Input from blog readers please; and more Monday musing

If you read blogs and don’t write a blog then your answer to the question Alan McLeod asks, “What If I Posted A Series Of Posts For A Fee?” will likely be read with great interest by Alan and others who write blogs.

Go. Comment.

Otherwise, a few links I’ve collected in recent weeks and haven’t managed to passing along.

* Alaskan Brewing has finalized its biofuels project. Soon it will be three years since I wrote about Alaskan getting its mash filter press online. There’s a bottom line here beyond the financial bottom line. This is good for the Alaskan environment.

* Best of the rest, I guess. The explanation Livability came up with for how it picked its “Top 10 Beer Cities” could be more illuminating. “Most beer lovers already know about the big beer cities. The keg has been tapped on places like Portland, Asheville, Fort Collins, NYC, and Chicago. What we’ve been brewing is a list of places beer nuts might miss. These are cities where great beer is being made and more importantly it’s being enjoyed, even celebrated.” No. 1 on this list of Albuquerque. For the record, I’d rather be drinking beer right now in Albuquerque than Asheville, but that’s my personal bias. However, Asheville has a population of 83,393 and Albquerque’s is 448,607, so I am struggling with the concept of “big.”

* Tableside whole-hop infusions. “Here’s how it works: Order any Bull & Bush (a Denver brewpub) beer on tap and then pick one of five hops varietals grown by Jack Rabbit Hill Hops in the Western Slope town of Hotchkiss. The beer will be served in a French press with the crumbled hops cones added. The customer can then choose how long to wait before pouring the beer and tasting the effect.”

This is going to result in a lot of crappy beer experiences. But I predict the idea has legs.

7 thoughts on “Input from blog readers please; and more Monday musing”

  1. The pub I most often frequent, was given a “hop infuser” by a brewery (of whom I don’t remember which) to use with there beer, a while back. The bartender did the infusing, but I don’t remember it being an earth shattering experience. In fact, I’m pretty sure the beer it was meant to go with was an IPA, so re=hopping an already hoppy beer may have been a little redundant. I haven’t seen the contraption since.

  2. Thanks for picking the idea up. It is a very varied and interesting response so far.

    As for “big” – in the same vein, can 415,000 square miles actually be “local“?

  3. How much of the flavor difference with the “Hop Infusions” comes from the fact that so much carbon dioxide is driven out of the beer by the agitation of the press screen? The pictures in the article show some really fizzy press pots. Can over-carbonation of the kegs help mitigate this? If so, will bar mangers be instructed to take that approach, when serving beers in this manner?

  4. Arthur – Don’t know the answer to the question, but I do think it would be a mistake to jack up the overall level of carbonation in the kegs to improve the experience of what’s going to be a small percentage of beer served.

  5. The coffee press looks a bit overfilled with hops for just a pint of beer. 😉

    Heck, if you want to try 5 different hops, that’s 5 beers. Heck of a reason for 3.2% beer?

    3-4 cones in a Natty light will show the flavor of the hops. 😉 I know,, such sacrilege!

  6. Mike,

    I think you mean “over-hopped for my taste” — unless your taste buds are calibrated to the objective truth? If so, maybe you can settle a couple disputes I have:

    First of all, I often visit a Thai restaurant with my friend Edna–I always get extra hot but Edna gets medium-hot. We argue back and forth for hours about which way is objectively best! She says she can’t taste the food if it’s too hot, but I grew up eating hot food and it doesn’t bother me. Can you tell me who’s right?

    Also, I love Mahrs U, but my friend (Edna again!) says it’s too bitter and won’t drink it! So when we’re in Bamberg she always wants to go to Schlenkerla and I’m all like “why don’t we just lick some Black Forest ham for two hours?” Seriously, I have a suspicion that stuff is over-smoked. Is it? And what about the Mahrs–is Edna’s tongue is defective or what?

    And don’t get me started on the whole Cantillon “thing.” Edna can’t STAND the sourness and get this: no matter how many times I say it she’ll develop a taste for it with time, she won’t listen and try it again. Please you have GOT to tell me the sourness is objectively right so I can pass it on to her. Once I do I’m sure she’ll like it.

    Matt

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