Tomorrow I’m doing my first brew. The beer shall be a bitter. At this point in time, I should mention that all I really know about beer is that I enjoy drinking it.
It wasn’t always this way. The first time I had a sip of what my Dad was drinking, I spat it out. It was warm, watery, bitter and flat. It had a kind of sickly, poisoned taste. There was even a time, as a young teenage girl, when the idea of sitting down to drink beer actually horrified me. Beer is so full of carbs, and calories, I thought. It doesn’t even taste that good, I thought.
My low opinion of beer was only reinforced by my friends. They agreed that beer was for boys. We would stick to our vodka cruisers and our cocktails, thank you all the same.
After years of prejudice and beverage based gender stereotyping, I gave beer another chance. Years before I had been involved with a theatre group on Waiheke Island, and as a result I had become acquainted with Alan Knight. Anyone seriously interested in the beer industry can probably see where I’m going by this point.
“You simply must try this beer I’ve just brewed,” were the first words out of his mouth when I showed up at his house with some fellow cast-mates one day. “Beer?” I asked nervously, instantly becoming lost in rapid fire mental gymnastics as I tried to recalculate my caloric total for the day (I was forever on some diet).
“You’ll like this one,” he promised, pulling beer out of the hand pump and into a tall pint glass. It was a dark amber liquid with a lacey, cloud-like head. Alan passed the pint glass over the bar “It’s tasting magnificent.”
I took the glass hesitantly, and following the example of a tall, dark-haired young man, I took a gulp. Imagine my surprise when instead of the sad, stale taste I was expecting, my palette was greeted with oranges, summer sun and elderflowers. It must have showed on my face, I took another appreciative sip, and just like that, I loved beer.
Since then I learned that beer isn’t really about gender. Beer transcends borders. It unites us. Beers like Chick the beer just for women have entirely the wrong idea, because when it comes down to it, drinking beer isn’t about being a man, or being a woman. Drinking beer is about being the wonderful, gloriously flawed human creature that you are and having fun with life.
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Where a small merry band of the East Coast Chapter of the AFMC takes on the little known back roads of Vermont and NH.
...in which our intrepid riders seek to heighten their mileage and lower their expectations, while remaining cool as they travel The Really Hot State
Where an East Coast contingent of Flyers do some Catskill Canyon carving, hit a Home Run in Cooperstown and get a tasting of a 'first come first served' Dill's Run Winery and B&B....with a cameo appearance by Chairman Walt & Sandy.
In which the Flyers set their sights on the grey mountains (Adirondacks), Green Mountains (VT) and White Mountains (NH). They also get rained on, see lakes, gain weight and get rained on some more...
In which the AFMC rides from Montana to Idaho, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and back to Montana
The Flyers venture into the sun, fog, rain and occasional submarine conditions in lovely New England.
Also known as "The Loose Gravel Tour", for the dozens of warning signs we encountered. Few were accurate. The trip, however, was sublime.
Well it was SUPPOSED to be about geysers anyway...sadly the weather up Yellowstone way decided to suck, so we went back to the warmer canyon lands we all know and love. Some of us still held onto the illusion though...
In addition to our usual southern Utah haunts, this year the Flyers' annual desert expedition ventured down south to the Grand Canyon.
Though the hotels were a bit more modern than we'd expected, our guides Chano and Juan were great. Additional attendees included Betsy Forrester, Hedwig Golant, John & Betsy Rolls, Michael Silecchia and Willo Bellwood.
AFMC's Lotus tour of Tuscany. Guest appearances by Motorcycle Consumer News editor Dave Searle and his brother Don, and New Yorker Michael Silecchia.
A first-time AFMC event, The Utah Baja was run this year over more than 20 miles of gravel road in the southwestern corner of the Beehive State. The road is estimated to be located 30 miles north of St George UT, somewhere between Nowhere Utah and Nada Nevada.
The guy who suggested it dropped out early. The guy who named it never showed at all. The guy who organized it bailed at the last minute (something about a banking crisis in Frankfurt ). And so it was a diminished group of hard-riding road warriors who gathered on February 29th for the first Flyer adventure of the new millennium.
Chairman Walt leads the group through the rolling hills of the Finger Lakes....made more rolling by the Winery stops.