August, eh.

It's stinking hot here at the eastern tip of the Great Lakes. Perfect beer drinking weather but today I am laying of the review beers to catch up with some odds and ends in the beery world:

• First, don't forget there is a contest going on, The Good Beer Blog Flying Dog Summer Gonzo-thon. As the good folks at Flying Dog Brewing wrote about on their own blog, we are looking for the meaning of "gonzo" expressed in any format you pick. The one winner for this contest gets a presentation pack of Wild Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter, as illustrated, a beer the BAers love. You also get a hat and a t-shirt. Nutty. So finger paint, do haiku, make a full scale paper mache of Ralph Steadman on a bar stool, make a meatloaf in the shape of Mexico. Submit something...anything...by 4 pm eastern standard time on 10 August 2007 and your entry will be up for consideration.
• The guys at Hop Talk have come up with something great - a beer blog search engine. Simple and useful, it makes over 100 blogs aggregate by key word, adding to the aggregation by calendar RSBS offers now. Have a beer and want a deeper and more diversified view on it than RateBeer or BeerAdvocate offer? Go try Beer Blog Search.
• I am heading away for a few days so there may be a short gap in posting but never fear. I am heading into western New York state to hit some new brewpubs and breweries and also to shop at Beers of the World, the legendary beer store in Rochester, as well as the ever wonderful Finger Lake Beverages in Ithaca. This may put me in touch with about...err...1500 different brands, a huge number of which I have never tried. My question is this - what should I look for? Any beers you have wanted to see reviewed? Any styles you see lacking? Let me know.
• The next edition of The Session is being hosted Friday by my comrade at the other end of Lake Ontario, Greg Clow [Ed.: he's so Weslakian]. Here is his post on this month's version - and it's all about fruit beers. I sense a multi-tasking post also contributing to my sour beer studies.