beers of conviction

As seen at Coors Field in Denver.

A question and a request from UK bloggers Boak & Bailey arrived Monday in their monthly newsletter.

The question: Has the thrill gone?

The request: You tell us.

The newsletter includes a white board intended to examine what might make beer more exciting. You really should take a look.

I shared their questions on Facebook. Forget AI. I had intended to answer the questions with this post, but outsourcing them provided most of the answers I was thinking of.

I’m still considering the last question—What beer experience last gave you a full-on thrill?—and trying to decide if I want beer to thrill me, or if I expect something more.

You’ve read the news. I do not think that Sapporo understood this about Anchor Brewing:

Fritz Maytag’s final words in video are, “I think when our brewers put the malt (from the barley field they just visited) into the mash tun they remember, ‘That’s the stuff, there it is.’ It gives our company something that’s hard to duplicate.”

Today, Jeff Alworth wrote:

“But [the beer industry] can’t continue as the same industry represented by Fritz Maytag’s wonderful, traditional, innovative, local, and independent little brewery if that brewery itself couldn’t survive.”

I disagree, because . . . limiting myself to five reasons, with apologies to thousands of other contenders . . . Scratch Brewing, Wheatland Spring Farm + Brewery, Bow & Arrow Brewing, Primitive Beer, and Spaceway Brewing.

Wonderful. Check. Innovative. Check. Local. Check. Independent. Check. Traditional? Not if it gets in the way of making something delicious.

What do you do when you arrive in a new city, luggage in hand, and your accommodations will not be available until hours later? Thursday (Wednesday back in Colorado) our friend Brayden Owlinson at Fork & Brewer in Wellington was nice enough to store our bags while we headed to Zealandia.

And later we drank beer together and met more brewers.

Christchurch, New Zealand