"...and hallucinogenic mushrooms."

That's a headline in The Mercury News of San Jose today. When I go hunting Goggle, once in every while, for beer news to comment upon there are always masses of these sad stories about beer and violence to get through about, say, man beats man with beer or, you know, man beats beer with man or, heck, even beer beats man with man. They are unendingly dreary, always say pretty much the same thing and undermine the work everyone does to raise the perspective folk have about beer.

But the fine work of Marshall Cartwright, 33, reported this week in The Mercury News really stands apart from the crowd. What a genius. Especially given he was "claiming to be a covert military operative from Australia" even while he was "urinating in the bushes" when he was not sell the beer in the keg by handing around a Mason jar...11:45 a.m. last Monday. Excellent work Marshall Cartwright, 33. Brilliant. You have reached the apex of the beer pig pantheon. We salute you!

The good folks at Widmer Brothers sent me a few of their new seasonal brew, Brrr. That was awfully nice of them and a habit more of you should consider adopting - especially nice as this will only be available in 17 US cities over just the next two months.

A big fruity nose on the first schnozzle: zippy citrus hops over figs and dates. Very appetizing aroma which reminded me of something I like and that something was a little like a Ithaca Beer Co Flower Power IPA. Could it be? Would it be? Who knows? Be patient. The brew pours a bright chestnut under a rich cream head. The press release calls it a "moderately strong dark red ale." Hmm. Maybe it's more Ithaca's Cascazilla I am thinking off. That's it! On the sip, this is a very nice beer: plenty of big US hops with even a bit of a hop acid burn but framed by dark malty tones of caramel, dried fig and baked apple. A bigger brew at "7.15%," the hopping really cuts what otherwise could be a cloying malty blob. Even with the creamy mouth feel, the hopping does not jar. A long herbal hoppy finish.

Solid BAer respect.

The BBC has an interesting story today about the lengths to which macro-brewers have gone to figure out how to attract customers:

Green beer. Blue beer. Beer with the frothy 'head' in the middle of the glass, rather than at the top. Beer which emits light..."We've done lots of things which are technically very possible," Mr Axcell says.

So sayeth Barry Axcell, chief brewer at SABMiller. And so might he so sayeth as beer that emits light, you could be thinking, is possibly the greatest...yet surely the dumbest...use of science and money you have ever heard about. Mock not, says I. While I may not know if the real but unspoken problem problem is that it makes itself skunky but we have to trust that SABMiller does not undertake these experiments for their own giggles...as Mr. Axcell himself further indicates:

"The British brewing industry has declined and you could argue that was partly due to its failure to innovate," says Mr Axcell. "Beer comes with a lot of heritage and tradition so to innovate successfully, you need a functional beer with a functional benefit - one that has got to deliver something for the customer.

Deliver something...like glow in the dark...beer. Yet, aka MacroBrewCo does not even seem to have been the originator of the glow in the dark bevvie. Apparently, there was a little stir about the idea back in around the time of the new millenium. And, it seems, that the patent-holding¹ company in Arizona is continuing the exploration, you know, for that nightlight in a glass, as illustrated so...glowingly. It was even featured at the Institute of Food Technologists trade show in 1998, for heaven's sake. If tobacco can glow as above why not beer?

Understand me. I mock not science. I seek to praise it. It is clearly SABMiller that apparently stands between me and that fine rich Trappist dubbel that glows gently from its core like the last embers of a Yule log through the miracle of jellyfish luciferase. Come the revolution, all beer shall glow. Oh, yes - one fine day it shall glow.

¹US5876995 in case you were wondering.

Years ago in Stirling Scotland I likely got my only true pint of beer. The fluid crested over the glass holding it through the miracle of surface tension and the bartender told me to lean over and take a first draw off the top to avoid losing too much. That was a fine pint. Every other of the 63,574 glasses of beer I've had, well, I assume they are pretty much near enough and don't really worry that much.

But there are those who have questions. NPR ran a news story last week about a movement in Portland Oregon to standardize glasses in response to "falsies" or "cheaters," the latter being my word for the drug store reading glasses I now seem to wear. "Falsies" appear to be slightly related to the Aussie question of what is a "pot" and what is a "schooner" as both they relate to uncertainty as to the size of a measure. As the Wall Street Journal explained last June, "falsies" are 14 ounce glasses that look like 16 ounce ones. So, unlike CAMRA's campaign for the full pint and against short pouring, a "falsie" is full but not perhaps the measure as expected. For some, falsies are very bad indeed.

Associated with this is an overabundance of beer sizes which have left some in the UK concerned over the proposed two-thirds pints glass. As the Times of London reported this weekend:

...a two-thirds pint could become a standard measure in bars and restaurants next year under proposals announced yesterday by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory...The concept of a "twother" for the sale of draught beer and cider is included in a shake up of weights and measures out for consultation until the new year. Other proposals are to allow pubs, supermarkets and wine merchants to sell small measures of wine less than 75ml for tastings and samplings, and to ban 250ml servings of wine by setting 175ml as the maximum serving.

Again, for many, a two-thirds pint will be a very bad thing indeed, too. There is huge attachment to the measure of the pint in the UK to the point that even the 2007 exchange of the crown for a EU symbol on each glass indicating legal measurement caused consternation - not to mention discussion in Parliament.

I think my lack of concern with falsies and full pints is that I am Canadian. We live in a mixed up world where some measures are the English imperial one, some are US-based and some more are metric. As a result, I tend to think of whatever is in front of me as the proper measure of itself. Am I a soft mark? I don't think so. See, the first thing is I am so grateful to actually find a glass of beer in Canada worth pondering that I seldom ponder its true length. Then, I have no sense that we have standard price of beer as each pub, tavern or bar I have ever graced sets prices that seem to have more to do with the class of establishment rather than the quality of beer in the glass. Finally, the glassware you will be served can be anything from eight to twenty ounces if you ask, as most Canadians do, for "a beer" - the range being illustrated so very poorly up there to the left from this 2004 post of mine.

Maybe you have different thoughts? Maybe this is a cultural thing? Maybe it's just me but I sort of value the session out by other things than a 4% +/- variance on glass fills.

This is a good idea and, frankly, would be the second annual as I held the first annual in my basement this summer with four attendees. I countered in his comments with a few ideas of how such a thing could work:

• Do not hold it around one event in one venue. Too compressed. Too manic. Not family friendly.
• Tell people to get to a particular beery city / region with their families during a given week/long weekend. Aim at booking houses through craigslist rather than hotel rooms.
• Have a couple of fixed events for all: maybe booking a craft beer bar, putting a band and catered BBQ in a community hall and hold an afternoon of presentations from just the attendees.
• Have sponsors cover costs of fixed events. Otherwise no real "fee" for attending other than covering own costs.
• Go to the beach. Go to minor league baseball games where pre-arranged cask ale supply has been set up. Arrange backyard BBQs at houses people rent.
• Otherwise, just hang out in various groups in a somewhat relaxed manner to discuss beer and beer blogging.

I see it as something a little more like stacking the deck of a summer vacation with enhanced beery opportunities. Less pressure to pound the four ounce samples like at a regular beer fest and more time to get to know each other and the beers that one can find in a city. More time to mini-putt.

I nominate Portland, Maine as the first site of this sort of holi-fest. I suspect Lew would have no issue with that choice.

If we were not clear on this point as yet, our English expat pal in the Netherlands has made it abundantly clear in his last post wherein he sums up the 20th century. If I perhaps could claim to be The Jam - an accolade I would resist - he is no less than The Smiths. I bow deeply. We are honoured.

I can't believe I have not written about Koningshoeven aka La Trappe. Like the great soda v. pop conundrum, this sixth monastic brewery has divided the planet according to how people describe it. Bah! What's that, you say? BAH, I say. Was not "La Trappe" created for those who could not pronounce Koningshoeven??? Can we live enslaved to such things? Never. Others will know better no doubt but I say "BAH!!!"

I like this beer. Simply put, it is like a white bubblegummy triple that has met and made nice-nice with Young's Special London Ale, the beloved of Dave Line - the hero you have who you may well not know anything about. Apricot marmalade fruit over candi sugar with a hint of that crunchy autumn leave under foot hopping that the kids go made for. A slightly dry finish but, even at 8%, very moreish. Newly and briefly under 7 CND (aka under 6 USD this week) from the LCBO while supplies last.

Less BAer love than I would expect.

Blogging upon other people's bloggy observations is one other the lowest forms of blogging. Yet, when someone like Pete Brown goes about actually going to real events and doing things like taking a cask of IPA to India by boat, well, that is really more like conveying actual news or...ummm...having a life. Fortunately Pete Brown, doesn't take having his life that seriously, meaning he can report on the state of the public convenience:

...the British Public Toilets Association (yes, there really is such a thing) reckons 45% of public conveniences have closed in the last couple of decades. They occupy prime real estate - one former public toilet was recently sold for £125,000 as a flat. A parliamentary enquiry just this week estimated that the number of public conveniences in the UK has fallen from 5,410 in 2000 to 4,423 this year.

That is quite amazing. Blame George Michael all you want, but the growing lack of conveniences is more than inconvenient. There is a dehumanization to the lack of public planning for the need to pee. Simply an unkindness tied to the wrong response to questions of safety. And, in a real sense, it is an attack on the pub crawl, on the idea that I can have one more pint before making the hike home. Not to mention grannies and their cups of tea. In a way, it's even wrong to lump it in with "street furniture."

When I was younger and traveled, I got a glimpse at the life with the concierge - whether the old Polish gal in black who inhabited the railway station closet or the dapper man who handed you warm towels when you were at the restaurant you couldn't really afford. Each dignified the event...even, I suppose, the one in that unisex restroom in a Brussels bar. For some reason I know the public washroom of Dad's hometown was nicknamed "The Crystal Palace" as it was made with that glass brick. It was well loved because it was well used by those in need at all times of the day. Now the only places these get built on by the highways. Because no one walks.

When did we forget, like Winnipeg did, that people pee away from home? Is it when we stop walking down streets to go have a beer?

I think I only know about conkers because I am the child of immigrants. When I was little, grandpa came over from Scotland and was quite pleased to see that the schoolyard had a chestnut tree. Away he went picking up the windfalls and - all personal ethics and the Conkers Association rules being apparently damned - he soaked them in vinegar and baked them in the oven. After stealing all my Dad's shoelaces, he drilled a neat hole in each horse chestnut and sent us off first to teach the game in the playground and then destroy hopes of all our elementary school classmates through unleashing the doctered nuts on the unsuspecting.

Apparently, some dreams are harder to dash as this story shows:

The Eagle pub in Askew Road, Shepherd's Bush, held the tournament on Sunday which was attended by around 20 people...General manager Linda Sjogren said: "People were cheering the contestants on, there was lots of enthusiasm. "One of our regulars had collected about 60 conkers from a secret location. We still have some left over."

The winner got a free pint a week for a year. Note: 20 contestants. Good news that it does not take a large crowd to actually pull off something so pleasantly batty in any given pub. Good also to know that there is a World Conker's Championship held each fall in case your ambitions aim even a bit higher still.