The Impact of Dads, Beers, and Dad Beers.
By Ian Guevara
It's Father’s Day as I’m writing this in a small mountain town restaurant surrounded by 80’s arcades and the smell of burgers and beer. It’s a fitting place to think about dads.
I’ve had a lot of dads in my life. Like seven for sure: my dad, my step-pepper Paul, Pa-Pa (Mr. Groome), Abuelo, Opa, and my uncles Mike and Dennis.
More than half of them have passed away, but what they left behind still remains a part of me. Each one of these father figures has taught me important lessons. All of them are responsible, whether they like it or not, for the man who sits behind this keyboard. Risk taking and rewards, curiosity and discovery, independence, open mindedness, and a strong work ethic.
Jesus… now I know how to answer that stupid question you’re asked in every interview, “How would you describe yourself”.
Eddie Guevara, my father, died collapsing from a heart attack just days after his 40th birthday in 2007. He was a gregarious enigma of a man. Bohemian, tattooed, smoked the reefer… but would have followed the corpse of Ronald Regan into the maw of capitalist hell and back. Dad loved to live life. He loved art, music, and cigars. As I got older and more interesting as a human being, dad and I started to have more in-depth and greater conversations about life. The importance of Nathan’s Coney Island Franks and why they must be boiled then pan fried was the first value he taught me. The other was the value of risk and reward.
Eddie Guevara
After Katrina, dad moved my stepmother, Carrie, and two sisters, Caitlin and Sophia to some town at the ass-end of Georgian earth called St. Mary’s. There he followed his passion and took the biggest risk of his life: he opened a cigar shop (on Weed St… only pops). It was wildly successful and I’m happy that in the final year of his life he was happy. Dad took a risk, reached for his passion, and was rewarded by success. You could say that writing this now is me following in his footsteps.
Mr. Goome was, in my mind and in the mind of many, a figure larger than life… mainly due to his tall tales and storytelling ability. But he had a sense of humor and streak of irreverence that I possess as well. I had to be close to twelve or thirteen and possessed a cassette of Richard Pryor’s stand-up special Richard Pryor: Live in Concert. We were heading to camp in a teal blue Ford Windstar van full of other twelve and thirteen year olds. He played the tape without cajole or question. The whole tape. From beginning to end.
My summers with Mr. Groome are my most cherished memories of my childhood. Summers spent exploring the Appalachians, whitewater rafting, and Richard Pryor tapes. Pa-Pa (I will switch between Pa-Pa and Mr. Groome, deal with it) was a retired pharmaceutical salesman… among the many other professions that he wove tall tales about. Yet his love of science and history made indelible impressions on me. We would talk for hours about historical events, their causes and effects, and the potentiality of how history would change if one thing would be moved from its place. The chaos effect. We would watch episodes of Quantum Leap and Star Trek, when I was a child. And even though it was left unsaid, I’m more than sure that he was doing the same thing I was, imagining ourselves in the same situations as Sam Beckett and how our actions could affect history. I guess that’s why I studied history in college and teach it now.
Eduardo Guevara was the embodiment of Cuban machismo, charm, and daring. Like Mr. Groome, he passed away in 2017 as well, but his lessons live too with me. How I learned to talk to women WAY out of my league? Abuelo. How I learned to get into places I have no place being? Abuelo. He was a fascinating, old-school Cuban immigrant who made and lost his fortune in America despite the pitfalls of a white supremacist society, especially its amplified version in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s.
Abuelo taught me independence above all else. We went on trips all over the country when I was a lad of eight to thirteen, before the ravages of time affected his 1922 born body. He taught me that traveling was a gentleman’s art. One must be dressed well, pack light, and always be prepared with a charming line to the flight attendant. The man made hitting on women an artform. His greatest lesson was independence.
On a trip to New York City he grew fatigued and wanted to nap in the hotel. I wanted to explore. Go explore, he said… I was twelve. He let a twelve year old boy run the streets of New York. And it was glorious. I navigated the subways, made conversation with randos between stops, and perused the museums that surrounded Central Park. I never feel uneasy wherever I go now, that sense of independence and freedom still looms in my soul.
Paul Odenwald Sr. was a lawyer with a fierce sense of cultural identity to his German heritage, which is why we called him Opa. He was incredibly intelligent, generous, and kind beyond the normalcy of human ability. He passed away in the summer of 2009, never getting to see his beloved Saints win the Superbowl. Opa loved his grandchildren above all else and spoiled us rotten. Moreover, he was always ready to listen, learn, and teach.
Opa was old, white, and from the South therefore by conventional standards he was extremely conservative. But, unlike the current crop of degenerates who call themselves conservative today, he was open minded and wanted to hear other views, and even amused in those views. We would watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart together almost every afternoon. Despite the clear ideological difference between him and Jon Stewart, Opa would agree with points, ponder others, disagree with most, but would never be afraid to laugh at the jokes. He approached it with an open mind, a trait I carry everyday in my travels.
My Uncles, Mike and Dennis, are two of the most hardworking men to exist. Both of them, I’m convinced, could build a house with only a handful of nails and a freshly felled tree. Their hands are calloused as one would expect from blue collar men.
One Easter Sunday I bought a hundred pounds of raw oysters. I was proud to display my skill of shucking oysters like a master to my Uncles. I made a terrible error. I asked for gloves.
“You hear that Dennis?” Uncle Mike chuckled, “He asked for gloves.”
“He’s got those ‘teacher’s hands’,” responded Uncle Dennis.
Gloved, Soft Handed, Shucked Oysters
My life was shook. Regardless of their barbs, they both taught me the value of hardwork. Growing up I would shadow them in their jobs fixing houses or laboring in the backyard. They taught me attention to detail, pride in one’s work, and bust the balls of soft handed dudes.
Above all else is my stepdad Paul. Paul is my dad. His impact on my life and my personality and who I am is immeasurable and only equaled to that of Mr. Groome. My love of science fiction? Paul. My love of comics and mythology? Paul. My love of reading? Paul. Who taught me to throw and poorly hit a baseball? Paul. Who taught me valued techniques as an offensive lineman? Paul. Who curated my writing abilities? Paul. Who taught me how to defeat an opponent with a broadsword who’s showing a “head” position? Paul.
Paul’s creativity is infectious as is his love of beer. Every trip into the mountains to visit breweries I always make sure to bring Paul back a strong stout or porter. It's a beer only fit for six and a half foot giants. Furthermore, he patiently sits and listens to my tales, laughs, cries, and shares with me. He’s a rock, a steady presence in my life, and I can't imagine, or want, anyone else to be my dad.
There are so many more stories to tell about the impact these men have had on my life. There are also so many other father figures to exemplify. Teachers such as Mike Meads and his husband Charles. Scoutmasters like Mr. Vic Viosca and Marvin Hawley.
Hold onto your fathers, grandfathers, and father figures. They’re the ones who guide you through life. They don't last forever. As you age they morph from heroic gods to humans. But somehow they never leave you without a lesson even if they’ve passed. Life is funny and challenging. Morality is our biggest enemy. It takes those we love most from us, often at inopportune times. But it’s that short time with those figures that makes our collective mortality so special and unique. If we lived forever, then none of this would matter. To quote Captain Kirk (thanks Paul…), “How we face death is at least as important as how we face life.”
So to a lighter note!
A quick note on the “Dad Beer”. The Dad Beer is your lagers, pilsners, ales, and ambers that you see at the side of every dad in the existence of beer. Sumerian dads six thousands years ago turned their goats on spits over open fires sipping on dad beer.
It's ingrained in every dad’s DNA to eschew the fancy: the sour, the dark, and the hazy. These beers are too risky. Nay, the dad doesn't take risks. That would be wasted precious sips on a beer that he may not like. The dad will stick to what he knows, and that’s the beer his dad drank before him all the way down to the beginning of civilization where the dawn of humanity was spawned by that one dad who realized that by fermenting weeds he can relax and stick his hand into his pants like Al Bundy for a few precious minutes.
Ode to the “Dad Beer”
You may be brown, or gold, yellow, or rose
You may be crispy, clear, and light
But your flavors never impose
Your taste is consistent even in flights.
You are drunk all day and never cause a nap
You may be found in every inch of the map.
Parks and patios and ballgames
Behind the grill or lawnmower
Your consistency brings you fame
In coozies you exude power.
You never disappoint or leave yearning
You always keep the dads ever churning.
“Beer is an Outside Beverage”
By Ian Guevara
“Hey, do you wanna go see a nude bike ride with me and my dad?” Danny asks me as I walk up to him outside the brewery.
Breweries are about friendship. Meeting places where no matter how long you’ve spent from each other stories recapping the gaps flow like beers from the tap. And meeting up with Danny is always an entertaining adventure.
Danny and I have known each other for the better part of 20 years, but as time has passed, and as age and responsibilities pile up like an endless bundle of laundry, Danny and I only get to hang out with each other for snippets at a time.
“Take a look at this!” Danny exclaims as he shows me a ridiculous Tik Tok of a man teaching Chinese through vulgarity. This is the experience, a swirling adventure through random Youtube videos, beer, and catching up on life.
Ian and Danny at the Red White and Brew - Hammond, LA
Beer is an outside beverage. Like me, it needs to be free from its confines and allowed to breathe. As we drank outside on the beautiful outside patio of Port Orleans, I remembered the first time I had ever drank a beer from this lovely brewery.
The beginning of the pandemic led many people to enjoy the outdoors once again. While I’ve spent countless springs and summers in the sun under the clouds, under trees, and in the shadows of mountains, the pandemic forced us all into personal prisons. Driven to the point of near insanity, locked in the confines of my small condo, I settled into a monotonous routine of exercise, work emails, exercise, and dinner. As each similar day dragged on, spring turned to summer, and the more I began to relate to Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
One afternoon my roommate Nick pulled me from the malaise. He was going to meet up with a few friends at the park. Immediately I was hesitant. As much as I wanted to leave the house, I was weary of the potential disaster the outside world could be. I hadn't seen it in several months, and I feared the worst. Visions of apocalypse, Mad Maxx, and roving hordes of gangs dressed like Joe Exotic searching for toilet paper and power mixers filled my mind.
Nick reassured me that the world was still the same… just quieter, and he convinced me to tag along.
Of course he was right, and moreover it was delightful to see that people were outside enjoying the park, nature, and the simplicity of just being outside. Kites were flying, burgers were grilling, and soccer balls were bouncing.
As we settled into a game of bocce ball on the picnic fields I had my first sip of Port Orleans Brewery beer. A cooler filled with cans of River Front Lager chilled despite being berated by the June sun. It was delicious and I craved more.
Located on Tchoupitoulas a block away from Tipitinas, Port Orleans Brewery is a beautiful venue supporting a wide range of beers from no thrills, but solid lagers and ales to trippy sours, goses, and pale ales that have no real classification other than “dope”.
Port Orleans - New Orleans, LA
I didn’t wish to get too wasted so I opted for only two flights. What makes beers so fascinating to me is the varieties of colors and tastes. Port Orleans did not disappoint.
The first flight consisted of the “3-Day Hibiscus Summer Ale”, the “Bucktown Brown Ale”, the “Riverfront Lager”, and the “Kennerbrau Kolsch”. Mother of GAWD that summer ale was super tasty and crispy. It has a pinkish/golden hue with only a slight fruitiness with a tinge of sour. The Bucktown Brown Ale is dark and smoky making it a solid beer. Similarly, the Riverfront Lager and Kennerbrau Kolsch were solid beers. The clear star here is the 3-Day Hibiscus.
Admittedly, I tend to gravitate toward lighter, crispier, and weirder beers. Those excite me. However, it's important to drink the “dad beers”. Those are your solid .250 hitters in the lineup. They won't hit homers, but they get on base. If a brewer does the “dad beers” well, they’ll most likely knock out their weirder experiments out of the park.
My second flight was a rainbow, and I could not wait to dive in. “Big Snack’s NOLA Style Blueberry Pie Sour”, “Prickle Rick’s Tequila Aged Pale Ale”, the “Strawberry Margarita Gose”, and the “Dope Whip Soft Serve Sour” had me salivating.
Big Snack’s is a super sweet sour where I found that the sweetness hides the sourness of the beverage, but it is still tasty as hell. Prickle Rick gets into a super weird territory much like its namesake. It's just… weird like Rick Sanchez. But its aftertaste leaves you wanting more while it slowly slams you with sweetness. It also has hints of tequila and pear which makes for a tasty outing.
Now I’m a sucker for any Margarita Gose so this is clearly a biased review. The Strawberry Margarita Gose is an excellent and solid margarita gose that's salty, sweet, and the strawberry flavor is subtle.
Another beer veering into the weird territory is the Dope Whip Sour. I’m convinced a mad scientist concocted this brew. It's a pineapple sour that has a creaminess like a soft serve ice cream cone, but I think that the pineapple is just a little too sweet and hides that sourness. I dig it, but just crave the puckering that comes with a solid sour.
As for the atmosphere, Port Orleans is a great venue with large windows allowing you to peak into the nuts and bolts of the art being created in the background. It has a kitchen serving Avo Tacos and plenty of seating inside and outside.
P.S.
Big shout out to Sierra, the bartender, who directed me to several more breweries along the Gulf Coast that will definitely be making it on here eventually.
PORT ORLEANS BREWERY:
4124 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, LA 70115
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/portorleansbeer
https://www.facebook.com/portorleansbrewingco/
https://www.instagram.com/portorleansbrewingco/?hl=en
https://untappd.com/v/port-orleans-brewing-co/6190277
Hitchhikers, Beers, and Burials
By Ian Guevara
It all started with a hitchhiker. My love of beer, breweries, and adventure. A daring decision or a simple act of kindness, either way, it was a hitchhiker that sparked this passion. The summer of 2017 is the beginning of this adventure, one that has brought me a mixture of joy and catharsis.
2017 was a particularly hard year. My grandfather, the man who raised me and taught me life’s most valuable lessons, lost his battle with time. I thought he was going to outlive me, fueled by his love of busting my balls. But life often reminds us that we have to make sure to value that time we have with each other.
Mr. Groome (yeah I called him that haha) opened up my passion for the outdoors as a scout leader in my boy scout troop. Almost every summer of my formative years was spent swashbuckling through the Appalachians of North Carolina backpacking, camping, and rafting. I loved it so much that as I neared adulthood my falls, winters, and springs were filled with fever dreams of green canopies, ice cold creeks, and the distinct clambering of pots secured by bungie cords to external frame backpacks.
Mr. Groome passed away in January of 2017. It's hard to witness your hero struggle for two years, to watch that slow march toward the inevitable. You convince yourself that they’ll recover so you can have just one more summer in the woods. You pray that just one more time you can catch a whiff of a Havana Tampa cigar while trying to find the right spot for your tent. You hope to hear one last shot across your bow to cut your ego. But these are all fantasies, delusions that you have to reconcile to accept your hero’s demise.
That summer the boy scout troop decided to hike the fabled 60 mile trek that Mr. Groome had planned out and perfected for a better part of 40 years. He wrote a 200 page unpublished guide to this trip in 1990. I found it when cleaning out his garage and couldn’t help but giggle at his incredibly dry writing. The thought of finding it, reading it, then filling it with red marks just to push his buttons tickled me.
With the troop heading to North Carolina, I decided to tag along as its resupply coordinator, a role carefully crafted by Mr. Groome to maximize his two favorite things: helping scouts and relaxing in the woods. Most importantly, it served as an opportunity to climb Wesser Bald and spread a portion of his ashes across the scenery that served as a backdrop to our relationship.
Assisting me in resupplying the troop was my close friend Louis who was also a former member of the troop and whose life was impacted by Mr. Groome as well. Coincidentally, this trip also opened my life to hammock camping, but that’s a story for another time.
One afternoon after checking on the troop at one of the resupply checkpoints, Louis and I decided to climb Albert Mountain. Mr. Groome loved to meet the troop there. He would climb the shorter and easier side, set up his folding chair, light a cigar and wait for us as we trudged through one of the tougher sections of the trek. This move was legendary. I remember many times pushing through exhaustion only to catch the smell of a cigar, turn the corner of the trail and find Mr. Groome and Mr. Benny ready to shoot from the hip with a quip about how bad we smell or how long we were taking.
View from the Albert Mountain lookout tower.
Louis and I climbed the shorter and easier section reminiscing about these same stories. It's interesting how talking about a loved one like that seems surreal. It felt apropos that while we climbed through the clouds my mindset settled in the clouds as well. By the time we made it to the top I was feeling depressed. For a slight second I half expected to see Mr. Groome sitting there telling us that we have lead in our shoes. Instead we met a lone hiker named Andrew.
Andrew did not look ready for the trail. He was wearing jeans, a torn white tee, and what looked like a pair of Timberland boots not suitable for backpacking. He claimed that he had hiked near 100 miles in four days and was looking to make it to Fontana Dam, another 70 or so miles, in three days. He wasn't going to make it.
We shared a couple of American Spirits with him and he realized that if he continued his trek, his body would not forgive him. So he asked for a ride into town. The warnings of talking to and picking up strangers flooded my mind, what am I eight? Louis and I did have to meet up with the troop again to drop off water, but there was a creek by that shelter and they had water filters. Furthermore, I felt like this would be something Mr. Groome would do, help someone when they needed it, do a good turn and all.
Louis and I agreed to take Andrew, our weary traveler, into town. As we neared Franklin, Andrew asked that we stop by his work. We agreed and followed his directions. We turned the corner and there it was: The Lazy Hiker Brewery. It was serendipitous. To boot, Andrew was one of the brewers! He took us on a tour of the brewery, the vats, the smells, the kegs, the cans, everything. And there it hit me. Like a bolt of lightning to the brain. Like hearing “Dark Side of the Moon” for the very first time. I fell in love with breweries.
At first my palate was simply limited to cheap beer and the limited varieties of the single local brewery that existed in the New Orleans area at the time. These beers were not PBR or Banquet Beer. They were different, beyond anything I had ever tasted before. What is a Gose? What is a Saison? What is a Sour? A Kolchs? A Brown Ale? You know that scene in The Fellowship of the Ring when Merry and Pippen discover the beer comes in pints? That was my reaction to the beers.
The rainbow of colors fascinated me. Wait, you mean that beer isn’t relegated to gold or the brown of a Guinness? It comes in red, orange, light brown, dark gold? It has bitterness, sweetness, saltiness, sourness, other nesses? Pandora’s box was open and there was no going back. I had become Sisyphus, rolling that boulder up the hill, trying to taste every beer created, only for new combinations and new ideas to start my journey all over again.
In the five years since, I have made my way back to Western North Carolina, exploring its small towns, and enjoying its many breweries. And thankfully within those same five years, the New Orleans area has exploded with a plethora of breweries, many of which I’ve yet to explore. So now I begin a journey. One born out of my grandfather’s sense of adventure and his reminder to help others in need by giving a hitchhiker a ride home.
So join me on this adventure as I travel to different places, close to and far from home, finding different breweries, drinking their beers, and who knows what other side quests that may pop up along the way.
Mr. Groome and Ian