It had been kind of a long day following a decidedly long night. That's what happens when Kyle Kastranec comes to town. A beer break with Alvin Diec at the Office of Brothers seemed like the move. We started with Austin Beerworks' Hell Badger IPA because a) I'd never tried it and b) Diec had a pile of them in his fridge since his very talented friend Alana from Helms Workshop designed the packaging.
After that first beer, he brought it out. But first, an important clarification.
No one ever seems to know when Alvin Diec is joking. If I may quote myself:
“I was just excited Ian was willing to do something that looked really ugly,” Diec tells me when I ask him about the design. “That’s one of our specialties—making bad things. Because we don’t know how to make good things. So every time someone asks us to make bad things, it ends up working out really well.”
Diec has a unsettlingly calm, wry way of speaking that makes it impossible to tell when, if ever, he’s being serious. “I think it’s the greatest can of all time,” he tells me later in the same conversation.
So when he texts me saying, for instance, "I believe we have Kirkland Light at the moment," it's kind of a toss-up. Is he being weird for fun? Possibly. Has he purchased a 48-pack of Costco's finest and is looking forward to serving me some crispy suds? Also possibly! Maybe he just wants to see if I'm a man that can do both. Reader, I am.
