All Hail the Beer Guru!

The subjects of beer and spirituality don’t naturally go together. In this case, however, they are a winning combination.

The Beer Guru is your guide to all things beer.  He features in The Beer Guru’s Guide (available on Amazon and other good book sites.)  Structured as a spoof mind/body/spirit new age book, the book provides a hilarious path of enlightenment for beer lovers who thirst for mystical experiences and the infinite wisdom occasionally bestowed upon the drinkers of the sacred brew.

The book actually contains a lot of fascinating facts about the origins and history of beer as a holy brew (Throughout most of Europe, it was originally brewed in monasteries and abbeys.  There is even an ancient Tibetan tradition of brewing and drinking the beer of enlightenment, upon which the Beer Guru’s teachings may be loosely based.)

Like any sacred text, The Beer Guru’s Guide is chock full of words of wisdom:

• ” If God is omnipresent, he is in your beer. “
• ” After just one bottle, I remembered several previous lives”
• “Reincarnate and come back for another.”
• ” After 18 hours of Tantric Sex, you’ll need a beer.”

Like most new-age gurus, The Beer Guru has an ego the size of a mountain (His personal ambition is to become the world’s most influential spiritual leader.  If he gains enough of a cult following, he might just do it.)

You can check out the book, along with the Beer Guru’s latest blogs, on www.thebeerguru.com.

New Book Asks “Does My Butt Look Big In This Beer?”

Wondering how all those Bud Lights you downed last weekend are going to your waistline?  This book is for you!

“Does My Butt Look Big In This Beer?“ (Gambrinus Media, $12.95) is a handy reference book that contains the Nutritional Values of over 2,000 beers, complete With calorie and carbohydrate contents, Alcohol by Volume (ABV) and Weight Watchers® Points (It’s a great reference guide for anyone on the Weight Watchers, Atkins, or Beach Diets.)

Author Bob Skilnik suggests that savvy customers might deliberately pass by a store display of a favored beer brand not listed in this new book, just because an enterprising competitor took the time to contact Skilnik’s office with the information needed for inclusion in his book.

“Owners from craft breweries like Abita, Alaskan, Flying Dog, Full Sail, Sierra Nevada, Goose Island, the Minhas/Huber Brewery, and many more, have been extremely cooperative with our requests for the nutritional information of their fine products,” Skilnik says.  He says he’s also getting great support from such venerable brewing giants as Anheuser-Busch, Foster’s, Grolsch, Heineken, and more.

“These companies thrive in today’s competitive beer market because they’re one step ahead of what their customers want. Beer drinkers now want access to full nutritional info of their favorite products and have turned to me for help,” Skilnik says.

Regretfully, a combination of federal foot-dragging and head-in-the-sand resistance by some brewers who seem to ignore the nutritional information their customers are looking for on beer labels has made this book somewhat of a struggle.  Skilnik furthermore says he owes a great debt to all of the open-armed, progressive brewers that have made this book possible.

Skilnik hopes that more breweries throughout the world will continue to contact him with information on their products for inclusion in this revolutionary reference book before it goes to print in late November. “I’d really like to see more cooperation from U.S. microbreweries,” he admits, “and get this book into the hands of repentant New Year’s dieters.”

Skilnik says with a laugh. “Think moderation and not deprivation when January rolls around.”

Just In Time For the Election: Anti-Nausea “Pills”

Fearing voters might stay away from the November polls out of dissatisfaction with both McCain and Obama, two Denver ladies are marketing online their capsule-shaped red, white and blue candies as “Anti-Nausea Pills.”

Directions on the label for using Anti-Nausea Pills: “Take one to five pills (it’s just candy) before voting for the Least Offensive Candidate of your choice.”

The gals hope the candies will give people a laugh to ease voter angst over supporting a possibly dubious Presidential candidate. The candies might also remind forgetful voters to cast their ballots.

See why everyone is using the “election aids” at www.vote4bestpresident.com

The Coming Age of Comfort Food?

Epicurious.com speaks of a new age of comfort food.

We all have our comfort foods (Cheap, filling, and satisfying foods such as mac n’ cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, Stovetop stuffing, etc.  If I lost a bundle on my 401(k), I guess I’d be looking for cheap cuisine as well.)

My favorite comfort foods would have to include:

• Burritos
• Pizza
• Mashed potatoes
• Mac n’ Cheese
• Shells With Velveeta Cheese
• Fried Chicken
• Swedish Meatballs
• Chili
• Meatloaf
• Lasagna (Love it even though Doctor says not to eat it. )

What are YOUR favorite comfort foods?  List `em here!

Tired Of The Brown Sugar Bricks? Keep `Em Cold!

Has this ever happened to you?

You pull your box of brown sugar out of the cupboard — and it’s hard as a rock.

Epicurious.com suggests keeping your brown sugar in the freezer (The humidity is supposedly just right — even though using it requires some thawing.)

If you would rather not wait and you have a frozen brown sugar brick on your hands, I would suggest putting it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds (Just enough to thaw and render it pliable, but not long enough to melt it.)