August 2010
Albany Ale: When Did They Stop Using Wheat Malt?
Posted by on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 in - 5 comments
I came across this reference to the malting of wheat in a 1869 series of essays and reports called The Annals of Albany. Apparently one Peter Kalm, a professor from a Swedish university, visited North America from 1748 to 1750 making some sort of economic and natural resources survey. He made … read more »
Question: What Is Your Best Beer Giveaway?
Posted by on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 in - 2 comments
I am curious about something. I don't know that I am personally all that evangelical about beer. When I have the beer I like and the people I like together it is as much about exploring or, rather, explaining my good beer obsession as it is about recruiting new members. Nope, the day I actually …
Why Is The Beer News So Dull Tonight?
Posted by on Monday, August 30, 2010 in - 1 comment
Some days the only beer news is stuff that you really don't care a bit about. Today is that sort of day. Consider these gems: • Deep fried beer.Does The New York Times implicitly diss beer blogging by picking this guy to highlight because, apparently, he has Shipyard IPA in the fridge.Princess …
Back From The Road And Did I Really Learn Anything?
Posted by on Sunday, August 29, 2010 in - leave a comment
I don't know if you can draw conclusions from a trip just a couple of hours and laundry loads after hitting the driveway. Especially when you haven't even pulled out the digital camera to pretty up the post or to see if there are are any ideas in the images. So far these come to what I might still …
New York: A Restaurant In Albany With A Beer List
Posted by on Saturday, August 28, 2010 in - leave a comment
OK, sure there are 700 wines at the subtitled restaurant dp, An American Brasserie - but they have Blue Point Lager, Dogfish 60 and Ommegang's Hennepin and others on tap as well as ten or twelve well selected bottles. The stash in the back of van might be better today at the end of our trip but I …
Why Can't The Young Just Drink Beer Like They Oughta?
Posted by on Thursday, August 26, 2010 in - 2 comments
An odd beer story out of Canada's province with the best track record for coming up with odd beer stories. Apparently, the young are just not drinking enough macro-bleck: • Joel Levesque, Moosehead's vice-president, said the demographic that drinks the most beer, New Brunswickers aged 19 to 25 …
New Hampshire: The Portsmouth Brewery, Portsmouth
Posted by on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 in - 3 comments
Happy to have gotten the chance to have supper at The Portsmouth Brewery this evening here where Maine meets New Hampshire on the Atlantic shore. It's still cloudy and damp but at least the sheets of rain from earlier in the week are gone. Piling into a pub was just the thing. • I got the …
What Beer Goes With Non-Stop Rain?
Posted by on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 in - 6 comments
There are summer beers for cooling you off in the sunshine. There are Octoberfest beers. There are imperial stouts for sipping as the winter weather howls beyond the doors. But what beer to have when the holiday is awash with rain? • I had a Mayflower porter last night which made a reasonable …
Massachusetts: Kappy's Liquors, East Falmouth
Posted by on Monday, August 23, 2010 in - 2 comments
Not a full report yet but stopped at Kappy's in East Falmouth, Cape Cod yesterday to have a look. It gets good word of mouth on the review websites like RateBeer and certain deserves the attention. I had to ask at a grocery store about the rules for beer buying in Massachusetts. Unlike New York …
New York: Sometimes You Want To Bring Wine
Posted by on Saturday, August 21, 2010 in - leave a comment
Fifteen or more years ago, Ontario's wine, spirits and imported beer monopoly carried a few bottles of Millbrook for one brief shining season and it has been something of a holy grail - or maybe a lost Atlantis - for us ever since looking back on those pre-kid, pre-mortgage days. Reasonably priced …
Finally - Beer's "Man Bites Dog" Story!
Posted by on Friday, August 20, 2010 in - 1 comment
It can get a bit dreary going through the Google news items every few days looking for a story that catches the eye. There are two classes of "beer news" that depress. First, the over regulation by a small committee of a simple consumable in a small town. Second, the petty crime that involves beer …
Is Giving Up Imported Beer A Good Thing?
Posted by on Thursday, August 19, 2010 in - 9 comments
My old desk top Dell gave up yesterday. I am a couple of days away from a vacation and I feel like doing much the same. But what about giving up imported beer not for the cause of slackerdom but for a higher cause? • A majority of Canadians would give up imported beer or wine to reduce shipping …
Albany Ale: What Hops Would They Have Used?
Posted by on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 in - 9 comments
Remember Albany ale? Last spring, I found a number of references to beer being shipped around the eastern seaboard from Newfoundland to New Orleans as well as references to it being sold in Texas and even California. Not sure what it was but there was plenty of evidence that it was something …
How To Improve The View Of Craft Beer #3741
Posted by on Monday, August 16, 2010 in - leave a comment
Apparently, if there is a "we" acting on some sort of grand plan, the plan needs to address the workplace and workplace ethics: • It doesn’t even matter is the boss or manager has chosen a glass of Merlot or beer, then offered it to the job-seeker or that the job-seeker shows no effect of …
Book Review: Great American Craft Beer, Andy Crouch
Posted by on Sunday, August 15, 2010 in - 1 comment
One of the most important things I ever learned in life was the importance of an index. Why? Well, if you are overwhelmed by information as I was in law school I learned that reading the index for each course's material (because that is what we called it: "material") was what was in the course and …
More Travel Advice Needed - Any Perry Or Cider?
Posted by on Saturday, August 14, 2010 in - 6 comments
The advice so far has been great. Now we are working on the route - it looks like we are heading from Binghamton NY to Cape Cod through Connecticut and Rhode Island. Looking for real makers of apple cider or pear perry. Pete got me thinking. Any ideas?
Beau's Thursday Night Tasting In the Backyard
Posted by on Thursday, August 12, 2010 in - 5 comments
A fun way to spend the evening. Beau's had their quarterly business meetings in town and they all came over for a few hours of opening bottles - including the father, son and a sizable host. We nine started well with two saisons and biere de garde: Hennepin, Jack D'or and 3 Monts. Batch 10 from …
Dear Craft Brewers: Get A Canning Line
Posted by on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 in - 17 comments
Dear Rob Tod. I have realized that I don't think I really care about that corked 750 ml bottle after all: • We have been doing cork-finished beers for a number of years and early on we wanted to come out with a lower-alcohol, pretty full-flavored but around 4.5%- to 5%-alcohol beer. It was … read more »
Is A Beer Price Crisis Coming? Will You Notice?
Posted by on Tuesday, August 10, 2010 in - leave a comment
Bad news with the impending Russian crop failure: • It is the latest high cost of living to hit families that are reeling from the recession. Prices have already more than doubled in the past two decades, with the average cost of a pint of lager climbing from £1.08 in 1989 to £2.81 in 2009, the …
Summer RI, MA, CT Travel Advice Needed
Posted by on Sunday, August 8, 2010 in - 19 comments
We have a ten day stretch coming up hanging out with family at Cape Cod. This means snack shacks, maybe a brewpub or two and definitely beer shopping. But this is largely unknown territory for us. We are northern New England travelers. A few years ago we tried to find Connecticut for a few days … read more »
Hey, I Can Moderate All Comments!
Posted by on Saturday, August 7, 2010 in - 7 comments
You all should be jealous. • If I haven't told you all recently, I am eternally grateful to my former employers and clients at silverorange for letting me use and play with their technology and, I hope, act as a testing platform. Who zat? Well, I am proud to have been their lawyer over a decade …
Session 42: That Special Beer Or Place Theme
Posted by on Friday, August 6, 2010 in - leave a comment
It had to happen, right? You have 42 themes and there has to be overlap. At least it's overlap and not those non-beer related subjects of a couple of years ago. So, session 4 was about a special place for me - even if for most it was about a local brew. Session 21 was about that special beer in …
Quebec: Joseph Bellarmin, M'Brasserie De L'Ile D'Orleans
Posted by on Thursday, August 5, 2010 in - 1 comment
I like the style of this brewery's labels and brew branding. They all have a folk arty drawing off of a local character from the past. My French is so poor that I can't tell the tale of Joe - but I do note "Houblonée a Froid" in that green circle, cold hopped. You can't really see it in the … read more »
Oh, To Be In Moscow...
Posted by on Thursday, August 5, 2010 in - 1 comment
...now that the heat wave's in full bloom: • I walked outside this morning to find a gang of bare-chested fellows, with shaved heads, sweaty snouts, and stretchmarked potbellies, sitting on the guardrail near our doorway, guzzling beer and smoking, and for good measure, belching and swearing …
California: Black Orchard, The Bruery, Placentia
Posted by on Wednesday, August 4, 2010 in - 2 comments
A discontinued beer. Great. It's not even listed by the brewery. Never made their blog...oh, yes it did. Still, its departed. Yet there it is, cooling is the cistern. I picked this up in Ithaca because I had never seen on of their brews this far east and was please to see the price below ten bucks …
Beer Most Slimming When Not Consumed!
Posted by on Tuesday, August 3, 2010 in - 8 comments
This has to be up there with the "open source beer" clap trap... or maybe the "women better tasters" silliness. It seems the more people need to make a buck the greater the need to foist a 90% rubbishy idea on people. And this one is pure fool's gold: • CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, and the …
The Best Way To Teach Folk About Good Beer?
Posted by on Monday, August 2, 2010 in - 8 comments
The backyard BBQ. It has to be. Likely because of Pete's daydreaming about his English garden, I got the urge to have a smoky BBQ yesterday. Well, it was the day before really as I had to put the ribs into an overnight soak of Sierra Nevada pale ale, a bunch of ends of BBQ sauce bottles from …
