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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:<\/p>\nI’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:<\/p>\n
– 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):<\/p>\n
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. <\/em><\/p>\n 2. He\u2019ll 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.<\/em><\/p>\n The answer would be St. Louis.<\/a> 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?<\/p>\n Speaking of beer a long way from home:<\/strong> 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<\/a> Yellow Tail. This is a beer in the spirit of a k\u00f6lsch, a little fragile for a coast-to-coast trip.<\/p>\n 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.<\/em> 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. <\/p>\n Also from St. Louis.<\/strong> The Post-Dispatch<\/em> comes up with ice cream and beer mixes<\/a>. 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 Cr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e Imperial Milk Stout and coffee ice cream with chocolate espresso chips.<\/p>\n Underground breweries?<\/strong> The New York Times<\/em> had a feature this week headlined “The Anti-Restaurants”<\/a> which is sorta about underground restaurants. Is there something similar in beer? Yep. It’s called homebrewing.<\/p>\n I fear this will not end well.<\/strong> Just in case you missed the Wall Street Journal<\/em> story about higher hop prices attracting hop growing newcomers, the link.<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> territory.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 … 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":[292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-a0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","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=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"