musing

* This is the reflective, toned-down version of how Darren of Beer Sweden really felt at the conclusion of the European Beer Bloggers Conference 2011: “I believe I have just witnessed the genre of beer blogging come of age in London and stake its claim as a credible and indispensable media source of the future.”

He understands the bloggerstalkingaboutblogs dynamic, at the end writing, “I apologise if this post is a little too much blog and not enough beer.” But, my goodness, such enthusiasm. So one more excerpt: “What I learnt has left me in no doubt bloggers are the vanguard of modern beer media.”

* Those are bold words, but Mark Dredge (who obviously isn’t biased because he acted at UK organizer, but that doesn’t mean he has to sit silent) is inclined to agree. Be sure the read the comments that follow.

* Dark Lord Haiku Contest. From STL Hops. Four winners. Four different vintages of Three Floyds Dark Lord. One stipulation. You must pick up the bottle in person in St. Louis.

* The case against the em dash. “According to Lynne Truss—the closest thing we’ve got to a celebrity grammarian, thanks to her best-seller Eats, Shoots and Leaves—people use the em dash because ‘they know you can’t use it wrongly—which for a punctuation mark, is an uncommon virtue.'” Isn’t this something that should be discussed at a blogging conference?

* “High alcohol wines lose both focus and complexity.” Could the same be said about beer?

* When brewery suppliers go vertical. Thomas at Geistbeer Brewing Blog considers the consequences for both homebrewers and small batch brewers.

* The return of the wanderer. Jack Curtin has made it home from the Wild West. I point this out because Jeff Alworth suggests we all give Liquid Diet a link to boost Jack’s Wikio rankings.

* Wallace, Idaho. Why wasn’t there a brewery at the entrance of the Wallace RV Park when we passed by during our Grand Adventure?

Daria spotted these two cars Saturday at the St. Louis Microfest.

She said that people were allowed to sit inside the Old Milwaukee Light car (look closely at the license plate).

It does seem like these cars should be powered by an alternative fuel made from beer.

This month it falls on me to preview the Wikio Beer Blog (U.S.) rankings for May, which are based on April (and perhaps months before) social activity.

I considered an alternative headline, like ‘BROOKSTON BEER BULLETING RETURNS TO TOP” or “APPELLATION BEER CONTINUES TO FALL” or “OAKSHIRE BREWING – WTF?” But those who care about the rankings just want to see them and the rest of you have already moved on. Here they are with the tiniest bit of news to follow.

Ranking brewed by Wikio

No need to revisit the various conversations that sprung up when Wikio first began ranking U.S. beer blogs, so instead some news.
Washington Beer Blog, which dropped from No. 8 to No. 11 this month, and Blog About Beer are among the six finalists for Saveur magazine’s Best Wine or Beer Blog. The other four are wine blogs. It’s something of a popularity contest, with voting to begin May 12.

There are more than a dozen categories, and I find it interesting that the last one listed is “Best Professional Blog.”

What does that say about the rest of us?

Last week Alan McLeod celebrated the arrival of Brewery History, No. 139 in his mail, because he already knew he’d find plenty of ideas inside. Sure enough, the mini-book immediately provoked a post. Don’t worry, there are plenty of ideas left, which is why every beer blogger should buy a copy (ordering information here). Not just for the post fodder, but because it is packed with essential beer journalism history.

I’m going to try to wait to mine it for blog posts until everybody gets their own copy, reads it through and perhaps quotes from it. It won’t be all that easy. I’m ready and rarin’ to riff on Zak Avery’s discourse on “A taste of beer,” as well as what Mark Dredge wrote about beer writing and new media.

And I particularly like J.R. Richards’ memories about time on the road with Jackson in his final years, a period when we (at least I) saw a lot less of him in the United States. It made me think of the tribute Martyn Cornell posted immediately after Jackson died.

It is Cornell’s discussion of Jackson and style that caught McLeod’s attention. As almost every time the S word comes up much discussion followed.

It made me haul out the the transcript of a wide-ranging conversation Jackson had with three New Mexico homebrewers in 1990, when they drove him from brewery to brewery and he collected information to update his Pocket Guide to Beer. (We didn’t live in New Mexico yet, but I ended up with the tapes.)

At one point Jackson said:

“It’s important that styles are defined. If styles aren’t defined you finish up once again with all beer tasting the same pretty much because a brewer . . . I mean Coors makes a nice Winterfest beer and they call it a stout beer in their adverting. That’s just confusing, you know, it’s not a stout, it’s sort of a festival style Vienna lager. If some terminology is not agreed upon in a beer or two, I mean if that terminology doesn’t mean something specific we just finish up with a confusion and blurring and in the end all beer tasting very similar once again. If it’s golden you call it a pilsner whether it’s hoppy or not. You decide everyone else is calling their beer pilsner so you’ll call your a Dortmunder even though there’s no difference.”

And almost as if he was acknowledging Stephen Beaumont’s comment 20 years before it was posted, he said, “It’s difficult how do you retain the integrity of styles without putting them into corsets essentially.”

Lots to think about. And, by the way, you don’t have to be a beer blogger to enjoy that little book full of ideas.