TimArchy

I got a package from my friend in the states. Two copies of the New Orleans zine Chainbreaker. Two shirts and a sticker from the Sopo Bike Co-op, and a CD from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra. Yesterday I ate at a veg. resturant I haven't eaten at before and while I was paying I got invited to a christmas eve dinner there that night. It was really cool and I talked to the cook for a while (a thai woman who worked at a veg resturant in england for a while before coming home to start this place). Needless to say, the food was amazing.

And I rode my bike today for the first time in two months. I've been having undiagnosable problems with the frame so I quit riding it in October. I've got a new frame in the mail, but being on break and having tons of spare time, I couldn't resist. It was still making all the weird noises, but it felt really good. After riding around town for an hour I stopped at one of the gates to the city. I was just hanging around doing trackstands and backward circles listen to music. A group of Thai kids stopped and watched me for a while. They applauded when I did something cool, but also when I fell off and once when my feel slipped and I racked myself on the top tube.

I finished the night with a bottle of wheat beer and two Trappist ales (the three bottles cost me close to $20 at the grocery store) and a BBQ tofu sandwich from the shop down the street.

So, for being a city with a fixed scene rolling one deep, my christmas wasn't so bad.

But the best part was the complete lack of christmas music.

pitboss

nice! what are you doing in Thailand as far as work? teaching?

Astronomical

Which trappists did you get? Chimay? I recommend the Westmalle Tripel, my new favorite.

Serendipper 

Nice story Kyle...take lots of pics.

When are you`coming home?

xtraspokes

Astronomical,

I don't want to hijack too much, but I'm curious if you could compare Chimay or the Westmalle Tripel to
some brews I'm familiar with?? namely, Paulaner Salvator or Spaten Optimator... (I personally like the Salvator best of these two)

Thanks and Merry Christmas!!

Tod

scimarec

isnt astromomical like 16?

dlandis

If I was the type of person to just put a +1 under a quote I suppose now would be the time.

xtraspokes

If so, he's apparently a well heeled and discriminating "16"

Astronomical

18 in a week, well heeled and discriminating indeed. I can't compare Chimay or Westmalle to the Paulaner Salvatore (I'm looking for a bottle of that myself), but if you've ever had Leffe or any other "abbey ale" the trappists are the gold to their silver, fruitier, funkier, and much more balanced. Pick up as much as you can before the prices go up to far, hops are waaaaay scarce this season.

jmichaeldesign

Paulaner and Spaten are both german breweries using a lager yeast. The trappists are belgians using ale yeast. Your going to get two completely different beers from these.

Lager yeasts ferment very clean leaving behind the flavors of the malt and hops without much else. The German beers are going to be mostly malty flavors with the exception of pilsners.

The belgian yeasts create the most flavors of all yeast strains creating flavors that are most often descibed as peppery, spicy, floral, and/or fruity, and sometimes create funky or sour flavors. Malt flavors are present to balance out the yeast derived flavors (esters), hops are really only used to provide a bit of bitterness to balance the sweetness of the malt. Belgians also often use cane sugar in addition to malt to boost alchohol and ester production.

Belgian beers shouldn't be affected by the hop shortage. They barely use any hops, plus American hop varieties are much more scarce than European ones.

Astronomical

Well then, stocking up on the microbrew IPA's might be a good idea then. But yeh the belgian ales have almost no direct malt flavor or ester (like an english beer, brown ale for example) and a vinuous tinge to them, belgian beers take from farmhouse and lambic brewing and end up very much like wine due to the use of wild yeasts and less "sterile" brewing environments. Much less bitter though thanks to the milder hops added.

By less sterile I mean no stainless steel and tile like your big brewery in america.

In conclusion, think wine.

djeucalyptus

best Christmas story I've heard/read all day. made me happy. and sad I'm stuck in the middle of SFbay-area suburbia at the moment

thanks

TimArchy

Yeah, I'm teaching Math and Physics at an international school. I figured after working in a bike shop for two years with a math degree and a teaching certificate I might as well do something with it.

The wheat beer was Weihenstephaner. Now that I'm looking at the bottles, only one was a trappist, Orval. The other was a Belgian blonde Maredsous.

As exotic as all this sounds, the selection here is really limited. 2 ciders, 3-4 wheat beers, 3-4 belgian/trappist, and a few german beers. Thats pretty much all they import. Of course they have the locals, Chang, Leo, Singha and Tiger. They all taste like PBR to me but they're cheep and good for socializing. I don't drink the good stuff often. A small bottle costs 3x as much as your meal sometimes.

Map tester

Great to finally read about how you are doing. Off your bike for 2 months? My, how low have the mighty fallen.

How about some pictures?

xtraspokes

TimArchy,

In a hurry this morning and didn't wish you a Merry Christmas.... shame on me, thanks for the story!

You other beer carnivores thanks for the lessons!!

xtra

Astronomical

Ah, I've been looking for Orval too.

TimArchy

I don't have many pics yet. Here's one of me hanging out with elephants. I've been told by several people that this elephant camp really treats them well or else I wouldn't support them.




I've got a frame coming in the mail right now so I should be riding everywhere again in a week or so. The weather is amazing for riding right now.

TimArchy

I'll be back in atlanta next summer, but I don't know for how long. I haven't decided if I'm going to stay here another year or head back to the states and get a teaching job.

Charlesbian

be cool if FGSS got launched in thailand cause of you. just dont turn them into UO hipsters :\

takes balls to travel to a country alone, props to you

TimArchy

It'll be a tough job to get people riding fixed here. None of the young people ride bikes. They all have motorbikes. Very few skaters or BMX kids, though I do see a few. Somehow trials riding is fairly popular. There is a group of 10 guys that practice in a park near the river. I've talked to them a few times and I plan to hang out with them more when I get my new frame. Everyone else who rides for fun rides a mountain bike. I see a guy every day on a Klein MTB with full XTR and a SID fork hammering down the road in front of my house on 1.5" slicks. The bike prbably never sees dirt. Doesn't make sense to me. I saw on the Hong Kong Fixed site that there are at least two kids who ride fixed in Bangkok. I'm going to try to get down and ride with them sometime soon.

And before nasty rumors get started about how adventerous I am, I must admit that a good chunk of my family is here. My mom and stepdad moved to Chiang Mai 10 yrs ago as a retirement type thing from their teaching jobs (they still tutor several people each). My sister has been here 5 years teaching at the same school I'm at. I hadn't seen most of my family for 5 years and hadn't had all of them together in one place for 10 years. It was more like going home than getting away.

Of course, if you are looking for a place to live/work outside the US, this is probably easiest place to live I've ever been to.

Serendipper 

cool...have fun ol' buddy