We’re on the road right now – ah, the lengths we’ll go to to find just the right fruit beer for The Session – but I took the time to read Lew Bryson’s monthly Buzz so you should be able to as well.
ESPN columnist Norm Chad is looking for a new regular beer, to replace Rolling Rock, and Lew has plenty of useful friendly advice. Nice and complete, so I don’t really want to add anything.
However, one point of clarification. Chad has an these ABC’s for choosing beer and the first is:
Availability. It can’t just be sold in some tri-county area of North Dakota. Couch Slouch has to travel a lot. And when I’m on the road, I don’t want to have to fall back on Michelob or Miller Lite.
Lews writes, “I want to be able to get my choice of beer anywhere, because I travel a lot too” and later “I’ve got a beer philosophy that’s never failed me in 26 years, and I’m going to lay it on you: there is more than one beer in the world.”
The way I connect the dots that means the best choice doesn’t have to mean exact same beer. What’s best in Amherst, Mass., may not be best in Durango, Colo. I pick those two towns because both have bars known for their beer selections. The Moan and Dove in Amherst and Lady Falconburgh’s in Durango.
I was shocked that the Moan and Dove doesn’t offer anything from nearby Berkshire Brewing – “Because we’re ‘the local beer,'” Berkshire co-founder Gary Bogoff explained, which sounded so counter-intuitive my brain briefly shut down. And that Lady Falconburgh’s recently had beer from only one regional brewer, Ska Brewing (good choice, though).
I’m happy to find Victory HopDevil on tap only a few hours from our house and the selection at Moan and Dove will make anybody who appreciates beer drool, but those are beers I can find elsewhere. So credit goes to those proprietors for making this happen, but when the local beers are really good – and in these cases I know they are – they are going to be my first choice.
I’ve likely wandered off topic, and there are tourist things to get to today, so to get back on track read Lew’s column.
Perhaps Full Sail Session will go nationwide one day and offer Lew’s friend a new option. Meantime, I’ll just keep living in Oregon and drinking it here.
I’m boring, I know, but…I think every bar these days should have at least one tap for the local beer as long as the local beer’s any good, and God Himself knows that Berkshire Brewing’s beers are Good. Doesn’t have to be the same local beer on every tap, after all.
I have a big problem with this is central Jersey…very rarely do I encounter a bar that has offerings from Flying Fish, Cricket Hill, High Point, or River Horse on tap…there seems to be a infatuation with hte different or hard to find that manages to block out the significance of good, fresh, locally made beer.