If you’d like to see what my head looks like on a platter, you might try to reconstruct¹ the happenings on Twitter last week when I naively noted: “Sorry, but it seems strange to call an unconfirmed rumor one of the ‘Top 5 beer stories'” of the year'” along with this link.

Because this was the final post in a multi-part series, I hadn’t seen the first, which included a bit of an explanation: What follows is a list of stories that either resonated with Beernews.org readers or got coverage in the mainstream media. I guess I should have understood the story wasn’t just the substance of what Anthony Bourdain suggested — that “Big beer” was responsible for Discovery Channel pulling the plug on the Brew Masters program — but that he tweeted it and it got retweeted. A lot. This was made clear to me.

(In this case, my vision was clouded by the fact that Bourdain’s² tweet was as stupid as if he had typed “Harwood invented porter”³ and considerably more irresponsible. That’s really an aside, but I did a lousy job of explaining myself in the 140-character exchanges that followed.)

I’m not oblivious to the importance of social media (even though I might appear clueless trying to balance Twitter, Facebook and Google+), nor the importance of what proceeded these virtual water coolers — water coolers themselves. I worked at newspapers back when people spent enough time with them in the morning to get their hands inky black. I sat in on a dozen meetings a week during which we debated how and where to display stories that were “important” versus those that people were talking about around the water cooler.

These days there are ways for people to talk about stuff they really care about that didn’t exist before, and ways to track/measure those conversations. Is following them pandering or simply remembering the news consuming public ultimately decides what is news? That’s a discussion for another space. As well as one about what is news? or even what is beer news?

OK, a bit more about the last one, and a quick example of what one day can bring. Saint Louis Brewery founders Tom Schlafly and Dan Kopman announced last Wednesday that a group of local investors had bought a 60 percent (thus, controlling) interest in the brewery. This was not a surprise, because they said more than a year ago they were looking for buyers, and wanted the brewery to remain locally owned. The big picture news will come when we find out if the new owners plan to build another brewery, since the current one (pictured at the top) is at capacity. The same day, Paul Harden at The Wine and Cheese Place posted a note he had received a shipment of Firestone Walker Union Jack that had been bottled only a week before. That’s fresh IPA a 20-minute walk from my house. One a short term basis, just as big.

Coincidentally, a few days before I considered what do people read? from a different perspective. Because I spent not as much time around here the second half of December, rather than dumping comments Akismet flagged as spam on a daily basis I got to them every three days or so. There’s something startling about seeing 10,000 comments from users calling themselves names like acai berry pure, ugg and stealth hid pile up in less than three days. In the course of looking to see if there was any rhyme or reason to what posts attracted such love I ended up with a semi-accurate list of 2011 most popular posts. And no clue about the spammers.

The list is not perfect, because some/many of you read these posts via a feedreader, some when they are fresh, some when they are older. I’m too lazy to sort that out. You might notice some of the best read stuff is from years past. I’m not sure how I should feel about that.

Anyway, the list:

10. What the heck is a nano brewery?
9. Book review: Tasting Beer.
8. Pierre Celis: That was one long shadow.
7. So Americans no longer drink Budweiser?
6. 10 beers that changed America.
5. Who is the world’s most influential beer writer?
4. Blue Moon: Peter, Paul & Mary or Trini Lopez?
3. Reinheitsgebot or Einheitsgebot?
2. The beer that launched 1,600 breweries.
1. Session #49 – Regular beers are part of the revolution.

1 I should probably be able to do that for you, but I blame cognitive failure, being well past 45 years old.

2 That’s not to say I don’t find Bourdain entertaining. How can you not like a guy who appreciates Louisiana as much as he does? I’d be happy to spend a drunken afternoon with him.

3 See The Oxford Companion to Beer: a dreadful disaster? and scroll down to Harwood.

It’s Monday, so a few links. Big picture and 2011 recap stuff. Some are lists.

* The boom continues. In Chicago, in New York, and in Longmont, Colo. Maybe this is why I spotted a beer delivery truck advertising Dale’s Pale Ale in Manhattan.

* Big Eddy. Don Russell makes Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout Joe Sixpack’s Beer of the Year. He writes, “Some readers will cringe at my selection, partly because Leinenkugel is technically part of the Big Beer Axis of Evil. Indeed, MillerCoors’ new Tenth and Blake specialty division has raised fears of a price-cutting incursion on the little guys’ vulnerable wholesale flank. I’ll leave that worry for another day. For now, I’m calling Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout my Beer of the Year, and I’m counting 2011 as the year Miller finally saw the light.” Interesting thoughts.

* ‘No list is every 100% correct or wrong.’ In fact, I’ve seen some that are all wrong. But Bryan Koselar (that’s his quote at the front) gets more than a few right. Including Buzz Breweries, Craft beer themes, and a Top Ten list (ouch; just bit my tongue).

* But Stephen Beaumont goes 0 for 6. I might be kidding (my sense of humor is an acquired taste). You’ll find the necessary links in the last, where he puts the European crown on Brouwerij de Molen.

This afternoon Jeremy Danner (@Jeremy_Danner) of Boulevard Brewing “mentioned” (via Twitter) a story a wrote a little while ago for CraftBeer.com that was published today.

I’d kind of forgotten about it, and that I planned to post some outtakes here. So before I resume deciding how many words to allocate to hops from Caucasus one more post for 2011 (despite my previous claim).

a) That’s Dave Logsdon at the top, formerly the yeast guru at Wyeast and now a partner at Losgdon Farmhouse Ales in Oregon. Just wanted you to see a picture of a guy lovin’ what he’s doing.

b) This is Phil Wymore, founder of Perennial Artisan Ales in St. Louis. He really helped put the story in focus. It’s a challenge to describe beers inspired by Belgian brewers but made by Americans (with the help of yeast that previously went to work in Belgium). At least when you’re addressing style-obsessed Americans.

Beyond what he said, a little background and a little more detail.

At the time I wrote the story, Perennial had recently released Strawberry Rhubarb Tart and Peace Offering was in the fermenter.

Strawberry Rhubarb was inspired by strawberry rhubarb pie. Strawberries and rhubarb are available locally in the summer, so if the beer appears again that’s when it will. A witbier yeast turned it from wort into beer.

Peace Offering was a spiced squash ale. The base beer is an American Brown (6.3% ABV) with about 200 pounds of maple-roasted cushaw squash, which was pureed and added to the beer during primary fermentation. It was spiced with cinnamon and clove prior to packaging. An American ale yeast fermented that beer.

And Wymore had this to add about what to call these beers.

“The other element of brewing ‘our own versions of Belgian-inspired beers,’ is that we do not want to be held responsible for mimicking all the techniques (e.g. turbid mashing, aged hops, cool ships, open fermentation, etc.) depending on which style we are making. We are not trying to clone our favorite Belgian beers, nor do we have the resources to make them all true to style. Rather, we are choosing our favorite styles and doing our best to create great base beers — to our liking — and layering them with other ingredients to create some complexity — all the while being mindful of striking a thoughtful balance amongst the flavors in the beer.”

c) More from Matt Potts of DESTIHL Restaurant and Brew Works, the Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, brewery whose sour beers had lines clogging the aisles of GABF. He provided geeky process details:

“. . . essentially all of our sours go through a standard primary fermentation with ale yeast, but then we do a spontaneous/wild secondary fermentation and aging in barrels of various types (whether spent bourbon barrels, wine barrels, etc., anything except for the poor unfortunate barrels cut in half and for sale at Menard’s). We use the barrels as our cool ships by leaving them open for some time to expose them to our apparently wonderful downstate Illinois wild farm air. Each barrel is thus truly unique as we do not blend or inoculate the barrels with any lab cultures, for doing so takes away from the spontaneous philosophy of our St. Dekkera Reserve Sour Ale series. There is something about blending that, to me, destroys the fun, uniqueness and genuineness of spontaneous fermentation/aging. If we were to blend, then we just as well inoculate with lab cultures too.

“One question we have for ourselves going forward is whether the beer connoisseur will prefer the uniqueness of spontaneous fermentation in each barrel and each bottle as we grow or if they will prefer to know exactly what to expect (i.e., expect the same) from each bottle of St. Dekkera . . . thus requiring blending and inoculation. Perhaps some day we will have to do that with some of the mainstay sours, like Sour Strawberry, Sour Hawaii Five-Ale or Flanders, but I hope not. Even without blending, our wild air here in Normal, and our process produces sours that have the same underlying very refreshing/thirst quenching, ‘brighter’ sourness/tartness on the palate and balanced natural acidity.

“Each barrel is aged for at least one year and up to three-and-a-half years in the case of our oldest Framboise and Lambic barrels. The average age of the beers at GABF was two to two-and-a-half years old, except for the Framboise . . . a true tart bomb.”

Although Potts referred to “each bottle of St. Dekkera” DESTIHL does not package its beers. That’s in the planning state, so perhaps next year.