"It's my profound honor to introduce Trainbeer's first foreign correspondent, Dirk VanderHart.  In a recent trip to Europa, VanderHart took Trainbeer to new heights: three trains, three countries, three beverages.  At no point was the intrepid reporter certain this feat was legal, but as he pointed out: ""They speak different languages there, Greg, and I refuse to play that game. Absent any standard signage depicting a martini glass struck tragically through by a teetotaling red line, I assumed a tacit permission to drink and muse."" This is the first in a three-part series.  By Dirk VanderHart Paris, France — RER B line from The Chatelet to Charles de Gaulle AirportBrigand, a Belgian beer, recalls a time when swarthy, illiterate men roamed the forest roads, terrorizing passing caravans of duchesses (presumably wooed after brief bouts in captivity, related to us through a montage showing both parties — ruggedly handsome brigand and fair duchess — gradually letting down their guard and learning, once again, to love). As you can see from the bottle there were fire arrows and shit. Men stood for something greater than mugging for the upcoming election. France being the epicenter of a certain romantic sensibility, and also in the heat of a fiery election year, all this was on my mind as I departed the City of Light for a final hurrah in Spain. It was hot in the train, I remember, and we were seated across from a pair of Irish girls who I guess were about 20. They'd met some Americans in Paris, evidently, and were great fans of the Texas accent. The beer was sweet, in the Belgian style. Also potent (9%) and full. Quite like a large slice of alcoholic wheat cake, if I'm being technical. I drank solemnly, listening to those vapid Irish lilts, swaying with the train car, sweating profusely sans deodorant. Like a Frenchman. No, like a Brigand."
{"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "38", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto"}