary location was Massachusetts Hall, which houses the University President (Drew Faust).

They’ve protested at several points in the past, but I think this was the most sustained event. They camped out 24/7, which is why the group seems so small in the photo above. During larger events as many as 150 people were involved, including various faculty members. Divest’s goal has garnered majority support within the student body (though the administration refuses to divest), and even a lot of faculty and alumni (including big ones such as Natalie Portman) have openly backed the project. I wasn’t actively involved in any of the protests, though I did attend their teach-ins.

In a more tasty spirit of the warmer weather, Ben & Jerry’s celebrated their annual Free Cone Day on Tuesday, April 14th. SB and I actually met up after my late class to try to attend, she had been wanting to try their new flavor – The Tonight Dough Staring Jimmy Fallon, and you can’t beat free. However, when I first got down to Ben & Jerry’s I noticed this:

Yeap, that is a line outside of the building and up the street. Its also worth noting that that door doesn’t lead straight into Ben & Jerry’s, Ben & Jerry’s is actually on the other side of the building. So yeah, I decided I wasn’t waiting around and by the time SB arrived we headed off to different pastures. Thanks to our handy-dandy smartphones (not iPhones) we found out that a J.P. Licks was also nearby.

So, rather than wait in line for 45 minutes we decided to pay and wait in a line for 5 minutes. J.P. Licks was a little busy, but actually less than I was expecting. I think a lot of people were doing exactly what we did – head for Ben & Jerry’s –> see the line –> feck that –> J.P. Licks.

Its been long enough now that I don’t really remember exactly what SB got, though I’m fairly sure I got the Oatmeal Cookie Frozen Yogurt. Whatever they were, they were really good and satisfied our desire for ice cream without the 45 minute wait. We ended up walking up to the Yard and enjoying our treats.

Afterwards, it was back home for some amazing bratwursts and beer!

If you are wondering why all the celebrating (between the ice cream, the bratwurst, and the beer) it was because I had just finished my last major pre-exam assignment. In fact I had came off of two straight, very long days which included my oral argument and another presentation in my Rhetoric course. In fact, that was what I was saving the 120 Minute IPA for (talked about extensively here). I kind of figured that since Dogfish Head made such good beers, they surely made good bratwurst, well, at no surprise to anyone, the bratwursts were awesome. These weren’t just any bratwurst, nor were just Dogfish Head bratwursts, these were Greek Feta bratwurst. Which contained feta cheese, mint, spinach, cumin, lemon and a dose of Midas Touch. If you are worried about the mint, shhh.

It was an awesome dinner, even if SB didn’t help me with the 120 as much as I hoped she would and I ended up buzzed (yes from one beer).

Another pretty cool thing that happened is that my Aunt, who I should probably name at this point – we’ll call her “Aunt Train” since I have to take a train to see her, moved to nearby(ish) Lowell, MA. She actually works in Boston but commutes in via rail (see this train thing works). Anyways, SB and I had told her we would help her move in. Well, not technically move in, as she was smart and didn’t do what we did, but rather help her un-box stuff and move it around once it was already in the apartment.

So we set off on our first ever commuter rail trip, on what was probably one of the nicest days of the year so far. The commuter rail portion is about 43 minutes (according to the MBTA) but we also have to get to the commuter rail station in the first place, so its a decent little jaunt up to Lowell, and then from there just a short drive (or moderate walk) to Aunt Train’s place. And boy what a place it was!

The apartment itself was quite large, but the best feature (aside from the fact that there was an in-unit washer and dryer, which on the East Coast basically means a “luxury” unit) was the huge windows! They let in so much light, it was amazing. As was what was just outside.

Yep, the loft was right on a canal, so with the windows open you could hear running water! It was such a cool place, all the apartments in that area where made from old converted factories. I love reusing space rather than tearing stuff down. I think SB and I might have got a little bit of a loft fever.

Intermittent drinks were mixed in throughout the day – ok perhaps not super intermittent – but I had Landshark for the first time in years!

After a long day of helping unbox and put things away we headed out to get some dinner. We ended up walking to a nearby pub for dinner (On the way I got hit on by some Drag Queens – Neither SB or Aunt Train received any such attention, so +1 points to team Taco). We went to the Old Court Irish Pub, which, much to Aunt Train’s dismay, had no Harp. I went with some Guinness and steak tips, it was a yummy dinner after a busy day!

Afterwards we headed back and unpacked a bit more of the kitchen before watching a movie called The Hundred-Foot Journey, which I had never heard of, but actually turned out to be pretty good and is worth watching (though prepare to get hungry, meh gehd). After that it was off to sleepy-time (Aunt Train let us sleep on her ultra-fancy Serta memory-foam mattress). The next morning we had a nice breakfast (with Kahlua in the coffee), did an itsy bit of unpacking and moving stuff, and before we knew it was was time for us to catch the train back home.

That isn’t the commuter rail, its the subway, but its a train so it conveys the voyage back to our apartment just fine.

Keeping up with the “Spring” theme, I also tried out a new-to-me shandy, by none other than Narragansett.

1. Narragansett Del’s Shandy – Narragansett Brewing Co.

Narragansett has thus far, been a pretty middle of the road beer for me. Though, as Meem discovered, Dr. Seuss designed some stuff for them, which gets them bonus points. Anyways, SB and I are big shandy fans, so I was happy to try a new one. Narragansett’s shandy is made with “Del’s Lemonade” which has a storied history and is hugely popular in these parts (especially Rhode Island, home of Narragansett). So, I wasn’t sure if this was just a marketing thing, or if it would actually be good. Turns out, it wasn’t half bad. It was the least sweet pre-made shandy I think I’ve ever had, which isn’t a bad thing as I think it actually increased the drinkability. Apparently they changed the recipe this year in response to people saying it used to be way too sweet. So some people think they overcompensated and made it not sweet enough. I disagree, for me a shandy is less about the sweet and more about the citrus-bite that accompanies it. I’d say this compares nicely to Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy (which is also a good shandy). If you happen to see this, and I doubt you will unless you are out in these parts, its worth a try and its also not too expensive.

Returning to the law school, things haven’t been all business. April 20th was “Patriot’s Day” here in Boston, which celebrates the Battles of Lexington and Concord (Which, as an FYI is pronounced “Konkerd” – not “Kon-cord”). Pretty much every school in the Boston area either gets the 20th off, or the 20th and 21st, or the whole week. Pretty much every school that is except Harvard. As a way of atoning for the fact that while we were in classes, other schools such as MIT were able to go watch the Boston Marathon (which is run on Patriot’s Day), HLS provided us with some Boston-themed treats and a live stream of the marathon (to remind us that we weren’t there).

Food included Boston Clam Chowder (Duh), Hotdogs, some fried thing that was consumed before I got a good look at it (I had a SPO meeting), Toll House chocolate chip cookies (Click the name and learn something), Iced Tea, lemonade, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting. Since my SPO fed me lunch from Al’s Cafe I didn’t end up eating any of the Patriot’s Day stuff, though I did drink like 5 classes of iced tea. So while not having classes would have been better, this was a nice gesture. The only downside is that this was also the last day of the second “Admitted Students Weekend” so there were a bunch of outsiders taking up my space.

The law school also celebrated Earth Day, with a small outdoor sustainability festival.

They had some games, some free stuff, and some free food (I tried out some Strawberry-Kiwi “Spa Water”). Even b.Good was on campus offering up free smoothies.

Sadly, I had a meeting and by the time I got out there they were packing up so I didn’t’ get to spin their prize wheel or get a free smoothie. First world problems.

Speaking of problems, I’m actually procrastinating on a paper for my Rhetoric course as I write this post. Though to be fair I’ve been writing this post on-and-off for the past four days. My Rhetoric class ended on a high note though, first off they fed us.

It was from the Milk Street Cafe, and was very tasty. But more importantly, one of the presentations my classmate gave was about how to do origami, and we ended up making frogs that can hop!

I named mine “Frogulous Caesar” and he now lives in various places around the apartment, including the occasional perch on Little Friend (seen above). So if you want to learn origami, just pay 60,000$ for a year of Harvard Law School tuition and you can make a paper frog too!

Since all my classes were wrapping up it also meant that it was about time for my 1L Section to part ways. So we decided to have an end-of the year party. I’ll talk about that in an upcoming post, but what I need to share is that it ultimately involved me walking about 11 miles in one day to get to all the places I needed to be. I ended up up in Porter Square to meet SB for our Friday night dinner. It was a “Free Ride” day for the MBTA (an “apology” for how much they sucked this winter) but I ended up walking all the way there.

SB had decided on a place called Christopher’s which was conveniently located very close to the subway station. SB got there just a little bit before me, and after a short wait we were able to get a table.

I actually wasn’t that hungry since I had just ate dinner at my section party (including dessert) so I went with a caesar salad while SB went with their TOAD Burgah’ (all natural beef burger with melted cheddar, pickles, crispy onions, chopped lettuce & special TOAD sauce, on an onion roll – the TOAD sauce was a mix of BBQ, chipotle, and mayonnaise I think – it was pretty good).

More important than the food though, where the two beers we had. SB went with an Allagash White (one of her new standbys) while I tried something new.

2. Jack D’Or (Saison) – Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project

In addition to being something I hadn’t had before, I thought the name of the brewery was kind of cool – and its based right in Somerville! Plus, I am still exploring and trying to figure out what a saison actually is. It was a really good beer! The Jack D’Or I mean, I have no idea about saisons in general. This was a very balanced, yet complex beer. Probably one of the better “on-a-whim” beers I’ve had in a bit. Lots of malts where used in this beer, and its not hard to tell them apart, which is something that is tricky to accomplish as a brewer. I’ll definitely look for more Pretty Things brews in the future (they are only about a five year old brewery).

On the whole, Christopher’s was just “ok” to me. It was a little pricey, it was really loud inside, and its a bit out of the way for us. That said, after a long day (and a longer walk) I wasn’t feeling the best, and I had already eaten, so the cards were kind of stacked against the place. I’d try it again, but the loudness was a bit of a turn-off.

They do get bonus points for having Grey Poupon though (which gave me wicked heartburn, but I digress).

We took the subway back down to Harvard Square (I was done with the long walks for the day, thank you very much – plus it was free). Neither of us had been to the Porter Square stop before.

It had a big, weird windmill-statute-art-installation-thing next to it. But what was more interesting was just how deep the station was.

That is one of three stairways to get down. The first one isn’t that long, and the third one is fairly short, but the middle one, holy crap. I ran down the stairs and made myself dizzy and nauseous. Another interesting thing about the station was that they had little glove “statues” all over the place.

It’s apparently an art installation called “Glove Cycle” and the history behind it was a little more interesting than I figured it would be. It was actually part of the larger “Arts on the Line” project the MBTA did.

On our way home we walked through Harvard Yard, and there was another sort of public art installation going on (from artist Krzysztof Wodiczko).

People were being projected onto the John Harvard statute, and were telling various stories. We didn’t hang around for long, but most of the stories seemed to have themes ranging from hope and fear to questions of identity and feelings of vulnerability. It was kind of cool, but kind of eerie at the same time – especially the faces which basically looked like they were replacing the face on the statute, and were talking. I think it was part of the Yard Fest, which had ended earlier that evening.

After we got home, we pretty much just chilled for the rest of the evening, which has actually been the theme of this entire weekend (since exams start next week). Fortunately some Stump Town coffee (which we first had in Seattle) was on sale at Whole Foods yesterday, so we shared a bottle of that to get us energized enough to procrastinate 😛

Anyways, I am going to go ahead and wrap this post up. It feels kind of weird that I worked on it over the course of several days. Plus, I really should try to at least work on that paper, or move on to another form of procrastination, or something. I’m also currently waitlisted for one of the classes I really wanted to get into next semster, but they decreased the class size by 50 freaking people and messed my plan up, so I tend to check the waitlist page a lot to see if I’ve moved up the list at all. So that gives me something else to waste time on as well! 🙂

Until next time,
-Taco

A nice Spring-time photo from the fifth floor of Wasserstein Hall.

Dogfish Head – IPAs

April 22, 2015 by Taco

The time has come. The deed is done. The journey has come to an end.

The 120 Minute IPA awaiting its destiny.

I’ve now had every member of the main Dogfish Head IPA (India Pale Ale) family.

I’ve been alluding to this post for some time now, and I’m happy to report that I can finally write it. Yes, as of last Tuesday (4/14/15) I have had all of these amazing beers.

Boy, what an adventure it has been. Its involved everything from the single most expensive beer I’ve ever had, to last-minute solo voyages down into Boston just to find a beer.

I’ve mentioned some of this elsewhere, but since this is a celebratory post, let me give these amazing brews a bit more of a back story. All of these are from esteemed the esteemed Dogfish Head brewery. Dogfish was founded in 1995 by a one Sam Calagione (a friend of Jim Koch) in Milton, Delware. Sam is well respected in the brewing industry, and Dogfish is known for is eclectic and quirky approaches to beer that almost always end up being delicious. Their flagship line is their IPA family. Most people list these as the 60 Minute, 90 Minute, and 120 Minute IPAs. However, as I learned, the full family includes 60, 61 (Sixty-One), 75, 90, and 120 varieties. (Its worth noting that the 90 Minute IPA has been referred to as “possibly the best IPA in America.”) Now that I’ve had them all, I can comment on each of them, and the “family” on the whole.

Without further ado:

1. Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA [6% ABV]

2. Dogfish Head Sixty-One (61) IPA [6.50% ABV]

3. Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA [7.50% ABV]

4. Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA [9% ABV]

5. Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA [15-20% ABV]

As Tristen would say, “Rexy.”

I’m going to be a little bit more hostile than normal here, and start off by saying that if you think you don’t like IPAs then you’ve probably had bad IPAs. There are IPAs, then there are IPAs. These are most definitely IPAs. I try not to be too massive of a beerfag, but this is one place where I firmly put my foot down and say that you have to try these beers, all of them, before you can say you definitively dislike IPAs. If you try all these IPAs and hate them all, then I would never again question your IPA taste. I am a reformed IPA lover. Many years ago my first IPA was the Dragonfly IPA from Upland Brewing Company. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. Many years later I had it again and it wasn’t half bad. That said, the Dogfish Head IPAs make it look like Pißwasser.

These are, hands down, the best IPAs I have ever had.

However, there can only be one, and so even within this powerhouse family of IPAs I took myself to town trying to figure out which one I liked best. Based on all my posts leading up to this point, the result might surprise you.

As a recap, I covered the 60 Minute IPA here and the 90 Minute IPA here. The 61, 75, and 120 are all fresh. But I’ll be revisiting the 60 and 90 in light of my completion of the family.

Taco’s Dogfish Head IPA Opinions:

60 Minute IPA – Lots of fresh hop oil flavor, very juicy with citric and bitter herbal tones. Solid maltiness holds up to the hops well with a dough toasted grain mix. Touch of nutty yeast with a slight warmth from estery alcohol. Finish semi-dry with a long lingering bitter finish from the hops. An ideal IPA, very drinkable and very flavorful. By far the most drinkable of the Dogfish Head IPA offerings. This might be why its the only one of the bunch to be offered in a six-pack. You can definitely tell that the 60 forms the “base” upon which the Dogfish Head IPA pyramid is built.

Sixty-One (61) IPA – This one is named slightly different as a way of differentiating it from its brethren. Sixty-One is actually the 60 Minute, just brewed with Syrah Grape Must, which increases is alcohol content slightly and gives it a fruity grape flavor. It tastes like its smells, a fruity, sweet, and earthy hop forward taste with big notes of Syrah grapes. Citrus hops with juicy notes. Grassy and floral hop notes. Big taste of grapes intermingled with the hops. Bready malt with sweet notes of caramel, grains, biscuit, and yeast. Very juicy with a laid back bitterness. A very interesting and good taste.

75 Minute IPA – This is a combination IPA. It takes the 60 Minute IPA and the 90 Minute IPA and mixes them together during the brew processes, then adds maple syrup to the mix. Like the aroma hints at, it has a a zesty, fruity, and fairly earthy IPA taste with a nice kick of sweet syrup. Mix of hops upfront with earthy notes of grass and spicy pine. Juicy citrus hop presence with notes of orange rind, lemon zest, pineapple, grapefruit, mango, and some apricot. Sweet and toasty malt presence with notes of caramel, toffee, yeast, biscuit, and toast. Sweet notes of the added maple syrup come through as well. A big and nicely balanced taste. Aside from draft its only offered in a 1 Pint, 9.4 fl oz. bottle (firkin).

Almost as interesting is the beer itself is its label. Originally this beer was called “Johnny Cask – 75 Minute IPA” and it featured a drawing of Johnny Cash tapping the keg. Well, despite Dogfish Head’s offer to pay, Cash’s estate didn’t like that too much. So, Dogfish Head changed the name to 75 Minute IPA, but as a good-natured middle-finger to Cash’s estate and also just to be funny, they kept the image exactly the same except they drew a Groucho Marx getup on Cash’s face.

And here is a close-up of the 75 Minute IPA as it currently exists:

In many ways this makes me love them even more.

90 Minute IPA – This beer is very “juicy”, with a big a hop punch. There is lots of bitterness and a ton of hop oil flavor from front to back. Very smooth with a thick malty body. Nice cake like maltiness in the middle with a ripe fruit and alcoholic kick in the end, finishes a little sweet with lingering bitter hop tones. Smooth upfront, big and chewy in the mouthfeel with a creamy palate. Hops are in your face with prickly, bitter, herbal, pine, citrus rind, salt, slick viscid hop oils, raw leafy hops, earth, resin-like all in a complex and intense medley of characters. Malts are a bit masked by this and take a backseat for most of the drive with some bready flavors and a lot of backseat driving as far as the mouthfeel goes. Alcohol is very present, with a warming feel in the head and fumes in the breath. Light notes of toasted malts / caramel as the beer warms. Dose of yeast in a drying finish. This is the “tipping point” in the IPA family between drinkable and “BAM.”

120 Minute IPA – It really is the most complex beer I’ve ever had. An explosion of juicy, bright tropical fruits flow into your palate. Its important to take initial sips and let them rest on the tongue for a few seconds to warm up and soak in. The malt takes a back seat as you would expect, with the bitterness of the hops pushing all the right buttons. It is difficult to make a balanced IPA, but this one nails it. I don’t like my IPAs to be too bitter or resinous, but I also don’t like them to be completely floral or citrusy without any bite to back up the flavor. They really achieved greatness – it’s got the perfect bitterness, a subtle but present floral taste that could easily be missed, and the citrus and tropical flavors launching a full-on assault of the palate. The taste of the 120 Minute IPA is simply too complex to be overstated. Sold as a (very expensive) 12oz single. This is the priciest beer I have ever had the luxury of drinking. That said, you will only need one. Trust me. One 12oz bottle of this is the equivalent of 4.5 Bud Lights in alcohol content and about 50 of them in taste.

My first 120, coupled with none other than a Dogfish Head bratwurst! [Opinion Forthcoming]

So, now that I’ve shared a bit of information about each IPA, how do they compare to one another?

Well, I have to say, its really hard to compare these beers. Yes, they are all one family, and yes each of them is, at some level, like the others. I have to stress that each one of these are great beers, and compared to normal swill they stand head and shoulders above pleb-beer masses. That said, I did promise to rank them based on my first experience with each of them.

The three biggest things I considered when ranking these IPAs (since all of them were awesome anyways) were:

Drinkability (D)– How smoothly the beer goes down. In other words, can you drink multiple beers without too much burn, unwanted bitterness, or getting wasted.

Flavor (F) – The complexity of the flavor, for simplicity’s sake this includes everything: aroma, taste, texture, etc.

Uniqueness (U) – How unique the overall experience of each beer was; considering both the factors above as well as harder to quantify sensations such as the way the beer changes as you drink it.

–REMEMBER- I these three factors are between the beers being ranked, NOT against *all* beers.

I’ll assign each beer a score of 1 – 10 in each category, then I’ll average the three scores together for a final score.

60 Minute
D: 9 F: 6 U: 4
Score: 6.3

Sixty-One (61)
D: 7 F: 5 U: 6
Score: 6

75 Minute
D: 7 F: 7 U: 8
Score: 7.3

90 Minute
D: 5 F: 9 U: 5
Score: 6.3

120 Minute
D: 2 F: 8 U: 10
Score: 7

So, by that ranking we end up with:

1. 75 Minute
2. 120 Minute3. [Tie] 90 Minute
3. [Tie] 60 Minute
5. Sixty-One (61)

I have to say, when mentally mapping this out it looked a lot like that ranking. I think that overall in a single-beer to single-beer death match I have to declare the 75 Minute IPA the winner. There was just something special about that IPA, maybe it was my first beer with maple syrup, I’m not sure. I also think the fact that it blended the 60 and 90 was a strong point. The 120 Minute IPA came in second, and is undoubtedly the most unique beer of the bunch and packs a load of flavor, but its raw strength ended up hindering it just a little bit. The 60 and 90 Minute IPAs were just too close to call. The 60 is more drinkable, but as the “base” of the family its less unique and flavorful, whereas the 90 boasts more flavor and uniqueness, but looses out on drinkability. As such, its pretty simple. “More than 2” = 60, “2 Or 1” = 90. Rounding out the bunch for me was Sixty-One (61). This was a good beer, don’t get me wrong, “last place” here is better than most beers. That said, I felt like the grape musk was underutilized in the mouthfeel and as such it didn’t stand out enough from its direct-brother, the 60, to pull ahead of it. Also, the added sweetness decreased its drinkability below that of 60, so Sixty-One (61), while a good beer, doesn’t fit into the progressive scheme of the family as well as its siblings.

But seriously, all of these are beers you need to drink for yourself. It really wasn’t until I had had all of them, that I began to understand how they related to each other.

Fortunately for me, I still have one more 120 Minute left in the refrigerator. I’ll probably save it for the end of 1L, as those are not a beer that one drinks often, lest you go broke and become a raging alcoholic. In the meantime I’ll probably stick to the more affordable, and easier to find, 60s and 90s. (The Sixty-One (61) and 75 require trips all the way into Boston, sadly).

And there we go, my long-promised Dogfish Head post! I have now completed the family and can drink them recreationally instead of as a project. 🙂

Don’t think that this is the last of Dogfish Head and I though. The next challenge/project for me is none other than their Ancient Ales series, where they literally recreate beers that are thousands of years old based on chemical analyses of residues from various containers. I am, as always, quite excited to try some new (very old) beer!

Until next time,
-Taco

Mead!

April 15, 2015 by Taco

MEAD

Today’s post is going to be comparatively brief. I only want to talk about one thing. Mead.

If you are like me, then mead conjures up epic imagery of celtic/nordic/etc. warriors drinking in mead halls or engaged in glorious battle.

If you are not like me, or if you have no idea what mead is, then I’m here to help.

Mead is a very, very, very old alcoholic beverage, made by fermenting honey with water. Yep, that’s it. You mix honey and water and then let it rot. Some people claim that Mead is the oldest alcoholic beverage in existence. I’m not sure if that is true or not, but its safe to say its very old. We have evidence of beer being produced in Mesopotamia as far back as ~7,000 years ago. So in order to be older than beer (which is older than wine) mead would need to date back further than that. However, that being said, we’ve probably been eating honey since we learned what our mouths are for, and water is well, water. So I don’t find it implausible that mead is the oldest alcoholic drink, but it certainly hasn’t been proven. To argue in favor of mead as the oldest alcoholic drink, all that would have been necessary is for someone to have stumbled across a fallen beehive filled with rainwater, and then drink it. Since someone at some point decided to yank on a cows udders and drink what came out, the beehive story is quite believable to me. Though to be fair, basic beer could have been brought about in roughly the same way, same for wine (plant + rain + time = alcohol).

Anyways, mead is traditionally just honey and water, though over the years many spices, grains, hops, etc. have been added to it. But, whatever the exact formula, I can almost guarantee that if your ancestors came from pretty much anywhere with bees, your existence came about (in a very indirect way) due to a drunken night with a big mug of mead.

But get this, I’d never had it. No, despite the hundreds of beers I’ve had, I’ve never had a single drop of mead, not even when I was in Europe. It was time to change that.

My regular alcohol place, Broadway Market, didn’t seem to have mead. This made me fear that I was going to end up on another great alcohol hunt. But fortunately the Wine & Cheese Cask came through to me with an ok selection (4-5 kinds) of mead. The thing is, it was a bit expensive. Probably because its “exotic” compared to most Murkan tastes. I decided that since I didn’t even know if I would like it, that it was best to go with the smallest bottle. I ended up going with:

1. Boudica’s Uprising – Honey Grail

It was pretty awesome, I have to say. It was different, but different in a good way. As you can tell from the image above it was very pale and light. It was also CRAZILY bubbly, it easily had just as much bubbles as champagne, if not more-so. It was an interesting taste, it had a sweet and tart flavor, not dissimilar from a good cider, but there was also a bit of a very mildly beer-like tone to it in the body, though the mouth-feel was more akin to champagne or wine than beer. In other words, there was a lot going on. Its kind of interesting, the U.S. Federal Government considers “Mead” to be a wine for categorization purposes, but I think that is a pretty lazy/inaccurate label myself. I think mead is distinct enough to be its own category, though if I had to label it, I’d say it is closer to cider than anything else.

Boudica’s Uprising comes in at 7.5% ABV, which is actually on the low side for mead, which normally ranges from 8-15% ABV (Though some varieties are over 20% ABV). The other bottles I was considering were in the 10-13% range. Since honey is the base, you can get a lot of ABV variation based on the length of fermentation, which also effects the final taste of mead. Similar to wine it can be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Then if you add in other stuff like spices, etc. the flavor profile changes even further. Boudica’s is touted as a good “baseline” mead, and, not having ever had any other mead, I’ll just have to take their word for it. But I did like it, and subsequently I will definitely be seeking to expand my mead knowledge. Its just a shame there is no “Mead Advocate” for me to rely on for guidance.

In case you are wondering about the name, Boudica was a Celtic Queen who lead a massive uprising (thus the name) in 60/61 AD against Roman invaders. It was initially successful, though the rebellion was ultimately crushed at the Battle of Watling Street. Despite her ultimate defeat, Boudica was pretty much a badass, and thus it seems fitting that she have a mead named in her honor.

So, my impression of mead – very good. I look forward to trying a whole lot more.

Until next time,
-Taco

Sadly mead is not guaranteed to turn you into a Norse God. But you can always pretend.

Spring is Springing

April 13, 2015 by Taco

So here is a funny story. I’ve had a folder on my computer desktop called “Blizzard 15” for quite some time now. Pretty much ever since all the snow started in January. However, as time marched on and the snow kept on a fallin’ the name of the folder changed. Eventually it became “Blizzard – January, February, March, & April – 15.” It just didn’t seem like winter was going to give up. However, Spring is Springing, and I am hoping that the snow we had on April 8th is going to be our last for the year. *knock on wood*

Season Stats, as provided by the Boston Department of Public Works
[Boston Record Snowfall Totals]

To be fair, things haven’t really been bad for a bit now. The “Big Melt” that happened as the several feet of snow began to melt was pretty nasty, and there’s been a few snow storms since, but by and large we have been working towards happier places as far as the weather is concerned. Sure, its still been colder than normal for this time of the year, but I’m trying to be positive. Either way, I’m thinking that its probably finally safe to make my “Spring” post that I’ve been waiting for, I guess you could say its time to take out the winter trash.

Literally. I guess someone hadn’t moved their trashcans in awhile. But, for now, we’ll bid winter and its 110.6″ of snow adieu, courtesy of the man himself (with his own light dusting).

Now that we are in Spring mode, that means its Easter time! I talked a little bit about it in my last post, but didn’t post a picture of our actual Easter basket.

We tend to we re-purpose whatever basket is handy, this time one of SB’s wicker ones. The Easter Bunny brought us a thing of oatmeal cookies and cold brew coffee from Whole Foods! It was a yummy day.

Spring also means that its time to change-up the beer selection to celebrate the (slightly) warmer weather! I went with two Spring-themed brews recently.

1. The Long Thaw, White IPA – Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

2. Where The Helles Summer? – Southern Tier Brewing Company

Previously I mentioned that I wasn’t really aware of “colored” IPAs. So after having the red IPA from Aeronaut I had to try more varities. Conveniently the first one I found, a white, was also a Spring beer! The aptly titled “Long Thaw” is yet another solid offering from Harpoon, which as I’ve mentioned before, is a brewery that you just really have to try. I think the brewer’s note on this beer sums it up nicely: “Spring” in New England is a fickle friend. So we brewed a beer that could carry us through the January cold while hinting at warmer days ahead. With notes of orange peel and coriander, the soft mouthfeel of a Belgian wit, and an intense hop profile, The Long Thaw White IPA combines the warming backbone of an IPA with citrus notes indicative of the coming spring. “Spring” in New England may be indecisive, but we can help make one decision a little easier.

Next up was “Where the Helles Summer?” which was from a newcomer (to me) Southern Tier Brewery, from New York. It had been a good bit since I had had a Helles. In fact the last time I had one was probably a Hoppin’ Helles, whenever that was. In case you weren’t aware, Helles, literally translated, is German for “Light” or “Bright.” They are at their core a Pale Lager, made in response to the Pilsner. Helles are traditionally a crisp and light beer, with a relatively low ABV (4.6% in this case) to make them good warm weather beers. For my first Helles in awhile, I definitely approved of this one, plus with a name like “Where the Helles Summer?” is kind of hard not to enjoy yourself while drinking it. I’ll have to look for some more Southern Tier options in the future.

In more law-school oriented news, my oral argument for LRW is tomorrow night. I should be preparing for it but instead I’m writing this blog post. I call it “Productive Procrastination,” which is really just an excuse. I know that I alluded that I’d be bitching about LRW, but I’m going to keep it Brief (huehuehue) this time around. Basically in about 20 hours I will entirely done with the graded portion of LRW. Sure, I still have one more class on the 20th, but for all intents and purposes the class will be over tomorrow evening. I have not prepared as much as I need to. My practice oral argument last Monday went well, but the real deal is about 3x as long and it well, actually matters. So, if you’ve grown tired of me complaining about LRW, just hold out a little bit longer, and then we can both enjoy me moving on to complain about other things.

On Tuesday, I have a presentation due in my Rhetoric course, and while I’m not as nervous about it, it is 20% of my entire grade, and thus is no laughing matter. My point is that its really going to be very busy until about 7:30pm on Tuesday. After which I will officially enter that period of about 1.5 weeks where I just sail along until exam Hell begins. Sure, I still have one more project due with my journal, but its the smallest of the three I signed on for. Once exams come around, well, that’s for another post.

Outside of law school work, there has also been a bit of law school fun! The Public Interest Auction was this week!

If you couldn’t tell, they were using a casino/gambling theme this year. (The photo-booth was like a flash-back to high school)

Last year was nautically themed I think. Anyways, if you have an awesome memory for mundane details, you might recall that I worked 3 hours on a Saturday awhile back for the auction. As I said in that post, the HLS Public Interest Auction is held each year to assist in generating money for those of us who don’t want to go to a firm for their first summer (or those who did, and were unable to do so). Since my required hours were long past, I got to just sit back and enjoy the auction. And by enjoy, I mean eat the food and take advantage of the open bar.

That is a whole lot of awesome packed onto one little plate. I went through four beers on top of the food. Gotta love the freebies. SB even came up from BC to partake in the fun. She almost missed the food, mainly just getting what little was left, but there was still plenty of alcohol to go around.

The auction was set up within Austin Hall, and pretty much took up the entire building. With registration in the basement, noms and booze and the silent auctions on the first floor, and the live auction on third floor. The silent auction was divided into two rooms.

Each room sort of had a “theme” for the items, be they services (Spa Day), electronics (Amazon Kindle Fire), trips (Ski Trip in Vermont), or any myriad of things in between. I didn’t bid on anything, because I have no money. But a lot of the items were really cool, and the starting bids on the vast majority of the items were extremely reasonable (though I have no idea what they ended at).

The real show however, was the live auction which started at 7pm. The live auction hosted most of the “Big Ticket” items and the auctioneers were none other than Mr. Awesome-sauce Jonathan Zittrain and then Susan Farbstein, who was grossly overshadowed by Zittrain.

The live auction was a blast. Both the format, auctioneers, and guests all combined to make for a lot of fun. It was especially fun to see some of the professors in an environment where they didn’t have a stick up their ass.

The “items” being auctioned were greatly varied, including tennis matches with professors, dinners, Cape Cod timeshares, and, as pictured above, a trip to the Legoland Discovery Center with a professor and his two kids. They even included a video of the kids asking you to bid, talk about an appeal to emotion. I don’t remember how much the Legoland item generated, but I think it was something like 1250$.

There was also a trip to view the “Big Bang Theory,” complete with a VIP backstage tour to meet the cast and also a chance to sit in Sheldon’s spot.

That trip was actually being offered by Zittrain himself, who can be seen in the aforementioned spot on the screen behind the stage.

The final offering was a champagne reception at Professor Mann’s Cambridge “mansion” after graduation.

This one got pretty heated between two groups of 3Ls in the audience. Bidding ended at 4200$ which made it the largest single bid of the night, and it was a lot of fun to watch. However, the largest overall bid was actually for a dinner with Professor Suk (my criminal law professor) which generated 6000$. There were three bidders, and Zittrain proposed that they each stick with the 2000$ current bid, and all go together, which everyone accepted. It was pretty awesome, especially because some of all this money goes to me.

I do have to give a shout-out to an unnamed dude who was roaming the audience driving bids up.

SB and I have no idea who this guy was. Early in the auction I thought he was with one group of people since he was talking with them, trying to get them to bid. But then I noticed that he was appearing everywhere that someone was considering a bid war. At once point he was close enough to us that we could hear him egging people on to bid, classic social pressure. He was actually pretty freaking hilarious. He was like that little Devil that sits on your shoulder in cartoons, except all the bids were for a good cause (only Public Interest people get the money). By the end of the auction we were wondering if he even went to Harvard, he might have been some random dude who just came in to drink booze and make people bid more, either way he did his part to help raise money.

Overall the auction was a lot of fun, the only slow part was three back-to-back performances by Scales of Justice, which got a bit boring. But the food was great, the auction was great, and it raised a crap-ton of money. I still haven’t heard how much it raised, but between the silent auction, live auction, and all the private donations I can only imagine how much they raked in.

But, its now time for me to stop procrastinating, or more realistically, to go start procrastinating on something else. I have a fellowship application to complete, an oral argument to prepare for, and a presentation to keep practicing, in addition to all the usual week-to-week stuff. There is also a journal project in there somewhere, but since I don’t know when that is yet I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – Here is a boid friend (who was very hard to get a photo of!) that SB and I had a good conversation with while having some coffee on the patio at The Biscuit! Yay Spring!

End of the Year Section Party

1L is (Almost) Over

Dogfish Head – IPAs

Mead!

MEAD

Spring is Springing

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