I’m really not sure why I feel a need to pass along these links, because this practice won’t continue past Monday, when we begin 15 weeks of zig zagging around Europe. But here goes:

– Before you hit the link on this one, a little quiz. I’ll give you the tasting lineups at a couple of spots and you guess where the tastings are being held (same city):

1. [blank] will be tasting not only draught Koenig Ludwig, La Chouffe, and Racer 5 but they will also be sampling Paulaner Oktoberfest as well.

2. He’ll be sampling these beers: Dieu de Ciel Peche Mortel, Mikkeller Black Hole, Nogne #100, Avery The Beast and a few Oktoberfests like Avery Kaiser Oktoberfest.

The answer would be St. Louis. These are some fine beers and I’m glad that beer lovers in St. Louis get a shot at them. But shouldn’t there be at least one beer in there that comes from some place inside of 800 miles away?

Speaking of beer a long way from home: I’m not surprised when I see Bear Republic beers here in New Jersey. They are hefty enough to make a long journey. But I did a double take when I spotted Ballast Point Yellow Tail. This is a beer in the spirit of a kölsch, a little fragile for a coast-to-coast trip.

Looking at the beer selection can be a little strange here at mid-state. You can find Flying Fish, but it certainly isn’t everywhere. Climax counter-pressure filled growlers have an OK presence, which makes me grin. And tracking down the Ramstein wheat beers from High Point is a challenge. Weiss beers have a particular homecourt advantage, and High Point’s are good ones, but based on what I see on shelves everybody prefers German weiss beers.

Also from St. Louis. The Post-Dispatch comes up with ice cream and beer mixes. Not every one works: see Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat and rainbow sherbet. Here’s one you shouldn’t try if you have a heart condition: Southern Tier Crème Brûlée Imperial Milk Stout and coffee ice cream with chocolate espresso chips.

Underground breweries? The New York Times had a feature this week headlined “The Anti-Restaurants” which is sorta about underground restaurants. Is there something similar in beer? Yep. It’s called homebrewing.

I fear this will not end well. Just in case you missed the Wall Street Journal story about higher hop prices attracting hop growing newcomers, the link. OK, it doesn’t have to end badly everywhere. Rick Pedersen has been working on getting hops going in upstate New York for almost 10 years, so he knows that hop farmers can’t expect $30 a pound prices on a long term basis.

But I can’t help but think back to my youth in Central Illinois, where my father taught Ag Econ. I heard too many stories about dentists who decided to trade soybeans and ended up with a lawn full of beans. Sure, that’s different than being a farmer, but speculating is speculating.

Sorry to be such a curmudgeon on the weekend; must be getting anxious to be back on the road. And I didn’t mean to be horning in on Roger Baylor’s territory.

Earlier this summer Martyn Cornell wrote that the Wikipedia entry on India Pale Ale “so completely, uselessly wrong as to be actively dangerous: the mistakes in it are going to be repeated by other writers too lazy to do their own research, and they are likely to take years to stamp out.” A bit of a discussion about Wikipedia followed with a bit of a sidebar about how dang frustrating it is to see myths get repeated as fact.

We were in the Canadian Rockies at the time, and later it seemed too late to chime that small breweries are also a culprit when it comes to the IPA story. A shorter version of the Wikipedia entry gets shown thousands of times a day to drinkers ordering from brewpub menus or customers reading the blurb on the neck label. In the long run this propagates the information just as dangerously as Wikipedia.

I thought of that this week when we visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia — yes, “America’s Best Beer Drinking City” but this was a home school field trip. The gift shop sells all manner of items quoting Benjamin Franklin, including T-shirts and coasters, proclaiming, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

The problem is that Franklin probably never said this. Mid-Atlantic Brewing News explained this well nearly three years go (no link to the story – sorry), and Bob Skilnik had more details shortly thereafter.

What do you think the chances are the gift store will withdraw these obviously good sellers from its inventory for the sake of historical accuracy?

Today is the 100th day of our adventure, and we’ve posted a bunch of numbers since we figure this pretty much concludes Part I. Part II begins Monday when we fly to Germany.

You won’t find much beer — should I have counted ounces consumed, or at least number of different brands? — but you will notice we spent one night in a brewery parking lot.

The unnamed brewery was Bell’s in Michigan. John Mallett offered and we couldn’t resist. Would you pass on the chance to call friends and say, “Guess where I’m calling from.” OK, maybe it would have been cooler to be inside the brewery (with everybody else gone.)

This aerial map from MapQwest is a tad out of date — it seems as if they expand at Bell’s about every third week.

We’re wrapping up the summer phase of our Grand Adventure with an American history field trip and packing for Part II-Europe, so a few links to posts you should read and think about:

– On Locale, and Maeib writes, “Whilst supporting this initiative as I like to see local businesses flourishing, and will support them wherever possible, I don’t want to hear the words ‘beer miles.'”

Be sure to read the comments. I can tell you that three months into paying attention to all things local, not just beer, it’s possible to spend too much time thinking about this. Take a break and enjoy the beer, local or otherwise.

– The Wall Street Journal recently joined the marketing to women discussion which has already already consumed plenty of space here.

But you have to smile when you read that Coors “set up a unit code-named Eve this year to develop beer brands and marketing techniques appealing to women. The unit’s mission, the company says, is to create ‘a world where women love beer as much as they love shoes.'” What beer has been assigned that task? Blue Moon.

– This is what beer is about: Beer Babe eventually gets around to drinking Shock Top Belgian White (a Blue Moon knock-off, as a matter of fact).

– This is where beer need not go: A fictitious restaurant captured a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence with a fictitious wine list. Quite a mess in the wine world (reading here and here will be enough to make your head explode).

The news to me is that there’s an organization called the American Association of Wine Economists. I don’t think I want to drink in a world where there is an American Association of Beer Economists.