Kentucky Bound

Beautiful Kentucky Lake

I'll be heading to the South Central United States later this week for an extended vacation on the shores of Kentucky Lake.  It's a beautiful place, wooded and green with inlets and waterways weaving in and out of two massive bodies of connected water.  It's become an (extended) family tradition to spend a week there with friends every other summer, leaning hard on the generosity of the Lewis family, who graciously invite us to stay there and enjoy their vacation home.  The trip is mostly about connecting with family and friends in a place devoid of airs and expectations.  We swim and boat on the lake, cook communal meals, relax in the cabin, watch the kids play, and generally just unwind.  This year there are five families going-seventeen people in all!  


As you might expect, we also drink some beer while there.  Traditionally, each person selects a brand of American Lager to drink.  This helps distinguish who beers belong to and facilitates consumption at "vacation levels."  In the past, I've always gone with Busch.  It is pretty tasteless and smooth, with a nice solid 4.7% ABV (higher than most others in the same category) and its irreverent slogan is somehow endearing ("Cold As A Mountain Stream, Smooth As Its Name").  This year I got curious about craft beer in Kentucky so I did a little research, figuring there might be a local brew I could pick up instead of mass-produced, soulless swill.  The results are a little discouraging.  The latest comparative statistics are from 2009 and list 6 total breweries in the entirety of the Bluegrass State; California boasted 238 in that same study.  Granted there have been some changes in the past few years with more breweries opening and even more planned.  The Brew Grass Trail website keeps an updated list of craft breweries in KY, but there's not much where we're going.  I guess I'll be sticking with Busch again this year.  We have an equation that we use to figure out how much beer to purchase en route to the lake house, as it is located in a dry county and you have to plan ahead:  

                  k

[d x b] x r  =  h

where:

d = days in KY
b = number of beers you'd drink daily in ideal conditions
r = the responsibility factor (expressed as a decimal number less than 1 to indicate % fewer beers you would consume if you were supposed to be "responsible")
k = exponential value to be assessed in relation to r determined by the number of kids you have
h = beer number representing your happy place

I ended up with 84 beers.  It's going to be a good vacation...