The best way to navigate the beer scene of an unfamiliar or large city (I.E. New York) is to check out the local craft beer blogs.
Brew York, New York is another source of beery information for the traveler or local alike.
Craft Cans
Craft Cans.com is one of the most eye pleasing beer websites out there. The layout and design is really pops and they have chosen (or were chosen) by a growing and fun segment of the craft beer market.
Here is what they say about themselves…”CraftCans.com is a site dedicated to news and reviews for the “Canned Beer Revolution”. Here you’ll find a database of all craft beers now available in cans, information about new canned beer releases, as well as unbiased reviews of canned craft beers.”
Craft Cans is one of my weekly beer information stops and I suggest you give it a look too.
Click the link and watch….
….Pete Brown and his great videos of pubs and beers in Great Britain. You will learn something.
Click HERE
If you haven’t read any of his books. Do yourself a favor and add them to your Christmas list. You can take my word for it or you can read his review of the Stella Black beer….“So what’s it taste like? I told you my expectations weren’t that high, but I was prepared to be open-minded. Well. No aroma whatsoever. I don’t know what they did with the Saaz hops, coriander and orange peel, but they didn’t put them in this beer. It’s so long since Stella has seen whole Saaz hops perhaps no one at the brewery knew what they were and they made a weird, bitter salad with them instead.
The taste has a very brief flash of malty sweetness, then a chalky dryness that disappears almost instantly, and that’s it – until the unpleasant aftertaste starts to build after a few sips. Then you need another beer to get rid of that. Stella Black is one of those special, rare beers that manage to be both tasteless and unpleasant. A beer that’s merely tasteless we can all understand, but this? It’s like a 4.1% standard lager with a weird, Special Brew type finish. The worst of all worlds. Utterly undrinkable”
Beer Cartel
It can be daunting just to keep up with the craft beer in your own backyard. But keep in mind that the beer revolution is not just happening here.
It is also happening in places as far flung as Australia. That’s where resources like the Beer Cartel come into play.
You can buy rare (to us) beer, join a beer of the month club or just learn more about the scene in Australia. If you don’t check it out today, it has been added to the links section for future viewing.
Flight of the Passing Fancy
Zak Avery one of the leading lights of great beer in Great Britian has opened up a writing contest. I love entering contests so here is my entry. The theme is beer and time.
Flight of the Passing Fancy
Buckhorn in a ten ounce stubby bottle.
Leads to…. Thomas Kemper Weizenberry
Leads to…. me at the Crown City brewpub in Pasadena, California
Leads to…..grander travel to St. James Gate in Ireland and Andechs in Germany
Finally the curiosity turns to passion and blogging.
All of us at one time or another has wanted to go back in time to re-do a certain event. Especially if we came up with a cutting remark for the school bully AFTER being punched. There are some pivotal points that I would like a do-over on. But when it comes to beer, I would only like to add one thing to those times spent at the bar or brewery. I would like to go back and appreciate it MORE.
I am 40 going on 41. Thanks to a technically illegal start to drinking beer (if you can call Buckhorn beer), half of my time on earth has been spent drinking mostly good, a few spectacular and even fewer horrible beers. My journey has seen the fall of regional breweries, a famine of decent brews, the rise of micro-breweries, followed by a contraction that seemed permanent, then a fiery burst of growth that I am in the midst of enjoying now.
But that macro level view of the passing years is not what I remember most about the wide world of craft beer. What really fascinates me, as I grow older, are the varied beers that not only my palate experienced but also provide snapshots of where my life when I was enjoying that beer. I sincerely hope that it also is indicative of an evolution in my appreciation of beer.
Oh, how I would like to go back and speed that evolution along. I could tell my younger self to stop complaining about the changing label art on the Thomas Kemper WeizenBerry bottles and just enjoy the fruit bomb of a beer. Because in a few years, that beer would be no more and then the brewery would be no more. Folded up into Pyramid and just a footnote in craft beer history.
I would talk more with the people brewing the beer at Crown City and let them know that their oasis in a dry Los Angeles of the mid ‘90’s was really appreciated. I should have said it while Crown City was still packing them in. Because in a few years, they would be gone just shortly before the craft beer craze swept through Los Angeles.
I could go on and on but I need to spend the time fully enjoying this strange beer from Epic Ales that is in front of me as I type this. Coffee and cardamom combined into a fragile base beer. Does it work? Maybe. Only time will tell.
Beer Bloggers Conference – What has been blogged
from BrewPublic
from 2 Beer Guys
from Girls Pint Out
from The Beer Babe
and finally from NovaBeerFly
Beer Blogger Conference – What I Photographed
Beer Blogger Conference – What I Drank
I drank about 45+ separate beers over the three day weekend.
I shall start with the best….
Rising Tide Brewing / Ishmael – A wonderful effervescent alt-bier with loads of malt taste.
Russian River Brewing / Sanctification – Sour and funky and fruity while still being easy to drink.
Quaff Brothers / Jones IPA – Not an IPA but a wonderful caramel and vanilla bourbon concoction.
Avery Brewing / Jerry’s Roggenbier – A great spicy and heavy brew for a fall day.
Great Lakes Brewing / Edmund Fitzgerald Porter – Just a perfectly done porter.
On my next level of must mentions are….
Twisted Pine Brewing / Ms. Jackie Brown – A pumpkin saison that was delicate and spicy.
Mountain Sun Brewpub / Cleveland Brown – What can I say, I’m in a brown ale mood.
Upslope Brewing / Pale Ale – Cool can design and great beer inside.
Brooklyn Brewing / Black Ops – Would be in top 5 if I was more of a imperial stout afficionado. A very smooth but strong offering.
Southern Star Brewing / Buried Hatchet – Another great stout. And this one is canned and from Texas. Wonders never cease.
The weird brews of the weekend are…
Epic Ales / Beatrice – Pepper and other spices in a weird flavor medley.
Avery Brewing / Ruminator – Rum aged but as strong as bourbon to me.
But what really got me excited was seeing….
Crow Peak / IPA – South Dakota off the list
Sun King / Wee Mac – Indiana off the list
Beer Blogger Conference – Day 3
Here is the final quick impression posts from the 1st Beer Bloggers conference.
I had to pace myself on Saturday night but I still tasted a few new beers from places here-to-fore never sampled. Upslope, Odell’s and Boulder Beer. Then I had to get up and listen to Eric from BeerTap TV. The very cool Kerry Finsand from Taplister and eminence gris, Jay Brooks. “Had to” seems harsh, like an assignment. I don’t mean it that way. I had to so I could learn from the folks that have a knowledge set that I do not possess yet. They were great. I picked up new bits from all three.
That’s all for now. Complete wrap up to land in the next few days along with photos and beers drunk list (that will blow you away, that is a promise)!
Beer Blogger Conference – Day 2
Here is the Day 2 report. Starting with two great presentations on blogs and tech and two that did not have info for me. But that may be due to me being un-tech-geek and obstinate. I will talk in more detail later about what I learned and what may appear on this very blog in the coming months later since this is more of an itinerary post
Then on to Avery where me and my band of cohorts from Olympia, Santa Barbara and Portland were really treated well because of that Beer Blogger badge. Avery is housed in a little industrial park. Great little tap room. Got Ruminator, Rumpkin and Moloch among other gratis samples! Highly recommended.
Speed beers were next. In two words: exhausting but great. 12 beers. 5 minutes each. I dare you to fully enjoy Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald porter (which is awesome, as were the people from the brewery) then turn around and have World Wide Stout from Dogfish Head. I ended up stockpiling tasters and slowly catching up.
The massive bottle share and Oskar Blues dinner will be covered in later posts along with the Boulder Beer dinner and Pearl Street Pub crawl.