For the longest time, I’ve gone to breweries to go to the brewery and be close to the action – sometimes it’s paid off in strange ways. Most of the time, though, it’s just another normal working brewery with a taproom. Sometimes there’s a burger joint or pizza operation attached, but I’ve gone where the beer is, with food considerations being secondary almost all of the time. As a single, solo drinker, I have the luxury of doing whatever I want, and that leads to a long list of actual breweries I’ve visited – lets say it’s in the hundreds. I stopped keeping track a couple of years ago, but the count steadily grows.
The problem I’ve encountered recently is of my own making. I bought a nice, speedy motorcycle, and I really enjoy riding it. To places, when I can think of somewhere to go. The thing is…and it’s been hard….thing is, I’m trying to NOT drink and ride. Period. Not even one, and who really drinks just one pint when they’ve gone all that way to a brewery? You can see where this goes immediately, and so I’ve had to stick to the hard rule of not drinking and riding.
So I’m now sitting at a coffee shop several miles from my house because I wanted to ride somewhere, and this fit the bill. It is noonish, and I’d much rather be sitting at the brewery taproom across the parking lot with a cold pint in hand, but rules are rules. And, hey, drinking and driving is not cool, at all, but there’s no way to do the thing without driving to the thing and so consumerism is the root cause of drunk driving. We HAVE to drink and drive to complete the social contract, laws be damned.
I’m kidding, of course, but the fact is that the people around me, in my limited social circle, don’t seem to mind having one or two drinks at some brewpub before heading home. The unspoken understanding is that we’re all responsible adults, and if we weren’t able to manage it, we’d get a ride. Or sleep it off, which I suppose isn’t a luxury parents have..
So instead of dealing with any of that, I’m perched on a different kind of stool, quad shot mocha steaming in front of me, thinking about beer instead of drinking it, and it’s a misery I’ve forced upon myself. I shouldn’t feel too bad though,. since I enjoy riding my Ninja 400 so much I look for dumb reasons to ride it somewhere. I have to drag my helmet and gloves and riding jacket with me whenever I go somewhere, so that’s a reminder of what I’m really supposed to be doing when I go out like this. I’m still getting used to the bike and this kind of riding style, and I’ve spent a small fortune on tires and related things, so I’m effectively broke (spending $20 on coffee and a pastry is going to ruin me), so I might have to re-open my patreon. All 3 of you human readers out there should donate to my beer fund!
Once the weather changes I’ll probably shift to breweries again, since a Portland winter can be pretty wet. It can also be very mild, and since I have to look for reasons to ride places anyways it’ll be easy to get lazy and decide to drive places instead. I can go back to using the brewery as my final destination again. No more throwing cans in my backpack instead of drinking a fresh pint (which isn’t so bad, and I’ve written about that several times before). Now if I could just recruit some friends to come along with me….