If you aren’t going to be in Houston Oct. 14-16 for Dixie Cup XXVII you can quit reading here.

If you are going to be there I hope we get a chance to meet, probably to talk about beer. Although I do carry around family and trip pictures and will spring them without provocation.

I’ll be speaking Saturday morning, briefly about “The rhythm of the brewery,” and answering whatever questions from attendees who might happen to be awake at the beginning of the third day of a beer drinking marathon.

Hope to see you at the opening reception Thursday or judging or at the Fred Tasting (led by Ray Daniels) or just hanging out.

What Three Floyds Brewing had on offer at the Great American Beer Festival.

Perhaps I’m picking a nit, but there’s a difference between being too serious about beer (as Stephen Beaumont points out here, and I must confess happens in these parts) and taking beer seriously.

Martyn Cornell illustrates that today when he answers the question, “So what IS the difference between barley wine and old ale?”

This is simply a brilliant bit of research, a classic illustration of looking beyond the obvious, and a superb piece of writing.

The bottom line: He tells us something new.

I realized as I started typing that I don’t think I’ve told you that Cornell’s Amber, Black & Gold — which I called the beer book of the year in 2008 (a more complete review) when it was available only in electronic form — is available Amazon’s U.S. site.

Now I have.

“. . . stuck in the timewarp of Tennent’s Lager, Belhaven Best and Guinness.”

From a simply brilliant post at I might have a glass of beer.

It’s about a pub outside of Glasgow (you know, Scotland), and includes this paragraph (the italics are mine): “It’s a 15 minute train journey and a 20 minute cycle from the nearest station to the pub. Not as far as it looks, though we got lost in the forest the first time. Once you know the way it’s easy.”

Go read it, please (the last word added after the original post in in deference to Mr. B).