Saturday, November 24, 2018

A Cavs Game and Smoky the Beer

The big draw of our whole trip to Cleveland was a Cavaliers game. Brandon's a big sports guy and a big Lebron James fan in particular. Town bicycle Lebron not being on this team anymore was a good occasion to remind Brandon that Lebron is a douchebag and will never be as good as Jordan was no matter how many subpar remakes of Space Jam he inflicts on society.

When people ask if I'm a sports fan I assume that they expect I'll grunt and then we'll chest bump and talk about the sports and the player trades and the circumference of a hockey puck. Surely they are disappointed by my nuanced answer. I really like going to live sport matches of all kinds, in the same way I like going to the opera or the circus. I like to be a part of American culture, I like to be entertained by a spectacle, and I like to people watch. On the other hand I don't care what these people are doing when I'm not here watching them compete.




The tickets were digital but then they printed you out a ticket when you arrived. It was an odd system.




This creepy man was made out of tires.


Zoe was supposed to come to Cleveland with us but bailed at the last minute so we took the opportunity to troll her.


“Enjoy the little things in life because one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things.”

― Kurt Vonnegut


















Speaking of circuses and spectacles, the halftime show was the Amazing Sladek doing acrobatics atop six chairs that he stacked up. There's even a New York Times article about him. Apparently he lives in Florida and drives a minivan to all of the games he performs in. He refuses to fly because he doesn't trust the baggage handlers with his special performance chairs. Considering if they banged a chair leg rickety he could fall to his death, I don't know that I blame him. The Cavs people said that he's great and that the only problem is that he's so interesting that people don't leave their seats to buy anything. That seems a bit far fetched but I guess it worked on me.










The Cavs actually beat the Rockets which I don't think was supposed to happen. After the win they played the "Cleveland Rocks" theme song from The Drew Carey Show.


So.... we went to a micro brewery to celebrate after the game. It came as a real shock to all of us considering this was like our 8th brewery of the trip. Noble Beast Brewing Co. was a pretty nice place though so why the heck not? I liked how industrial many of the the breweries were. At Noble Beast our table was right next to a forklift they used to move kegs around.


I got roped in by the story of this beer:
"Noble Beast Piwo Grodziskie

A historical and once extinct Polish style of beer brewed exclusively with oak-smoked wheat malt. Known as the "Champagne of Poland", pivo grow-JEES-kee-uh has a soft and round smoke character, herbal hop aroma, and extremely lively carbonation. A grain bill composed entirely of wheat creates an incredibly dense and billowy head of foam."

It wasn't half bad. Definitely the best smoked beer I've ever had but that is a very very low bar.




I liked how frequently the people of Cleveland seemed to have earned their own "major awards".


The song was right. Cleveland does rock.

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