Nothing says Friday like beer, especially an 8AM German Dunkel! Today’s beer of the week was Hofbrau Dunkel, a fine German dark lager. This is of course a beer that can be found locally, and there’s even a Hofrabu House in Pittsburgh where you can belly up to a mas of the Hofbrau of your choice. Ironically enough the “little brother beerbuzz” will be celebrating his birthday at the Pittsburgh Hofbrau House TONIGHT!. So anyone in the neighborhood, be sure to buy him a litre on me.
Most of today’s show focused on air-safety and air-travel in these post-9/11 days. Of course when I say air-safety I specifically mean, how to “safely” get your beer home. Now as any of my regular readers will know, I always advocate my favorite beer-relocation practice of bringing the beer home in my belly. In lieu of that, and assuming you don’t have the Chip-the-beer-guy-beer-suitcase-version-2.0, there are ways. First as Rodger found out the hard way, you cannot bring beer (or any liquid over 3oz) in your carry on. Now I’d love to see if they’d allow you to stop in the security line and pound a bottle or two rather than throw them out….but that test will have to wait for later. So this leaves checked luggage. Plain and simple…throw out as many clothing items as you can and secure your beer in the center of your suitcase, wrap each bottle in anything you can and don’t let bottles touch each other. I do not advocate wrapping the bottles in a zip lock bag in case they leak. This is defeatists and assumes it WILL break. Keep a positive attitude, assume it won’t break, and also assume any impact great enough to smash a bottle will certainly destroy a zip-lock baggie. Wrap your beer with one fact in mind. Would this bottle survive if I were to drop (make that throw) my suitcase down a flight of steps? Would it survive if I dropped it on any one of the 6 sides? All too often we assume a) our luggage will stay upright, b) our luggage won’t have 200lbs of other people’s luggage on top of it, and c) the gorilla in the back room won’t throw, kick and stomp it. As you know these aren’t safe assumptions. Aim to pack your beer in the center of your suitcase and centered on all sides. Just because you put the bottles at what you think is the bottom, doesn't mean the TSA agrees with that definition. Finally and most importantly…enjoy your beer BEFORE you come home. Nothing is better that drinking a beer from a state or country IN that state or country. Cheers and enjoy your beer-travels.
PS after re-reading this I think Samantha Brown & Rick Steeves would be proud)
I've bought beer home in my luggage many times. It's much harder trying to stay under the 50lb weight limit than packing them correctly in my opinion. I've found that 6 bombers/750s is pretty much the limit with enough clothing left to wrap and pad. Those damn champagne bottles are heavy.
ReplyDeleteGood call Josh. In these days of normal checked luggage costing $20 per bag, even one overweight bag can cost you more than the beer is worth. We did try to spend some time gauging the weight of our bags with cvarious combinations of bottles to see generally what would fit and stay under 50lbs. No easy trick as you said, different bottles can weigh drastically different weights, especially the oddball sizes you can find in other countries. I think the luggage scale is a good idea but you'd be amazed at how they do not match the ticket counter scale. Our last trip out west my bag came in at 48.8 and mrs beerbuzz came in at 50.0 even...I swear the Alesmith speedway stout weighed more than two bottles of Pliny.
ReplyDeleteIf you've got size 13 like me stick the bottles in a pair of sneakers then wrap them in clothing and put them in your suitcase. that has always worked for me, with liquor and beer bottles.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon...although I'm not sure I'd get much beyond a 12oz in my shoes. We've tried bubblewrap and that does work, but it still needs additional protection. The shoes aren't a bad idea for at least two bottles.
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