Boston, Day 2

On Thursday, we went to the conference for a bit and then took the T (their name for the subway) out to the Sam Adams Brewery. The tour was….wait for it…..awesome. Our tour guide was hilarious, and we got to taste all different kinds of barley and smell the hops (you don't taste those). The barley is great - it tastes like a cross between Nutri-Grain cereal and actual beer. You chew it and then it feels like you have solid beer stuck in your teeth, were it possible. Then we got our free tasting mugs (only 7 oz., unfortunately) and went to taste beer. The state of Massachusetts only lets them serve 21 oz. of beer to 1 person on a tour (so we only got to taste 3 kinds), but they did make sure to point out that you are welcome to take as many tours in a day as you want.



These people really really really do love their beer. The commercials really don't even do them justice. And apparently the cute older bald guy with the long beard in the commercials not only works there, but was working there that day, but we didn't manage to catch a glimpse of him. We really wanted a picture with him, but I guess we'll have to save that for next trip. So apparently all the employees there taste beer every day at 10:30 am and 2pm. The tour guide was like, "Yep, we start drinking every day at 10:30am, for YOU guys." And even the lowliest employee has to go through this course where they learn all about beer and beer making and beer tasting, and have to be able to tell not just good from bad, but what's wrong with it if it does go bad. Pretty darn impressive.



If they find any beer on store shelves that is past its sell-by date, they buy it back at retail price because their owner, Jim Koch (the founder and the guy in the commercials) would rather do that than have people drink stale beer. And every year the employees save samples of bad batches of beer and put it into a dunk tank, into which Mr. Koch gets dunked, as he says he'd rather put people into stale beer, than stale beer into people.


Our guide about to hand out the barley and hops for us to try:



Our tour guide teaching us more about how beer is made:

Beer being "finished"

Finally, getting to taste the finished product:

Below, our guide is explaining about "Utopias." It's this non-carbonated, almost liqueur-type beer that's something like 26% alcohol that they only make every few years. They only produce 9,000 bottles (or something like that), and it's illegal in most states because of the alcohol content. So you have to pre-order it in another state and then go pick it up. You drink it in a tumbler, not a regular beer glass. It comes in this golden mini-beer-finisher-model bottle, which you can't really see in this picture. Most of us had never heard of it, until some beer aficionado raised his hand and asked when the next batch was coming out. Luckily for him, it's this November.

Below is a picture of "The Perfect Pint" glass.

So what is The Perfect Pint? one might ask...It's the final result of Jim Koch's obsessive (I told you he loves his beer!) quest to create the perfect glass in which to drink Sam Adams Boston Lager. It's perfectly designed for just that beer, and when in Boston, you're supposed to send SABL back if it's not served in the Perfect Pint glass now. Funny. I suppose all other types of beer turn to dust in it, right? It's really almost ridiculous how much thinking/work went into this glass: the bottom is laser etched to send a continuous stream of bubbles to the top; the lip is created to deliver the beer to the back part of your tongue, which is where the bitter sensors are; it's made so that your hand won't warm to beer past it's optimal temperature (yes, they actually have an optimal temperature at which SABL should be drunk), etc., etc., etc.

Here is a link to an article about how Jim Koch designed "The Perfect Pint" glass: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/03/05/8401280/index.htm. It's actually really interesting, everything that goes into it. Who knew beer drinking could have advanced so far, technologically-speaking???

On Thursday night, we decided to go to this place called Dicks Last Resort. The waiters there are known for their rudeness, and the ruder you are back to them, the better your service. At first our waiter didn't seem all that mean, but then when Natalie tried to helpfully point out where her birthdate was on her driver's license when he was carding us, he was like, "I know how to do my job!" And they make silly hats for the diners out of white butcher paper, with various and sundry insults on them. Brian got one that said "I vacation on Brokeback Mountain." The girls get either hats or helium balloons that they attach to some of your hair so they float above your head.

Us at Dicks:

They give everyone bibs, for no particular reason....

Brian's lovely hat:

Natalie and i with our balloons..Very funny....

After that, we went back to - you guessed it - Pub Row.

Boston, Day 1

So I just got back from a trip to Boston. Our program makes us go to the ACOI ("something-something-Osteopathic-Internists") conference each year, and this year it was in Boston. I went with Natalie and Brian, my fellow "IM" interns (the quotes are because only one of the three of us is planning on having anything whatsoever to do with internal medicine, but I digress….). So basically for agreeing to be labeled "IM" interns, we all got a free trip to Boston and a week off of work without having to use any precious vacation time. Not too shabby.

We left on Tuesday (the 9th) afternoon, and despite being delayed at LaGuardia (which is an every-day occurrence, our pilot kindly informed us), we got in in time to go out for dinner. Our concierge sent us to this awesome neighborhood restaurant called The Fireplace, and I think it's my favorite restaurant of all time. It was a bistro-type restaurant, but had (surprisingly enough) a cozy fireplace, a great menu, and the only other people there were clearly locals who knew all the staff, so we kind of felt like we were at a sort of bistro-version of "Cheers."

So the next day was the first day of the conference, and after snoozing my way through a couple lectures (seriously, some were almost comically bad - how can they hand out educational credits for some of this garbage???), I was so excited to see some of the residents from Botsford there (this was the hospital where I spent 5 months in Michigan as a 3rd year). I really loved working with those residents, and I didn't learn how good they were until I left and had to work with less-stellar residents, so it was great to see them again. I'm glad I got to see them then, because like all good, soon-to-graduate residents, they promptly split and we didn't see them for the rest of the conference.

Here we are in our hotel lobby, all happy and optimistic, before we discovered how lousy the lectures were going to be:

We left as soon as we figured out there was no merit becoming martyrs to that dribble (OK, so pretty much I decided, and thankfully Natalie & Brian were in agreement), and headed for the North End (Boston's Little Italy) to eat lunch. At this risk of overusing the a-word, this place was awesome. It was this cute street that is one of the oldest parts of Boston, and it's lined with family-owned Italian restaurants. We picked one and had the best Italian meal I've ever had. While we were eating, a guy outside wearing a track suit and comically-large sunglasses did business with a giant wad of cash with another guy who seemed to be in the window business. Natalie and I decided they were negotiating what exactly was going to fall off of a truck that night. The North End is really something else - the only people speaking English are the tourists - everyone else is speaking Italian. The street is like nothing else I've seen, and I'd say it's the first place you need to go to after getting into Boston (if you're hungry, that is). The place we went was Antico Forno, if anyone's taking notes.

That was the first night we went out looking for a good Irish pub. This being Boston, we found an abundance of them. Where we ended up that night was a string of pubs right next to the Union Oyster House (the oldest restaurant in continuous operation in the U.S., open since something like 1826). They sit on the oldest block in Boston, which must be pretty old. Between some of the pubs a very crooked and uneven cobblestone street runs, which adds to the aged feeling. Our favorite pub was this really old-looking one called The Bell in Hand. That's the fun thing about Boston - there are some pubs with boring names like The Tap, but then there's Rosin Dubh (the Black Rose), The Purple Shamrock, The Bell in Hand, and things like that. So we drank some Guinness and then went home.

The barely-visible sign over The Bell in Hand, my favorite pub:

The three of us at The Purple Shamrock (I think...it may actually have been The Tap...hard to tell as I think this was the night we went to 5 different pubs....)

Picture disclaimer: If you haven't heard, I accidentally laundered my nice digital camera a few months ago, and most unwisely bought a cheapo substitute at Target before leaving on this trip. I have since learned that digital cameras are not something one should scrimp on, as this one took terrible pictures. That is why they're all dark and fuzzy. I am still figuring out some horrible way to kill this camera in retaliation for making my Boston pictures come out so lousy, but in the meantime, please accept my apologies for their terrible quality. When Brian emails me his better pics, maybe I'll replace these.

Neat shot of this cool building, Fauneuil Hall

(most unfortunately pronounced by all Bostonians as "fan-well")