Posts tagged: world
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Next time you’re at the hospital, be on notice: The person taking down your information and admitting you for treatment might not be a hospital employee but a staffer from a debt-collection agency.
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson filed suit against a debt-collection agency called Accretive Health in January after an employee left a laptop containing personal information about for 23,500 patients in a rental car last July. Swanson’s lawsuit alleges that Accretive Health’s access to patient records violates federal privacy laws.
The case brings attention to the little-known practice of hospital companies embedding debt collectors in their facilities, the New York Times reports.
Americans are being subject to increasingly harsh tactics by debt collectors seeking to recoup money for their clients by using tactics including threats, insults and lies, recent research shows. Lisa Lindsay, an Illinois woman recovering from breast cancer, endured an arrest and a brief stay in jail over an unpaid $280 hospital bill that wasn’t even hers.
Hospitals are under increasing financial pressure as health care costs escalate and payment rates from Medicare, Medicaid and private health insurance companies become smaller. And largely because of a decades-old federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency medical care to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay, hospitals take on tens of billions of dollars in bad debt each year. In 2010, hospitals were stuck with $39.3 billion in unpaid bills, which amounted to 5.6 percent of their total expenses, according to the American Hospital Association.
Cash-hungry hospitals aren’t the only obstacle to patients’ getting the health care they need. Health insurance premiums continue to rise even as benefits get more meager, joblessness and the sluggish economy are causing many Americans to go without medical care or become uninsured, and the size of hospital bills themselves can be impossible to predict.
Anxiety about dollars and cents has driven hospitals into the arms of aggressive debt collectors, according to the Times:
As a growing number of hospitals struggle under a glut of unpaid bills, they are turning to companies like Accretive. To win promised savings, all hospitals have to do is turn over the management of their front-line staffing — ranging from patient registration to scheduling and billing — and their back-office collection activities. Accretive says it has such arrangements with some of the country’s largest hospital systems to help reduce their costs.
Accretive Health works with dozens of U.S. hospitals, including Fairview Health Services and North Memorial Health Care in Minnesota, according to the Times and a press release from Swanson’s office. Debt collectors are instructed to ask patients for credit cards or checks when they arrive at an emergency room seeking treatment, the Times reports.
Hospitals across the U.S. are trying new methods of avoiding unpaid bills. HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain, and other companies have started demanding upfront payments as high as $350 from people in emergency rooms, Kaiser Health News reported in February. In 2011, about 80,000 people walked out of HCA emergency rooms being getting any medical care because of the company’s $150 fee, according to Kaiser Health News.
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Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) pushed a measure that would have blocked new federal rules considered friendly to labor unions.
WASHINGTON — In a modest victory for labor groups, a measure that would have blocked new federal rules considered favorable to unions failed Tuesday in the Senate, with Republican lawmakers and business groups unable to bring Democrats on board.
The failed bill featured an unusual legislative strategy, known as a “resolution of disapproval.” Pushed by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), it would have scuttled rules proposed last year by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that streamline the union election process, likely making it easier for workers to join unions and harder for businesses to convince them not to. Strongly opposed by business groups and many conservative lawmakers, the new rules are set to go into effect later this month.
Enzi’s measure failed along party lines, 45 to 54.
In addition to facing a White House veto, Enzi’s measure needed 60 votes to move forward and was never expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate. Nonetheless, it served as another rebuke by Republicans of the federal labor board, an agency that it has pummeled for more than a year as overly friendly to unions under President Barack Obama. Unions said the new NLRB rules will make it harder for businesses to delay elections and union-bust, while businesses say the rules won’t give them enough time to educate workers on unionization and will lead to “ambush elections.”
For the GOP, Enzi’s measure also had the added benefit of forcing some Democrats facing re-election to either buck their party or cast a vote against the interests of several powerful industry trade groups. Among the lobbies that flagged the measure as a “key vote” were the National Association of Manufacturers, the Associated General Contractors of America, the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National Restaurant Association, according to Enzi’s speech on the House floor Tuesday.
The AFL-CIO labor federation applauded the Senate vote, calling the measure a “senseless and time-wasting” attack on workers.
“Politicians who care most about divisiveness and political payback were sent a clear message of disapproval today,” Alison Omens, an AFL-CIO spokeswoman, said in a statement. “A majority of Senators voted for working people to have a more fair election process that can help achieve economic security.”
Enzi sparred Tuesday on the Senate floor with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a strong proponent of unions and a critic of Enzi’s resolution. Calling the rules an “attack on small businesses,” Enzi argued that the NLRB was overstepping its bounds and “stacking the odds against” employers.
“This is one of the most important votes we’ve had on labor issues this Congress,” Enzi said. “We need to let the NLRB know that their duty is to be a referee … Their job is not to tip the scale in favor of one party or another.”
Harkin countered that the rules were commonsense and overdue, arguing that the long lead-time before union elections has given businesses too much time to stall or use union-busting techniques.
“These are very modest rules,” Harkin said. “This is not anything overwhelming, but it is a step in the right direction to make sure that we level the playing field and don’t have these undue delays, where the management can intimidate” workers.
Among other streamlining measures, the election rules will define the amount of time parties can litigate before and after an election, allow for the electronic filing of election documents and defer litigation on voter eligibility until after an election. The NLRB declined to comment on Tuesday, but the previous board chairwoman, Wilma Liebman, explained last year that the rules are meant to modernize an outmoded system.
“One of the most important duties of the NLRB is conducting secret-ballot elections to determine whether employees want to be represented by a labor union,” Liebman said. “Resolving representation questions quickly, fairly, and accurately has been an overriding goal of American labor law for more than 75 years.”
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President Obama appears on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” Tuesday night, and he taped the segment that afternoon at the University of North Carolina after he gave a speech there about student loans.
According to pool reports, the president came out from behind a curtain to “slow-jam the news” to The Roots, Fallon’s house band.
“I’m president Barack Obama, and I, too, want to slow-jam the news,” the president said.
Mr. Obama then held a microphone and described the importance of keeping student loan interest rates low, while the band behind him played a moody, bluesy background music. Fallon came in with his own alternating riffs about Stafford loans.
Background singer serenaded Obama as “the POTUS with the most-est.”
Obama spoke politely about the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.
“I’ve met him, but we’re not friends,” he said. “His wife is lovely.” He added that Romney “seems like somebody who cares about his family.”
He also had only good things to say about the Secret Service, which has brought him unwanted attention after 11 agents were caught hiring prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia.
“The secret service, these guys are incredible,” Obama said. “They protect me, they protect our girls. A couple of knuckleheads shouldn’t detract from that they do. What they were thinking, I don’t know. That’s why they’re not there anymore.”
The president was a good sport when Fallon surprised him with a college-age photo of him.
“Notice the afro,” Obama said.
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We wonder if Nick Gruber has his boyfriend on speed dial for situations like this.
TMZ reports that Gruber, the 22-year-old on-again, off-again boyfriend of designer Calvin Klein, has been arrested for cocaine possession. The former model, who has been linked to the 69-year-old designer since 2010, was caught when police came to his New York home early this morning.
The cops arrived after receiving a call that Gruber assaulted a man; but when they did a strip search, TMZ says, they also found that Gruber had coke on him. Now the young model is in police custody and waiting to make his phone call to Calvin (that second part we’re just speculating).
While Gruber would certainly not be the first fashion type to get caught with cocaine (we can think of, oh, dozens more), anything involving Gruber and his much-older boyfriend tends to the headlines. The May-December couple (who may or may not have split this past January) made headlines in 2010 when Gruber was only 20 years old (and when his rumored gay porn pics were uncovered). Since then, the pair has celebrated Nick’s 21st birthday together, walked red carpets and even had a few major PDA moments.
Now Gruber is enduring another very public moment — TMZ has a photo of him being led into a cop car. Will he get off scot-free? Unclear for now. But in the meantime, see pics of Klein and Gruber below in happier times… and head to TMZ.com to read more.
December 2011 at the “Young Adult” premiere
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Some might think meditation is for the Buddhists, but it turns out, it’s for the lemurs. Photographer Sebastien Degardin caught this lemur meditating with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees at the Parc Paradiso nature reserve in Mons, Belgium.
“I was gobsmacked when I saw this lemur meditating,” Degardin said in the photo caption provided to The Huffington Post.
“No matter how close I got he didn’t stop,” Degardin told The Sun of the meditating lemur. He didn’t even look up as I moved in for a close-up — he was so spaced out.”
See the photos for yourself below:
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violence still ‘unacceptable,’ tells UN 10 minutes ago via web
By Juan O. Tamayo
Cuba’s most aggressive dissident, José Daniel Ferrer García, freed only last spring after eight years in prison, has declared a hunger strike to protest his three weeks in police custody without charges, his wife reported Monday.
Ferrer’s wife, Belkis Cantillo, told human rights activists that during her visit to Ferrer in a state security interrogation center in eastern Santiago de Cuba he told her, “they are killing me slowly” before a guard abruptly cut off the visit.
The dissident quickly shouted that he was going on a hunger strike, said Havana human rights activists Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz, who noted that Cantillo telephoned him around 1 p.m. Monday, shortly after the prison visit.
Cantillo’s home and cellular phones appeared to be blocked, and El Nuevo Herald could contact her as of late Monday, but blogger Yoani Sánchez also Tweeted that Cantillo had reported her husband’s hunger strike.
Ferrer, 41, has been a thorn in the communist government’s side over the past year, organizing almost weekly protest marches in his hometown of Palmarito del Cauto and nearby Palma Soriano, 18 miles from Santiago, which drew unusually harsh police crackdowns.
He founded the dissident Cuban Patriotic Union and worked closely with Ladies in White in eastern Cuba as they were repeatedly detained while trying to attend Sunday masses in the Santiago Cathedral and the Virgin of Charity basilica in the nearby village of El Cobre.
Ferrer was one of the 75 peaceful dissidents arrested in a 2003 crackdown known as Cuba’s Black Spring, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Cuba branded them as “mercenaries” on the U.S. payroll.
Cuban ruler Raúl Castro agreed in a 2010 dialogue with Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino to free the last 52 of the 75 still in jail. Virtually all agreed to go into exile in Spain with their relatives, but Ferrer and 11 others insisted in remaining in Cuba.
Ferrer and 42 other dissidents were arrested April 2 during street protests in Palmarito and Palma. The others were freed hours later, but Ferrer was transferred to the provincial capital. The Castro government has made no public comment on his arrest.
Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, last week added Ferrer to its list of “prisoners of conscience, detained only for peacefully exercising their right to free speech,” and expressing concern that he might be forced to serve the rest of his 25-year sentence.
Sánchez Santa Cruz said Cantillo told him that the guard cut short her visit when Ferrer began to make political statements, because only family issues are supposed to be discussed during such meetings.
Cantillo described Ferrer as having lost much weight and quoted him as saying, “They are killing me slowly” in a reference to the notorious swarms of mosquitoes that plague the state security interrogation center, the human rights activist added.
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Twenty-five individuals, many of them rappers associated with one of the Bay Area’s largest entertainment labels known as “Thizz Entertainment,” have been arrested as part of a major nationwide drug trafficking ring focused on Ecstasy, according to a federal prosecutor.
Agents seized about 45,000 Ecstasy pills, 4 pounds of crack cocaine, a half pound of heroin and $200,000 in suspected drug profits, and forfeited about 230 acres of property valued at about $1 million. The suspects, from Vallejo, Stockton, Oakland, Fairfield, Los Angeles, New York and Oklahoma City, were arrested Thursday, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said.
The investigation, led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, uncovered a network of drug distributors centered in Vallejo’s Crest neighborhood, across Highway 37 from the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom theme park.
Check back for more details.
Contact Matthias Gafni at 925-952-5026. Follow him at Twitter.com/mgafni.
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AP
Customers enter a Blockbuster video store in Dallas.
advertisement
What is left of Blockbuster is moving to Colorado.
The video rental company is moving its worldwide headquarters from McKinney to Douglas County, Colo.
The satellite television provider Dish Network Corp., which bought Blockbuster almost a year ago, also is based in Colorado.
Dish said Monday that Blockbuster’s move will bring more than 150 management positions to the Denver area over the next five years.
Gov. John Hickenlooper said Dish already employs nearly 5,000 people along the Front Range in Colorado.
Posted Tuesday, Apr 24, 2012 - 8:49 AM CDT
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Report: Justice Center inmate’s death was a homicide 27 minutes ago via bitly
Ned Evans: Recent Paintings | A master of color and texture, Evans effortlessly integrates fabric, acrylic paints, and differing surface finishes to create complex compositional structures. The subtle tonal and spatial variations splinter the picture plane with light-infused color. Incorporating both high art & folk art traditions with his use of fabric applied to canvas-covered panel in a quilt-like pattern; he then proceeds to paint on top in layers with abstract, linear, geometric patterns which hint to ancient African, Native American and Central American forms. Evans’ titles allude to ancient cultures such as “Gunga,” “Samarra,” and “Gamba,” furthering the syncretism in his work.
After nearly five decades of surfing and painting, a symbiosis occurs between the two, a deeply interwoven relationship. A “surfing cowboy,” the artist’s love of the desert and the sea provide abundant source material for his sun-drenched palette.
Ned Evans: Recent Paintings opens April 28 at William Turner Gallery
Kelly Berg: Amazonia | In her recent series of paintings entitled “Amazonia,” a controlled chaos emerges from the overall compositions which are formed by intricate series of acrylic and ink layers. Through her painting process, Berg is interested in expanding the language of abstraction through the use of pattern, shapes, and pictorial imagery, including self-portraits.
In reaction to the current state of our world where one is constantly receiving an overload of visual stimuli through television screens, billboards, the internet, and social media, these paintings capture the process of sorting through this imagery from an autobiographical point of view. The paintings act as metaphors for excavation and invite the viewer in to explore and uncover the many kaleidoscopic layers that echo the many cultural influences that they’ve been drawn from.
Kelly Berg: Amazonia opening reception is Sunday, May 29 at Frank Pictures
Thomas Wrede: Real Landscapes | Wrede’s photographs from this series are actuality manipulations of landscapes. By adding artificial details into real nature he creates a staged scene that looks authentic at first. For the observer it becomes difficult to see what is actually real and what is unreal. “I see the world as a kind assembly kit, a grand stage, as image and simulacrum,” notes Wrede. He observes how artificial nature is received in the same way as real nature; a subject well-known in German philosophy. Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Hegel studied the dialectic relation to nature. Wrede thereby continues this German tradition as a photographer, questioning our perception of nature.
Thomas Wrede: Real Landscapes runs through May 26 at Kopeikin Gallery
Tama Hochbaum + Patti Oleon: Photographs and Paintings | Originally from New York, Tama Hochbaum currently lives and works in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For the past several years she has used a soft focus, monochromatic palette and quasi-cubist compositions to offer up the sense impressions of her immediate surroundings and family. In this body of work she has turned her lens inward, constructing something of a dream journal of her vigilance in caring for her mother in her battle with old age and early stage Alzheimer’s. Deeply personal, this imagery captures at once the struggle to hold on to memory along with a certain willingness to let memory fade. Train journeys record a receding past; self-portraits become an overlay of ancestors; even an evening in front of the television provides an umbilical link to a familial history. Using dance as a metaphor, Hochbaum addresses the most difficult of questions, and in the process affirms her place in an ever-shifting continuum.
Patti Oleon works from manipulated photographic interiors to paint deftly executed oils, often constructed along a mirror symmetry. Her work might be described in short hand as romantic photo-realism. She currently lives and works in San Francisco and has shown in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Portland, though her exhibition history ties her closely to Los Angeles and includes past shows at Lora Schlesinger, Carl Berg, Angles, and Roy Boyd Galleries.
Tama Hochbaum + Patti Oleon opens April 28 at George Lawson Gallery
For the most comprehensive calendar of art events throughout Los Angeles go to Artweek.LA.
Follow Bill Bush on Twitter: www.twitter.com/artweekla
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“If you could make male mortality rates the same as female rates, you would do more good than curing cancer.” — Randolph M. Nesse, M.D
When I was 5 years old and my father was 42, he tried to commit suicide. The stresses of trying to earn a living and provide for his family during difficult economic times overwhelmed him. Though he didn’t die physically, he was crippled emotionally and our lives were never the same. I grew up wondering what happened to my father and to so many other wounded fathers.
According to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year more than 36,000 people kill themselves. Over 29,000 (about 80 percent) are male. Several times that number attempt suicide.
But suicide isn’t the only way men’s lives are cut short. “Up to 80 percent of all illnesses are stress-induced,” says Woodson Merrell, M.D., chairman of the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center.[1] Although stress impacts everyone, men are particularly vulnerable.[2] According to social scientist Dr. Thomas Joiner, “Males experience higher mortality rates than females at all stages of life from conception to old age.”[3]
Statistics from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that men have a higher death rate for nine of the 10 leading causes of death (numbers are deaths per 100,000 population):
“Over 330,000 lives would be saved in a single year in the U.S. alone if men’s risk of dying was as low as women’s,” says University of Michigan researcher, Daniel J. Kruger, PhD. “Being male is now the single largest demographic factor for early death,” says Kruger’s colleague, Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.
Do you know of other resources you believe could help save men’s lives? Let’s work together to make them available to men and the women who love them.
Here’s my simple idea: We know stress kills, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If we can reduce men’s risk of death to the same level as women’s, we can save nearly a million men within three years. Let’s get started. Please comment on this blog post with your idea or resource. You can also contact me directly at Jed@MenAlive.com.
For moer by Jed Diamond, click here.
For more on mental health, click here.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
References:
[1] Merrell, Woodson with Merrell, Kathleen (2008). The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up your Health and Feel 10 Years Younger. New York: Free Press, p. 21.
[2] Courtenay, Will. (2011). Dying to Be Men: Psychosocial, Environmental, and Biobehavioral Directions in Promoting the Health of Men and Boys. New York: Routledge, p. 3-4.
[3] Joiner, Thomas. (2011). Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men’s Success. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, p. 7
Follow Jed Diamond on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MenAliveNow
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After a months-long Facebook campaign that resulted in an outpouring of donations from animal lovers all over the world, staff members at CATS Cradle Shelter Rescue and Adoption in Fargo, North Dakota were able to arrange a life-saving surgery for Corky, a rescue kitten born with leg deformities.
During the 5-hour surgery performed on Thursday, April 5, Dr. Dan Burchill at Casselton Veterinary Services in North Dakota, worked to correct a rare congenital condition called “Bilateral Arthrogryposis of the Tarsus,” which causes the legs to develop backwards and criss-crossed.
“Dr. Burchill is our hero. He basically invented this surgery for Corky,” Cat’s Cradle co-founder Gail Ventzke told the UK Daily Sun. “He’s fallen for Corky, too. He comes in on his days off to personally change Corky’s bandages because he doesn’t want anyone else to touch him.”
Ventzke told The Huffington Post that she and fellow CATS Cradle Co-Founders Amber Schaffer and Carol Stefonek discovered Corky last year while visiting an animal pound in Moorhead, Minnesota. The three were picking up two other cats at the pound when employees asked if they were interesting in taking at a look at a third cat that they “just had to see for themselves.”
They had no hesitation in rescuing Corky from the pound, where he was likely to be euthanized. Ventzke said they took him to North Dakota State University in order to diagnose his condition and then began contacting local vets and animal surgeons, many of whom were hesitant to treat the cat.
Their search eventually led them to Dr. Burchill, who consulted with a number of orthopedic surgeons before agreeing to perform a complicated leg surgery on Corky, which involved placing pins in his bones to reorient the legs and cutting the cat’s Achilles tendons.
“The big deciding factor [in whether to perform the surgery] was whether he was neurologically okay, so that he could learn to train himself to walk after the surgery,” Ventzke told The Huffington Post.
The surgery took longer than expected and Corky had to be given strong pain medications, according to CATS Cradle. Ventzke said that Corky is making a slow but steady recovery at the animal hospital, and is likely in store for a six month recovery period involving daily therapy.
CATS Cradle has released new footage of Corky learning to move around on his new legs, still heavily bandaged from procedure.
“He is taking steps, but he not walking like a normal cat,” Ventzke said. “He has a ways to go before he takes off walking. He does have some rotary motion but not to the point where he walks — he’ll take three or four steps at a time and then drag himself. But he’s slowly teaching himself — he’s going to therapy every single day.”
In the meantime, staffers are trying to raise money to cover costs associated with the $2,500 surgery and Corky’s recovery. Anyone who wishes to donate can visit the shelter’s webpage.
Check out a video of Corky moving around after surgery, above, and a slideshow of Corky below, courtesy of Cat’s Cradle CATS Cradle Shelter Rescue and Adoption:
Photo courtesy CATS Cradle Rescue and Adoption
Photo courtesy CATS Cradle Rescue and Adoption
Photo courtesy CATS Cradle Rescue and Adoption
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If you want good service before, during, and after your office visit, refraining from “complaining” is bound to help. This is not always easy, especially if you’re in pain or you have other appointments and the doctor is running late, but usually he or she has a good reason, such as an emergency. You are a patient, so be patient. (If you believe that your doctor or dentist habitually overschedules, however, it’s okay to say something to the staff — or find another doctor or dentist.)
Here are some other tips for making your office visits go as smoothly as possible:
• Plan your appointments in advance. Add your annual and repeat visits to your calendar. (I like to schedule all my annual checkups during my birthday month to treat myself to good health.)
• Write down any questions you may have ahead of time, and bring paper and a pen for taking notes. Medical professionals always seem to be in a hurry, but it’s important to ask them questions and make note of the answers. Be proactive about your health: Don’t be a passive patient.
• Don’t show up late. If you have new insurance or your address has changed, arrive 10 minutes early to handle paperwork.
• When seeing a new doctor, show up at least 15 minutes early. You’ll need to fill out a form when seeing a new doctor, so don’t forget your driver’s license, insurance information, and your medical history or any information on your medical history you have available.
• If you think you might be contagious, be considerate of others. Don’t shake hands with anyone if you think you have a cold or the flu. And any time you cough or sneeze, be careful to cover your mouth.
• If you have an emergency, call ahead. When you feel you need to see a doctor or dentist right away, don’t just show up without an appointment. Most offices have more than one medical professional, and by alerting them ahead of time the staff can plan for you to be seen by someone else if your regular doctor or dentist is unavailable.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You should be able to ask your doctor or dentist anything about your medical condition and your treatment, and that goes for details about medications: how much to take and for how long, should they be taken with other medications (and if so, which ones), what are the side effects, and so on. This visit may be your one time to do this for the year!
• Be polite to the office staff. They control access to the doctor or dentist, so they can be your best friends!
Lisa Mirza Grotts is a recognized etiquette expert, an on-air contributor, and the author of A Traveler’s Passport to Etiquette. She is a former director of protocol for the city and county of San Francisco and the founder and CEO of The AML Group (www.AMLGroup.com), certified etiquette and protocol consultants. Her clients range from Stanford Hospital to Cornell University and Levi Strauss. She has been quoted by Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. To learn more about Lisa, follow her on www.Twitter.com/LisaGrotts and www.Facebook.com/LisaGrotts.
Follow Lisa Mirza Grotts on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LisaGrotts
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I recently had the pleasure of attending the 5th Annual Cask Ale Festival at the General Sutter Inn in beautiful Lititz, PA. Lititz is a charmer of a town, bursting at the seams with antique shops, primitive craft boutiques, bric-a-brac stores, and a variety of other establishments where you can stimulate the economy.
The General Sutter Inn is located on the square and the historic property is ideal for private parties, a fine dining experience, or a weekend away in the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. They have a patio, various dining areas, an attached pub called Bulls Head Public House, inn-style rooms, and a ballroom, where the Cask Ale Festival is held. The history of the General Sutter Inn is a fascinating read and the new RockLititz penthouse suites are an amazing collection of music-themed rooms created in cooperation with Tait Towers, Clare Global and Atomic Design.
I like the way this festival is set up because it encourages relaxed enjoyment of beer as opposed to rapid consumption. Many beer festivals have three or four hour blocks of time where you follow cattle chutes from brewery to brewery and pour as many samples down your gullet as possible in a short time period so you feel you got your money’s worth. Here, you purchase tokens at 50 cent increments and pay for each beer as you go. Each token sheet costs $20 and for me, that meant I was able to enjoy a half-pint of five different cask ales. Fantastic! You have a choice between a half- and full-pint. Each ale costs a certain amount, the half-pint obviously costing less. I always go with the half-pint glass because some of these brews have a high ABV and I want to try several without becoming too intoxicated. You’ll also receive a sheet listing each ale available on cask with its description and how much it will cost.
There are varying themes for the festivals. One offered all English ales and the most recent event had casks from breweries starting with the letter “s” in celebration of Spring. When you’ve chosen the beer you want, you take your glass and token sheet to the server at the cask ale tables. They pour your choice and check off how many tokens you used for the glass. There is a pub menu with food if you get hungry and I can personally recommend the Scotch Egg and Bulls Head Burger. I arrived at the festival on Saturday around 1:00 p.m. and it was quiet because not many people had arrived yet, but as the day goes on it gets quite busy and seating in the ballroom can be difficult to find. There are a variety of other locations to find seating if the ballroom tables are all occupied.
The ballroom has high ceilings with gorgeously detailed crown molding. There are three large paneled windows facing the street that have elegant half-moon stained glass sections at the top. Ornate and glossy chandeliers are mounted over tables holding the casks and a hardwood floor. The music was ideal for a quiet afternoon taking tasting notes, with artists like José González, The Cure and Iron & Wine. Make sure to head down to Bulls Head Public House after you’ve sampled the cask ales to check out the excellent selection of craft beer available. If you’re lucky, you may even bump into Lady Gaga.
The cask ales I had were Sly Fox Gang Aft Agley Scotch Ale, St. Boniface Hegemony Stout, Southern Tier 2x IPA (my favorite), St. Boniface 3# IP and Sixpoint Otis Stout. What would you want to try with a $20 token sheet? What are your favorite local beer fests?
Follow Amber DeGrace on Twitter: www.twitter.com/amberdegrace
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