Norfolk Beer Power Ranking

     We're just going to keep the train rolling with these power rankings from my east coast road trip. Previously I brought you the power ranking of states that I drove through between Chicago and Norfolk. This time around, we are going to address the full force of my borderline alcoholism that I say is a craft beer affinity, and power rank all of the various beers I drank in Norfolk, VA. 

    A couple changes this time around. First and foremost, we have pictures for this one, so that's pretty neat. Secondly we are going to rank by location. We went to 4 different drinking locations on this trip; 3 breweries, 1 sail boat tour, and the Blue Moon Tap House which I'm not counting because they served me 2 different tapped-keg beers. That's really all the updates, let's talk beer.

Stop 1: Benchtop Brewing

    The 3 breweries we went to were all within half a mile of each other, absolutely stupid how close all this delicious beer  was in proximity to each other. So naturally I drank as much as I could and my friend Abbey was gracious enough to drive back. We started at Benchtop, which is admittedly probably the second-string brewery in the area, but their merch was pretty dope and they had a great IPA flight (pictured above). 

    The first beer I tried however was way outside my comfort zone. Typically I am a NEIPA guy, keep it on the light side, maybe some citrus or passion fruit in there, that's the money zone. This beer was the polar opposite of that, it was called the Walter's Brunch. This was a porter (literally the darkest beer), with coffee and syrup flavoring. I don't know what compelled me to order this, but it seemed to be the most popular item they had. I was beyond surprised at how light this beer was despite the fact that it was so dark. It literally tasted like breakfast in a glass and filled me up about as much too. My only knock against it is that there's no chance I could drink more than 2 or 3 of them before I would need a nap from being too full. Not a great all day drinking beer, great to end the night though. I give it a 6.9/10 (nice), and would definitely recommend everyone try it if given the opportunity.

    After a nice surprise to start, I decided it was time to fly. For any rookie drinkers out there, a flight is 4 beers, typically a half pour, purely made for sampling. However if you choose your beers correctly, also a very efficient way to get buzzed. My flight, which I am nicknaming the Fresh Theory Flight:

-Ripping Freshies

    Absolutely lived up to its name, so refreshing, strong amount of alcohol content but a little bit of a raspberry flavor to it. 7.2/10

-Sabro Theory

    The worst of the theories, but not bad. It's like the Thor: The Dark World of these beers, one of them has to be the worst. 6/10

-Nelson Theory

    The best one in my opinion, great passion fruit flavor, but also not much otherwise distinguish it as all 3 of these "Theories" are NEIPA's. 7.5/10 but may change my mind with the 4 pack that I bought.

-Proven Theory

    I wouldn't exactly call it "Proven." But it was a damn good beer, however just a very cut and dry NEIPA, so it's basically just like a Hazy Hero. 7/10

    Overall rating on the IPA flight is a solid 7. It wasn't the absolute best flight I've ever had in my life, but it was still damn good and I genuinely enjoyed and finished all 4 of  them. After that I was sufficiently buzzed enough to spend way too much money on brewery merch. But we're support local small business right?

    After this it was on to the Shangri La of Norfolk Beer: Smartmouth Brewing Company. I didn't think to get pictures of the place, but it is just a giant old warehouse that's been converted to a brewery, and we were there for one of their new beer releases! Of course I had to try it so we'll get there.

    Beer number one at Smartmouth was another porter (who am I?) called "Happy Birthday Curiosity." Honestly I tried it because it's tag line was "#1 all-time social distancer." Have to reward that type of cleverness. The beer itself was also actually delicious. It tasted exactly like coffee cake, kind of like if you were to mike iced coffee with coffee cake creamer and then sneak a bunch of Bailey's in there, absolutely delicious. Smaller knock on the heaviness this time, still a 7.8/10 would drink so many of those.

    The second beer however was the winner for the trip. The beer that was released about 2 hours before we showed up, appropriately titled "Party On, Thor." It was a Czech lager brewed with strawberries, and if I'm being honest I wouldn't mind just injecting this right into my veins. This beer was so refreshing, not heavy, not tart, and just a little bit sweet. Incredible summer beer, and a great boat drink. Sign me up for a 12 pack of this, 8.8/10.

    After Smartmouth, we had to make our way to our final stop because, you know, bars aren't open until midnight anymore. Our final stop was more of a craft house than an actual brewery. It was a very quaint little building called The Birch, and the main selling point for me was that they have mead. 

    We're just going to jump right into it: I think I only want to drink mead for the rest of my life. The one I tried is called "Viking's Blood," which: 1. Fucking sick name 2. Spot on name. Quick FYI: mead is one of the oldest ways to brew "beer" but it is essentially a malt liquor brewed with fermented honey. It is super sweet, but carries a 19% alcohol content. Two glasses of this and you are shit faced. This was about enough for me on this night, but I still enjoyed every last drop of it. Not sure if this qualifies as a beer either, but still had to point out how incredible this drink is. Go get it at your local liquor store.

    The last beer I had on this night was called a Snorkasaurus. I think I was either face deep in a grilled cheese or far too drunk to take notes because my only comment was: !!!. So I think it was pretty good.

    Overall I think Norfolk has a rich and impressive beer portfolio. Well above average at best. The porters aren't too heavy, the IPA's are unique and creative, the names are top notch and every sip felt like it was personally made by a brew master who has lived in Norfolk their entire life. I can't put it ahead of Chicago as best beer city yet, but I'm also biased to my hometown.

    Next stop on my trip is Baltimore, so those rankings will come out once I leave here on Wednesday.

-TM

     

Power Ranking my Drive from Chicago to Norfolk

 

    I have been feeling increasingly claustrophobic and cooped up in my own apartment lately. I don't work from home anymore, I live at work,  and that is not great for anyone's work/life  balance. So to try and kick the cabin fever I decided to pack up my car, who I have named Natasha and should be referred to as such, and we went out on the road. It seemed a lot of the important people in my life moved out east recently, so I figured I could see everyone in one road trip and work from their apartments on the weekdays.

    However, this road trip started with a big boy of a drive. After a half day of work, I got inside Natasha and hit  I-90 heading out of Chicago. My end destination was Norfolk, VA. That's right kids, daddy had a 13.5 hour drive ahead, not accounting for stops. And I have to say, after absolutely dominating that drive and getting there only 5 minutes later than my GPS originally said I would, I think I have reach Midwestern Dad levels of driving endurance. As soon as I get any good at golf it's over for you bitches.

    After more than half a day on the road, I drove through 5 states if you include starting in Illinois. Some of these states rocked, literally and figuratively, and some of them are named Indiana. Here's my official power ranking of 5 randomly specific US States:

5. Indiana

    Of course Indiana was the worst state I drove through, it might be the worst US state overall. The entire state is under construction, and for the literal 40 miles that it isn't, nobody knows how to fucking drive. I have nothing good to say about Indiana. I wish I could just delete this state from existence and make a new "Greatest Lake."

4. Illinois

    I'm not an Illinois hater, but I am a Chicago traffic hater. I left my apartment at 11 AM on a Wednesday and it STILL took me almost an hour to get out of the city. Now I know this because I aced US Geography in high school and college, but for those of you that don't know, Chicago is only about 20-ish miles long, and I am not on the far north side by any stretch. It should not take me that long to travel that short of a distance. Fuck traffic, I hate it. But other than that Chicago is a very pretty city and I was a little bit sad to leave her.

3. Ohio

    It physically pains me to put Ohio this high on the list, but holy shit southeastern Ohio is actually kinda beautiful. I wouldn't call them mountains because that's the last thing we need is to tell Ohioans that they have beaches and mountains in the same state, but the foothills were beautiful in the early afternoon when I made my way through the Beaverdam area. This was also the part of the country where I saw a man driving his 1980s pickup truck down the interstate with two goddamn stallions just chilling in the bed. That highway also later turned into a regular road with stoplights out of nowhere so honestly fuck that road in general.

2. Virginia

    This is my first destination, so I can't give it too much credit for driving through it. Two knocks right off the bat: there is literally nothing between the state border and  Richmond. I was undoubtedly the only car on the road  and  the only light available for miles for a good two hours. Secondly, I got caught by a giant barge coming into Norfolk, like 20 minutes from my destination, absolute buzzkill and made me realize how exhausted I was. However, the drive down the coast coming into Norfolk is unmatched, even if  I came into town in the middle of the night. The smell of saltwater in the air is heavenly after sitting in a stale ass car for over 12 hours. Highly recommend Norfolk so far too, nice city and they're big obsessed with mermaids.

1. West Virginia 

    I mean holy shit, mountain mama. This state was absolutely beautiful. I'm going to gripe from the start just to get through the negative: climbing mountains in a 6 cylinder Hyundai is incredibly difficult, there were times I couldn't get over 60 MPH and I wanted to absolutely fly through these mountains. Other than that I have nothing but good things to say. 

    One particular point in the trip I wanted to talk about was an full on revelation moment for me. I had always seen on TV and in movies, the towns in West Virginia that were literally built into the mountain, and centered around the gas plant or coal mine in town. But on this drive I realized that shit is real. I was about 30  miles outside of the legendarily named town of Moss, West Virginia. I drop past a sheer drop in the mountain, and there was a town built into the side of it. This town was straight out of the movies, like some "Out of the Furnace" shit. It was a giant coal plant built into the side of the mountain, and the rest of the town of 3-500 was built around it. There was 1 restaurant, maybe 2 gas stations, and a metric ass load of single story ranch homes. It was the coolest town I've ever seen in my life.

    Added bonus-when you drive down the mountains in WV, you can literally take your foot completely away from the pedals and just coast at about 80 MPH down the side of a mountain, absolutely liberating.

    

    I saw so many gorgeous landscapes on this trip. America truly is an amazing country if you just take a look around. Bottom line, take more road trips kids.

-TM

DeAndre Hopkins Just Put Every NFL Agent on Notice

 

A sports agent; one of the most lucrative and opportunity giving jobs in the entire sports industry. People like Scott Boras and Rich Paul have made an absolute killing off the contracts of the players the represent. I remember hearing about Jay-Z becoming an agent and Roc Nation subsequently signed Kevin Durant; and I tried to figure out every possible avenue to becoming a sports agent before I figured  out that I'm really bad at math. 

Nonetheless, being an agent for a high-profile player is the gift that keeps on giving, although maybe less so in the NFL. For some context: MLB agents like Scott Boras make between 4% and 10% of their player's contract value. NBA agents come in at no more than 4% and NFL agents make no more than 3%. 

So despite the fact that NFL agents take the lowest percentage of a player's contract, the Arizona Cardinals' DeAndre Hopkins said "forget that" and structured his new contract by himself. Not only did he negotiate a deal that would keep him in Arizona for the next 5 years, but he made himself the highest paid non-QB in professional football history. Forget an agent, forget sharing contract value, DeAndre Hopkins is one of the best wide receivers in the game right now and he wanted to get his money for himself. 

Absolutely have to applaud the effort, but let's not ignore the trend this might start. It may not happen as much in football, because as we mentioned before, those agents take the smallest cut of any professional sports agent. But NBA and especially MLB agents are getting put on notice. Players are smart, they know  their value and have access to all the stats they need to compare themselves to other players and get the salary they know they deserve. I would not be surprised at all if this starts a trend of players coming into the respective major sports leagues without an agent. 

The NBA provides an easier way to do that; especially for high-profile college and international players, as Twitter does most of the work for them. Social media provides highlights and insight the wasn't nearly as readily available to the public 10 years ago. Baseball will be a bit harder to do just because of the sheer volume of  MLB and MiLB players there are. If you combine that with high school and college-eligible players as well as the international market, most players will need an agent to advocate for them at least until they make it to the show.

The NFL may have the easiest path to making it without an agent however. Sure, for certain positions, or unproven but high ceiling players there is the need for some assistance. But the majority of NFL players are heavily marketed from the time they are in college. NFL execs and scouts know who they are targeting in future drafts at least 3 years ahead. Also, NFL rookie contracts are typically pretty cut and dry based on which round players are drafted in. All of this adds up to a simple contract for players after being marketed for years and subsequently drafted, thereby giving them around 3 years to prove themselves in the league before they can take their stats and use those comparisons to get the contracts they deserve.

I know it's not as simple as this, but I think we will start to see a trend of players getting huge contracts all on their own.

Shoutout to DeAndre Hopkins, lastly, get that money.

-Theo