More beer links, but first I digress

beer Log LogoIt doesn’t take much to encourage me, so a couple of comments following last week’s list of links means a linkorama this week. However, when I started this post I took a quick detour so the buncholinks will have to wait until tomorrow or the next day.

This is where I started, with this absolutely brilliant sentence from Alan McLeod: “I hate running myself due mainly in its distinction from sitting on a sofa.” I read a lot, beer stuff, wine stuff, tech stuff, political stuff, journalist stuff, music stuff, popular culture . . . and this was my favorite sentence of the week. Just because.

The day before, Alan celebrated his 2,000th post. At the rate Jay Brooks is going he’ll surely pass him soon, or perhaps already has. But Alan has been at it since 2003, although the Good Beer Blog posts begin in 2004, which is the noteworthy part.

That got me looking around. I started this blog late in 2005 after I’d used WordPress for a while on our (not currently updated) Beer Travelers blog and on the Real Beer blog. When we began using WordPress at Real Beer we had to leave behind four-plus years of archives generated by entirely different blogging software. OK, we didn’t exactly have to – but looking over several hundred posts it was shocking how many links out had died and it seemed better to let them rest.

I’ve still got all the posts in an archive, so as an excuse to re-use one of several rotating illustrations (at the top) here’s the first post (and the links still work):

Monday, March 19, 2001

Drinking poses: Do you grasp your pint glass like a weapon or do you stare intently into a pint? A new study identifies six basic drinking poses and what they reveal about the drinkers.

Microbrews, microprofits: The Seattle Times takes a look at “an industry crowded with too much product and way too many companies.” It’s a reminder about how competitive the beer business remains.

Gary McGrath of Pyramid sums it up nicely: “There’s certainly still some romance in brewing craft beers. We continue to have some very passionate brewers, but we needed a balance. To survive, you’ve got to care about both – the beer and the business.”

Gee, didn’t this same topic just come up?

Craft beer sales increased 1.7 percent in 2001. Business is much stronger these days. And there are a lot more beer blogs. Which is the cause? Which the effect?

The Session #38: 1 beer or 1001?

The SessionWere Mr. Sixpack (otherwise known as Don Russell) to participate today in our monthly session then he might quote liberally from his entry in 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die Three Floyds Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout.

“The Dark Lord exists mainly by reputation. His power is rumored, his character praised with cultlike obsession, yet he is rarely seen. Until, that is, Dark Lord Day, a holiday ritual for the devoted who flock from around the world to Three Floyds Brewing in Munster, Indiana, for his annual appearance.”

I don’t have such a description or such a beer to offer for this session, for which you’ll recall, Sean Inman provides these guidelines:

What beer have you tasted recently (say, the last six months or so) that is worthy of their own day in the media sun?

And to add a little extra to it, how does “great” expectations affect your beer drinking enjoyment?

AND If you have attended one of these release parties, stories and anecdotes of your experience will be welcomed too.

I’m not opposed to standing in line, literally as well a figuratively. On the first day of March I spent four straight hours calling a number in Colorado with hopes of getting through to book two nights in Jersey Jim, a former Forest Service lookout tower can you rent, and then I did the same the next day. Some years we get lucky and some years (like this) we don’t. I can drive to Mancos (where reservations are taken) in four hours and probably would if they accepted in-person applications.

Anyway, back to The Session. I’ve had a beer or two in the last six months as worthy as Dark Lord, but I wouldn’t exert as much effort to acquire any of them as I would for another night in Jersey Jim. Still one of these years I might try to make it to Dark Lord Day for the experience.

I promise to write about it.

(Head on over to Beer Search Party for more Session entries.)

What would you ask a hop queen?

Mona EuringerNo, seriously.

Next week judges stream into Chicago to taste their way through 3,500 or so entrants in the World Beer Cup and soon they will be joined by thousands of brewing industry members for the Craft Brewers Conference.

I expect only the toughest will make it up Saturday morning for “Brewing Belgian White and Wit Beers,” the panel I’ll be moderating. Fortunately there will be many more exciting moments. First up, Wednesday afternoon is a chance to meet the Hallertau hop queen, Mona Euringer. She’ll be in Chicago along with members of the German Hop Growers Association.

She’ll give a brief talk about life on a hop farm and also be around for the trade show Thursday and Friday. Last year the hop growers caught some grief when it was suggested Nicol Frankl, the previous hop queen, was invited along only because she has a pretty face.

Not true. “To be elected hop queen, you have to have grown up and helped work on a hop farm all of your life, you have to know hops, hop farming, and all the machinery involved,” said Eric Toft, brewmaster at Private Landbrauerei Schönram, who doubles as a representative of the hop growers.

I promise to find out just how much she knows. So if you have a question you want asked please leave it as a comment. As long as it’s not rude I’ll ask her.

The hop growers will also be serving a variety of beers. Toft wrote the recipes and Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania made the beers. They will include three different Belgian-style pale ales — each brewed with a single German aroma hop varieties: Hallertauer Mittelfruh, Smaragd, Hersbrucker — a new Bavarian-style pale ale, and a tripel hopped with Saphir.

I promise to ask questions first and drink beers later.

Waiting for RSBS

Belgian lacingWith apologies to Samuel Beckett . . .

The current, but perhaps not ongoing, demise of really simple BEER syndication has been noted in comments here and in a devoted post by Alan McLeod. For those of you don’t know, it is a site that aggregates the latest rss feeds from hundreds of beer blogs.

Jonathan Surratt invented both RSBS and The Beer Mapping Project, another free web utility that has improved the quality of our beer drinking lives. He wrote in an email that Twitter now works for him much as RSBS did before, but he’s not ready to let it pass. He’s got a lot going on — he’s the web director for Draft Magazine and devotes (gives away) time to various other projects — so cut him some slack.

When I started this blog I did a lot more pointing to “good reads,” but between RSBS and bloggers discovering how to use Twitter and Facebook to promote their posts that seemed redundant. I figured, probably incorrectly but I’ve learned to live with such ignorance, that if I was seeing three to five notifications every time a new beer post went up that you were seeing at least one.

I wouldn’t begin to attempt to replicate the service RSBS provides, with sometimes more than 100 posts a day, but here are a half dozen recent posts you might have missed and should read while waiting for RSBS.

  • The first ever reference to IPA. You shouldn’t need more than the headline to motivate you. But just in case, it’s a Martyn Cornell post.
  • What’s a pilsner? “Should Pilsener be considered a beer made with Saaz or Hallertauer or other noble hops only, or even be reserved for beers that actually come from Plzen?”
  • Take that, Philadelphia. “A unique blend of climate and tradition make the Great Lakes region the best in the country for beer brewers and drinkers.”
  • San Francisco versus Portland. Because they aren’t aware that the Great Lakes region is really No. 1.
  • Reviews for something that doesn’t exist. What if Schrute Farms B&B were a beer?
  • Now this is just stupid. Pilsner Urquell versus tiny Pivovar Kout na Sumave. I point you to this not only because I’m a big fan of Kout na Sumave (despite the fact I can’t get WordPress to show the various marks above the S and e correctly), because you must read the story at the end.

    • I am not a brewery

    Requests like this seem to arrive in cycles and unfortunately we’re in an up cycle.

    So I thought I’d pass one of them along, in this case with the name and contact information removed. The subject line is “My Home Museum Beer.” I’m not trying to be anti-social but the PS tickled me (I don’t usually read that far).

    Hello.
    My name is [removed]. I the citizen of the Ukraine. I the big admirer and the collector of Beer and beermats. I have my own family collection.
    In addition to beer and beermats I collect any information concerning alcoholic production and alcoholic manufacture.
    Now I work as that that I collect the catalogue of brands various alcoholic drinks from all world.
    I plan to write the book – the catalogue about the description of drinks, the companies, and features of cocktails. I hope for the big circulation and popularity of this book.
    If it probably I like to ask from you the information on your company and about beer made by your company.
    From myself personally I would like to ask and to you would be grateful for what or a souvenir with a logo of your brewery in my collection.
    I hope I have not taken away from you a lot of time the request.
    Yours faithfully [name removed].

    My adress:
    [details removed]
    Makeevka
    86154
    UKRAINE
    P.S.: Perhaps you have received many requests for souvenirs from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and probably faced with such people as lovers freebies. I am very ashamed of these people. Please do not ignore my message.

    See, I didn’t.