Shut up and drink your beer

Don Russell speaks the truth today in his Joe Sixpack column, doing a little digging about the provenance of your favorite beer given all the chatter that arose out of the “Beer Summit.”

The lesson here: Drink up and find something else to complain about. Beer is not for xenophobes.

Funny thing is he asks up front: Does it really matter who makes your beer?

I think it does. And where the ingredients come from, and if it’s local (not that it always has to be), and . . . heck, just look at the mission statement. But no flag waving here, and when you head for the tavern on Friday afternoon (whoa, dude, that’s today) to grab a beer or two and complain it should not be about the beer.

 

#45 – Where in the beer world?

Where in the beer world?

Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?

Leave your answer as a comment. Also feel free to add a comment simply because the picture inspires you.

Hint: The devil is in the details.

 

Would you pay for better glassware?

Proper glasswareAndy Crouch writes Breweries And Bars Should Kill The Shaker Pint . . . which is a fine idea.

I posted a comment at hit site that economics could get in the way. At issue is not just the shape and size of the glasses, but the quality of the glass itself. Check out wine stemware some time, and you’ll see the lighter, easier to break, stuff costs more. While I would agree that Riedel seems to have a scam going by suggesting you need a different shape glass for every variety of wine grape I also agree that lighter glassware better serves flavor and aroma — of beer or wine.

Before I wander off on a tangent about how breweries could learn a little about glassware, because the Hoegaarden glass Pierre Celis is lousy for drinking Belgian Whites or that I’d rather drink Chimay from a Rochefort goblet than the Chimay branded one . . .

Although Andy’s comment about my comment would indicate he disagrees about the economic issue pleasure humor me. Pretend you are sitting in a pub or restaurant and your beer arrives in a shaker glass. You ask the server to put it into something better. Could be a glass reserved for other beers. Could be good wine stemware (obviously a hypothetical because plenty of restaurants stick with small, cheap, hard to break glasses).

You are told that will cost another quarter.

Is it worth two bits to you?

No, Supplication is not the ‘perfect beer’

Now that I have your attention. . . .

The folks at Chow.com seem to feel compelled to email me every time they post a story about beer. I find that strange because presumably what makes them different is they are discussing beer in an intelligent manner with an audience — folks who might be generally think about food and wine more than beer — that knows less about beer than the people who hang out here. So excuse me if I look at their stories and think “not enough new here to point to.”

The latest email is about a video in their “The perfect” series. We’ve had the perfect fried chicken, the perfect chocolate chip cookie. By god, let’s find the perfect beer.

The choice is Russian River Supplication. Maybe it is perfect, but I like Temptation better. So where is the the in the?

I should also point out that for a year I owned the domain name “myperfectbeer.com.” I let it go and as far as I can tell nobody claimed it. Does that mean there is no perfect beer? Certainly if there is one there must be two and if there are two . . . you can see where I am going.

Watching the video I had one other thought. There are different cherries in some of those barrels. So if Vinnie Cilurzo is still experimenting how could what is already in there be perfect?

Perhaps I’m just being crusty. But why would Lessley Anderson complain? She wrangled a link out of me.