Fat Fish Blue

Beer, beach and markets

Beer, beach and markets

Jul 20, 2011 (China Daily - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- QINGDAO (CHINA DAILY/ANN) -- We have an expression in Glasgow for someone who's not good at arranging things. We say that he or she "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery". However, you don't need to be an organisational genius to put together a trip to the Tsingtao Beer Museum in Qingdao.

Everything is taken care of: party food, peanuts, beer are all on tap, so to speak.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The piss-up (if you want one) comes at the end of your tour.

Before then, you can experience the feeling of inebriation without touching a drop. Visit the Drunken Bar, next to the gift shop. I stepped inside the small, wood-paneled room and immediately my senses were confused.

There's a bar counter, a handrail and a mural of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. But the floor seems to be at a strange angle. I try to walk to the bar and find myself reeling around the room. Thankfully, I grasp the handrail. Smugly, I think I can make it if I tilt towards the angled floor. I fall flat on my face.

A weird combination of angles -- floor, walls, furniture, ceiling -- has baffled my sense of balance. I stagger out the exit to the laughter of observers who'd watched me onscreen.

German settlers established the first brewery in Qingdao in 1903. Today Tsingtao's famous lager is sold in 62 countries and regions around the world, including Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Canada, Brazil and Mexico.

Tsingtao is the number one consumer product exported by China and is the top-selling Chinese beer in the US.

The brewery, which occupies a huge area in downtown Qingdao, is China's first industrial tourist site. Tsingtao is described as a well-hopped standard pilsner of 4.7 percent alcohol. It's the company's flagship drink.

Originally the beer was brewed in accordance with the German Reinheitsgebot (purity law) of 1516. The only ingredients used were water, barley and hops. However, after privatization in the early 1990s, the recipe changed, like many other beers brewed in China. Today's Tsingtao contains a proportion of less expensive rice as an adjunct in the mash.

The brewery produces a variety of beers, mostly for the domestic market. Its dark beer, a delicious stout of 5.2 percent alcohol, can be bought in several overseas markets.

Bert the Conqueror to appear at Fat Fish Blue | Toledo Newspaper

Many may recognize Bert Kreischer from his popular TV show on the Travel Channel, aptly named “Bert The Conqueror,” yet few may recognize him for his stand-up comedy. Kreischer said his comedic style is based on one principle: “If I experienced it, other people have, too.”

In a recent interview, Kreischer said his sense of humor was developed as a survival strategy.

“I went to an all-boys Catholic school in the ninth grade. My friends growing up were the kind of friends that if you couldn’t hold their attention with a story or make fun of them you were screwed. So I got really good at telling stories,” Kreischer said.

“I remember being in the eighth grade on a school trip and a friend of mine had me listen to this Sam Kinison tape. I remember just laughing so hard. Laughing back then had to come from someone falling or stepping in dog shit or something. It blew me away that someone could make you laugh just by talking,” Kreischer said.

The TV show host/stand-up comedian said that he tailors each of his acts to the crowd.

“I don’t have too many speeds where I can switch up the show. However, if it’s an early show I might not curse as much, but if it’s a late drinking crowd I’ll loosen it up. I tend to improv about 50 percent of the show,” he said.

Kreischer said his mix of improvisation and predetermined stories was designed to stave off hecklers in his New York audiences.

“I know what jokes I have to do but I can’t just do that; it gets stale. If you just tell those jokes and you get heckled, you’re screwed,” he said. “At any time, the guy in the front row could be going to prison tomorrow and he’s just out to have a good time. It’s so depressing when you see someone go into a bit after getting heckled.”

Between traveling to shoot “Bert The Conqueror” and his stand-up career, Kreischer isn’t home very often.

“My support system at home is forgiving,” Kreischer said. “I’ve been doing stand-up the entire time my wife and I have been married. In a weird way we get along better when I’m on the road. When I’m home too long you can tell she starts getting to the point where she’s like ‘Get the hell outta here’.”

Kreischer said the travel is a little harder on his daughters, who are still young and have a harder time with daddy being gone so often.

“They eat it up when I’m back,” he said. “They are all over me when I get home, and you can see the panic in their eyes sometimes when I leave, like if they forget to give me a hug or something.

Practical aural habilitation, for speech-language pathologists and educators of hearing-impaired children

The United States cook book, a complete manual for ladies, housekeepers and cooks ... with particular reference to the climate and productions of the United States

Cincinnati Magazine

Twenty lessons in domestic science, a condensed home study course : marketing, food principals [sic], functions of food, methods of cooking, glossary of usual culinary terms, pronunciations and definitions, etc

Mrs. Lincoln's Boston cook book, what to do and what not to do in cooking