{"id":411,"date":"2007-12-05T10:42:46","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T17:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/fantasy-beer-dinner-8-alan-mcleod\/"},"modified":"2016-11-09T15:44:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T21:44:56","slug":"fantasy-beer-dinner-8-alan-mcleod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/fantasy-beer-dinner-8-alan-mcleod\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy Beer Dinner #8: Alan McLeod"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlanFor more about what this is part of look here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Alan McLeod has been writing about beer at A Good Beer Blog<\/a> since 2003, “allowing the world to follow the highs and lows of his beery education in real time.” In addition to writing a few articles for trade magazines, this year he was asked to join in the writing of “Beer & Philosophy,”<\/a> contributing a chapter entitled “Beer and Autonomy” that asks one question: why the heck is the law of beer like it is? In the rest of his life he is dad and husband, foster dad and sports fan and in-house municipal lawyer in just about that order.<\/p>\n

In case you forgot, the questions are: If you could invite four people dead or alive to a beer dinner who would they be? What four beers would you serve?<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a funny thing about me and all this writing I’ve done about beer as, while it is as convivial a thing in life there is, for me it is a bit of a solitary obsession – me, my computer and a cold room in the basement filled with beer. If I am honest, my interests and influences are more English than North American but I seem to be far more fascinated by the great craft beers of America than anything I have had from elsewhere. That may be the classic Canadian compromise. <\/p>\n

1. David Line.<\/strong> This 1960s-70s star of the UK home brewing scene was my introduction to making my own beer and appreciating the great beers out there waiting for me. I find the pre-Jacksonian, pre-CAMRA era of beer writing refreshing in that there was much individuality but no hint of snobbery. Recipes were as likely to be for a beet beer as an authentic imperial stout on the wood and the writing was plain. Line’s writings speak of a genial soul, happy to teach and happy not to be that worried about modern concerns for weekly units or extreme beer. I think he would make an excellent table companion. <\/p>\n

Beer:<\/strong> cask London Pride, circa 1978, his desert island beer according to his Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy<\/em> published in that year.<\/p>\n

2. Timothy Finn:<\/strong> author of the 1975 book Pub Games of England<\/em>. I have this idea that drinking beer was more of a side aspect to the life of an English pub compared to the other activities that went on. Being able to go to a pub and hurl massive round wooden cheese at stout pins in a game of London Skittles or playing an elegant if mantis-like game of lawn billiards would surely over-whelm the finer points of the chosen malt or hop in this bitter or that. <\/p>\n

Beer:<\/strong> local ordinary bitter on cask, a 3.2% drink that would leave the lawn billiards cue steady.<\/p>\n

3. Martyn Cornell.<\/strong> I wanted to pick one contemporary beer writer and I could have picked any one of many but I picked Martyn due to his incredible obsession to both detail and accuracy. His blog, The Zythophile<\/a>, displays a commitment to drilling down to the actual while following stories not covered by the pack. I wonder how much Line and Finn would be able to teach him? <\/p>\n

Beer:<\/strong> I have no idea but maybe a good thick 1700s West Country white beer as a stand alone first course would get the conversation going.<\/p>\n

4. The me of 1985<\/strong> when I was 22. Fresh out of undergrad I think I recollect that I knew a bit about beer but I was too obsessed with the nightlife in Halifax to take advantage of the opportunities to the point that when I went to Belgium in 1986, I stuck to Guinness. Sad. One evening of Line, Finn and Cornell would have given the him that was me a great head start in this interest of mine. <\/p>\n

Beer:<\/strong> Just one draft Keith’s followed by a range of Belgian dubbels just to teach the ignorant wee mopey bastard good from bad.<\/p>\n

More Fantasy Beer Dinners<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more about what this is part of look here. Alan McLeod has been writing about beer at A Good Beer Blog since 2003, “allowing the world to follow the highs and lows of his beery education in real time.” In addition to writing a few articles for trade magazines, this year he was asked … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[551,550],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beer-food","tag-alan-mcleod","tag-fantasy-beer-dinner"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-6D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14294,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/14294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}