In the garage, I feel safe

No one cares about my ways

In the garage, where I belong

No one hears me sing this song

In the garage – Rivers Cuomo

During these trials and tribulations, we have one ballad. One escape from hum-drum and the idea that a racist game show host was elected as the nation’s spokesmodel. This cadence is the construction of a shrine. An homage to beer, and ode to the gateway and the getaway. An Epicureanistic tribute to simple pleasure. The goal: to create a mosaic of inner tranquility and philosophical conversation with friends over smoked meat, strong drink, edifying music, and luxury tobacco. The mechanism: to plaster every square inch of the inner garage with beer bottle labels, beer stickers, coasters and other swag, thus completing a sanctuary.

Through sheer determination, hot water and Oxyclean, I did my due diligence in the bottle de-labeling process. The quagmire of empty amber vessels abandoned after my birthday bottle share, as well as the time spent collecting bottles to fill with my first home brew, combined with every additional bottle that I’ve opened in the last six months. Craft coffee cup sleeves and cigar rings in a hodgepodge composite.

If you think I might be too good to trash-pick beer cans with removable labels, and various craft brew packaging from Chicago alley’s, wrestling away six pack carriers of Lazersnake from mammoth-rats, then you don’t know me well, kind reader. I’m committed to this alter. Salvaging what would otherwise be garbage from the lines of dead soldiers at Dark Lord Day, and swiftly hiding them away in my knapsack. Beer coasters stolen with every split-second window I could manipulate. A regulation size disco ball I found in a gangway. A shelf from Goodwill that shall house an ever changing bottle line up of the top five beers ever opened in the garage.

A patchwork of breweriana and coffee roastery paraphernalia from anywhere and everywhere. Uppers & Downers, Beer Under Glass, FoBAB, Barrel Massacre, Brew Haven. Sacrifices from my personal kitchen bottle shrine. Collages of stickers peeled off the walls at brewery bathrooms spread across the country, from New Orleans to Santa Rosa. Coasters and labels I’ve saved for up to six or seven years, understanding they’d end up somewhere important. Yet not knowing their fate. Until now.

This medley…well, this medley is our swan song.