musing

Today’s post was inspired by Blog Action Day.

During one of the terms I served as a newspaper sportswriter, I would sometimes gather with other newspaper types after work (late at night, in fact, early in the morning) at a bar that was literally around the corner from the Pabst Brewery in Peoria Heights, Ill. (It closed in 1982).

The beer was fresh and we referred to it as green — probably because of the acetaldehyde, but at the time we just called it green.

Otherwise nobody talked about green beer unless it was St. Patrick’s Day.

Now that “green is the new black” (somebody has surely trademarked that phrase by now) when you say “green beer” most people will think organic or environmentally friendly. We consume a fair amount of organic products in our house, not necessarily because we think they they are “better” for us but because they are better for the environment. You learn quickly this is a complicated topic. Not one you came here to read about.

So I’ll keep it short.

– Visit Green Maven and do a search for brewery or beer or both.

– Read Fermenting Revolution. This is not a perfect book (check out Randy Mosher’s review in All About Beer magazine) but Chris O’Brien does provide plenty of detail about all the things breweries are doing right. O’Brien also maintains the Beer Activist Blog.

– Support a brewery like Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland (Oregon). But make it one close to home — that would defeat the purpose. Hopworks fires its brewing kettle with biodiesel fuel. In fact, Hopwerks is taking enough other environmentally friendly steps to merit an in-depth feature (perhaps by newcomer Beer Northwest).

A conversation with founder Christian Ettinger will quickly lapse into a discussion of things like “food miles” that have little to do with abv or IBU. “This is a good faith program,” he said. “You are always erring on the side of ecology.”

Further reading: Blog Action Day.

Looking at the number of posts some people manage from the Great American Beer Festival — sometimes directly from the festival floor — I sure feel like a slacker. Strangely, you’ll find more me in some of these blogs than you did here.

Offered for your consideration:

– Rick Sellers at Pacific Brew News Blog.

– Bill Brand at Inside Bar Area or What’s on Tap (same posts).

– Maggie Dutton at Seattle Weekly. Warning: Her posts will likely fall from the top as others are added. You can visit her blog, The Wine Offensive, for occasional beer insights.

– Teri Fahrendorf at Road Brewer. If you haven’t been reading her trip diary, shame on you. Somebody get this woman a book contract.

– And the live from the floor part: Beer Molly literally holds up her camera/phone, snaps and you’re live on the Internet. If you scroll through My Beer Pix you’ll eventually come across a picture of my badge. That’s like the 94th alternative spelling of Hieronymus in the Dictionary of Names.

– Stephen Beaumont offers his notes from the floor. He’s right about (not) calling trends too early.

And I finish with this clip, available at You Tube and Flying Dog’s Open Source Beer Project. I even mention Bill Brand (that’s him laughing in the background – Stan on camera makes us all giggle). More proof I was in Denver. (In fact, I was also at Flying Dog two days before, and will write about the Open Source Project later this week. Gimmick or beer?)

That’s not me in the hat. I arrive 18 seconds in.

Whew, what a Great American Beer Festival.

Remembering the size of the crowd — sold out every session, scalpers galore (although it looked like it wasn’t hard to find a ticket at face value) — will make it easier not to regret missing next year.

It was, however, fun. More about that beginning Tuesday. Tomorrow will be a Blog Action Day.

Raton Pass was even prettier on the drive home, although the day began with rain in Denver that turned to a wet snow 20 miles south. I didn’t start home at dawn, as is my habit, because I wanted to check out the Rough Rider Brewery in Las Vegas, New Mexico that is. And you can’t serve beer until noon in New Mexico.

Problem is, that despite rumors it had opened about six months ago, it still doesn’t appear even close.

What the heck — I probably had enough beer this weekend without one more tray of tasters.

What do these breweries have in common?

* Chama River Brewing Co.
* Green Flash Brewing Co.
* Hollister Brewing Company
* Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant – Media
* Left Hand Brewing Co.
* Pelican Pub and Brewery
* Southampton Publick House
* Utah Brewers Cooperative

These are the breweries on my team in the Great American Beer Festival Fantasy League. They do share a few other things in common, although you have to be somebody who plays in a beer fantasy league to get comfortable with the geeky details.

For instance, brewers Ted Rice (Chama) and Chuck Silva (Green Flash) were in the same American Brewers Guild graduating class. I was really ticked when Hopworks Urban Brewery (co-founder Christian Ettinger was in that ABG class too) got drafted by another team before I could add teh brewery to mine.

This is already more information than you need, right?

Despite concerns it might by too windy several hundred balloons lifted off this morning as the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta kicked off.

A picture with hundreds of balloon mostly shows a bunch of little dots. So here are a few of them (view from our back patio – known as a portal in these parts of the country).

The wind has kicked up since, but I expect to be able to sit out back tonight – inspired by Lew Bryson’s barbecue adventures of yesterday – eating properly smoked (trust me, Lew, it will be smokey) Texas-style ‘cue and drinking Flying Dog Dogtoberfest.

Fact is, though, thoughts about the beer will be way in the background. We’ll talk about the Illinois and Northwestern football games and monitor the progress of the Chicago Cubs.

New Beer Rule #5 will be in full effect: It is only beer.

But if you need some serious beer talk there are worthy discussions going on.

First, Jay Brooks’ wrapup on the beer bloggin’ brewhaha (it’s about ethics, but that would have screwed up my alliteration).

Pair that with the Wall Street Journal’s story about food blogs and free meals. Connect the dots.

Second, Alan McLeod wraps up a ménage à trois involving Ron Pattinson, Garrett Oliver and the Beer Advocate community (so it is a lot more than trois, plus Stonch was in there). I was already planning on pointing you to Ron’s original post, but much more fun broke out in the meantime.

Great stuff. That is if you are inclined to be thinking about beer today.