musing

The photo on the left was taken at our destination last week — Zion National Park in Utah — and the photo at the top on the way there. Whiting Brothers businesses, motels and services stations, operated along Route 66 from 1926 into the 1990s (though their presence was severely diminished before the end).

These remains are located between San Fidel and McCartys (New Mexico), on one of the short patches of 66 you’ll occasionally find paralleling Interstate 40 in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. There’s no motel in sight and what’s left of the gas station is in the background.

Sierra will be talking about climbing Angels Landing at Zion long after the WB sign has disappeared, but there’s something to be said for being able to make the little stops as well as enjoying the destinations. They are both part of our plan for the next 15 months.

Now back to your regularly scheduled beer programming.

– Cerevisaphile? Lew Bryson asks if it is “time to stop calling each other “beer geek?” And solicits alternative terms. Alan McLeod picks up the challenge, advocating “Beer Nerd.”

You’ll find plenty of ideas in the comments at both blogs.

So far nobody has brought up a suggestion that beer writer Gregg Smith made years ago: “cerevisaphile.” Perhaps just as well.

Lew suggests beer fan. I like that. In fact, we used the term in “Beer (Eyewitness Companions).” You can be an avid fan, a casual fan, a bandwagon fan (you are either on the wagon or off the wagon).

– The Session. Another suggestion that pops up in comments is “beer people” — a good excuse to remind everybody that’s the theme for The Session #14 on Friday.

– From the business pages: MarketWatch has an update on hop shortages. Mostly dreary. And from “Brew” Blog: Land Grab and Shakeout in Craft Beer?

The idea last January following a brief note about our travel plans for 2008 and 2009 was announce the blogging around here would be reduced. When I told Lew Bryson about this he laughed a might Brysonesque laugh, knowing full well how hard it is for me to keep my mouth shut.

Well, the slowdown starts now. If you subscribe to Appellation Beer via an RSS feed please keep the subscription (what’s a subscription?), because that’s the best way to learn about new posts. I may even come up with a regular schedule (as much as you can predict on a trip that includes ferries in Alaska and Croatia in general) and there are bound to be bursts of activity (such as the upcoming Craft Brewers Conference). Or maybe I’ll take a Twitter approach.

For this morning, one more thought on the subject of writer as critic (or critic as writer or blogger as critic or whatever).

From Michael Jackson’s last column in All About Beer magazine, filed just before his death and published after it was possible to ask him to expound:

“Being a critic is one of the things I do for a living. Being a reporter is another. Is a reporter a fearless seeker-out of truth, neutral and objective? Or does he recruit those qualities in support of his personal passions? When I enlisted, at the age of sixteen, I may have been attracted by the powerful purity of the first role. In the event, I grew into the second.”

“A critic’s job, nine-tenths of it, is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad.”
                    – Kenneth Tynan

I tend to scribble things I come across — could be in a magazine, a book, on a menu — on scraps of paper. This one I’ve been carrying around on a breakfast receipt since last May. I’m still not sure what to do with the thought, but it’s time to put it somewhere so I can throw out the receipt. I’m filing it here.

There are a million amusing quotes about criticism, so I don’t know why I’ve kept this one around so long.

When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

(But also, to be clear, this not a call to arms. Here I can lean on H.L. Mencken, who said: “A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn’t like.”)

The Morning Advertiser reports that Coors has decided to close the visitor center, formerly known as the Bass Museum, at its Burton-upon-Trent brewery in order to save money.

The areas that will close include the Museum, The Brewery Tap, the Gift Shop and all meeting rooms. The White Shield micro-brewery will remain open. Discussions will continue with East Staffordshire Borough Council regarding the future of the Tourist Information Centre, which has its home at the CVC.

Keith Donald, business services director at Coors, explained: “We have tried everything to make the CVC viable (including a revamp last year and free entry to Burton residents). Despite this, visitor numbers have continued to fall and the subsidy needed has increased. It is important for Coors to build the long term future of its brand portfolio to safeguard its future and Burton’s future as the worlds’ brewing capital.”

Coors says the facility the facility costs the company £1 million a year, but this is just plain sad.

We’re talking Burton-upon-Trent and Bass. Doesn’t that matter any more?