Category: News from Other Beer Writers

Suggested websites to visit to further your beer education.

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Beer and the senses

If you are a science geek or you enjoy taking the beer tour and learning about the process of making beer then you should also enjoy the science of how we enjoy our beers.

Beer Sensory Science gets a little wonky at times but there is good information and nuggets of wisdom in each of the posts that I have read so far.

The tips for buying beer has some good information and learning about the “off” flavors is interesting too. Another good post has loads of descriptive adjectives that really can help the beer reviewer.

One word of caution, the posts tend towards the negative results. Not in a sky is falling way but in a slightly patronizing tone. Maybe it was just my interpretation but most people will not notice that oxidization in beer is rampant. The writer is a professional and has a palate that is much more attuned to nuance than mine and probably most people. If you don’t taste oxidization or diacetyl as much then count yourself blessed and keep drinking.

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Featured beer blog: Mark Dredge

Americans are awash in great beer. So much so that other locales are ignored somewhat simply because our ‘fridges and interwebs bookmarks are packed with great beer and great beer blogs.

But I suggest taking the time to read the Pencil and Spoon by Mark Dredge.

I talked with Mark briefly at the Beer Bloggers Conference last year and can tell you that he knows and is passionate about beer. And it shows in his writings.

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Beer Bloggers Conference # 2


Having been at the first conference in Boulder, I am pleased to announce the 2nd and 3rd are on tap!

“We are very pleased to announce the dates and locations of our two 2011 Beer Bloggers Conferences:

May 20-22: London, UK
August 19-21: Portland, Oregon

We hope to build on the success of our 2010 conference, which had 108 attendees this past November in Boulder, Colorado. While the London conference is designed to appeal to European beer bloggers and writers, we also hope it will attract bloggers from other geographies, including some intrepid traveling bloggers from North America.

Neither the Portland nor London conferences could exist without the support of our initial sponsors: Molson Coors (UK), Wells and Youngs, and Fuller’s in the UK and the Oregon Brewers Guild and BridgePort Brewing in Portland. These organizations make it possible to bring the Beer Bloggers Conference to you at extremely reasonable prices.

Registration is now open and space is limited due to our conference locations and the ability of our dinner hosts to accommodate large groups.

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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.

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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”

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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.

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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.