Spotted Cow Grand Cru
In case you missed this, Alan McLeod. [Via Wisconsin State Journal]
20 Ways to Talk to Me About Your Home-Brewing Hobby.
In case you had forgotten An Open Letter to Beer Nerds. [Via McSwenney’s]
The City with a Thorn in its Side — Manchester, England’s Mix of Old and New.
“Manchester is just two hours away from London by train—163 miles. But the gulf between these two cities, from culture to accents, is as vast as the differences between the Florida Keys and the Pacific Northwest. In order to experience these cultural differences, you really need to observe them in person.”
The crawl is on.
Curiosity and the skunk.
The concept — “the crawl is on” — should be enough to suck you in. If you follow John Duffy on Twitter you know he was knocking about the US recently. Last Monday he began chronicling those travels. As always, excellent drinking notes paired with telling cultural commentary. [Via The Beer Nut]
Data Says Women Driving Craft Beer Growth.
A lot here, including that sales data from the big stores are going to overvalue the hard sodas and undervalue the North East IPAs. Leading us to . . . [Via BeerGraphs]
What did I miss? (Other than the spiffy paint job at and new address for A Good Beer Blog?)
As promised, there was no blogging here in October after the 3rd. Daria and I traveled to and around Australia. It was not a beerless trip — I went at the invitation of the Australian homebrewers (meaning they paid my way) to speak at their biannual conference — but it was not a beer trip. No visiting hop fields, no taking notes in and around stainless steel tanks. We were in Sydney for a portion of Sydney Craft Beer Week, but we didn’t attend a single event. In fact, we saw a Time Out “Hop-Up Craft Beer Bar” (a pop-up, obviously) and did not sample a beer.
But a couple of observations. First, for those who would like to get rid of the term “craft beer.” Sorry, ain’t happening. That boat has sailed. Second, because discussion about Carlos Brito’s suggestion that consumers “get a bit tired of choice” has cluttered my Twitter feed I got to thinking about this blackboard I saw at Mrs. Parma’s in Melbourne. The place specializes in parmas and serves only beers brewed in Victoria; highly recommended.
As you can see, this board lists what’s coming on tap. It feels as if we’ve been looking at blackboards like it for more than 25 years. We went from zero small, local breweries in America to more than 4,000 because drinkers want something different.
I remember talking with the late Greg Noonan about the first years after he opened Vermont Pub & Brewery in 1988. “The styles were amber, golden, porter and stout,” he said. That’s changed. The interest in the new has not.
Appellation Beer will be on hiatus for the rest of the month. See you in November.
Stock (ale) answers from Goose Island and Ron Pattinson.
Martyn Cornell provides the story behind Brewery Yard, a beer made at Goose Island Brewery in collaboration with Ron Pattinson. Ron has only written a little about the beer itself, but his posts about a trip to Chicago for the beers debut makes delightful reading. Here’s Day One of four. [Via Zythophile]
In Rwanda, Craft Beer Opens the Door to Female Empowerment.
Steve Beauchesne of Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company was looking for a legacy project to celebrate Beau’s 10-year anniversary, and a brewery in Rwanda sounded like the perfect fit. “We were looking for something that’s in our wheelhouse,” he said. “We’re brewers. We’re not well diggers.” [Via Take Part]