Beer

So there I was, flat on the ground screaming in pain in the middle of Grant Park. It was not my best look.

I’d been doing the post-race shuffle towards bag check, when suddenly my calf buckled with the worst cramp of my life. As I began yelping and draped myself onto a lamp post, a bunch of people swooped in. Cramp? I nodded, eyes closed. Get her some salt. A runner quickly put my finger in a tube of salt and shoved it in my mouth, while a race volunteer stretched out my leg. This is gonna hurt. But hey, free massage! After what seemed like an eternity, the cramp finally subsided, everyone cleared out, and I was left holding an open beer. I was having an AWESOME day.

Hops flowers, a cornerstone ingredient for beer

“I have to start off with a joke, to properly set the tone for this class,” said Mirco Marconi, our lecturer for beer tasting. With a grin, he announced that he would be lecturing on the production process of beer, and that we would be tasting 9 beers today and another 10 beers tomorrow. We were advised to eat a hearty breakfast in the morning.

A cackling rooster call pierced the silence, followed by the sound of quiet laughter. We stood in a courtyard ringed by oppressively institutional gray buildings, and I swiveled my head nervously as a stiff breeze blew through Saluzzo. The giggly presence of two dozen young students had attracted some attention from the residents of this casa di reclusione. In less euphemistic, non-Italian terms, that would be a prison.