Category: Monthly Features

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The Firkin for March 2025

Is your social media feed beer driven or activity driven? It is a question that I want to pose to as many brewery media folk as possible. I know that my lens is introverted and geeky and that a new beer with a new hop or a heritage barley will get me into a taproom more than cornhole but I feel like the pendulum has swung a little too far away from the actual liquid.

This is of course also coming from someone who recently posted about thinking outside the box when it comes to activities and who also posted about a book extolling community at taprooms.

Themed nights are an effort to get butts in seats and buying beer from a crowd who is not buying currently. Economics are at play here. A new beer release is probably not going to bring out a line of beer buyers willing to pay a premium as much as a casual drinker who knows not of Dynaboost and Fonio.

But, the casual / weekend drinker is more fickle than a beer geek and losing sight of that in a rush to a cater to a crowd who are not tied to your beer but by karaoke is harder work in my opinion.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Good Hang with Amy Poehler

I remember the SNL Weekend updates and, of course, Parks & Rec but like many entertainers and comedians, podcasts are a natural creative outlet.  Amy Poehler already had one podcast and now has her second Good Hang.

This is a celebrity interview show with two points of separation. One is that it is tacking more towards genial and friendly and the second is that Poehler enlists some of her comedy friends to provide questions which I think is a new and neat touch. The show just started so it won’t take long to get caught up for those completists out there.

I would choose a nice session – low ABV beer for these shows, especially since they go about an hour. A nice pub beer while you get a few laughs.

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Sports & A Beer – March Madness vs. College Football Playoffs

Here is one of many weird things about me. I do not watch college basketball in the regular season but I enjoy March Madness. I have, before teams moving hither and thither watched college football in the regular season and less so the playoffs.

Why? There are a few reasons. First, I think March Madness does not have the same stink of corporate greed as the college football cash grab. Or at least that initial greed has worn off in my mind.

It is also that due to the lesser amount of games played that the importance of footballs regular season is far more than the college basketball one where the Madness is where the rubber hits the road. You also can’t discount that most college hoopers are done when that final buzzer sounds, whereas gridiron heroes have round after round of the NFL draft to look towards.

I have two beer lanes to choose. First, grab a beer from a college town like a Eugene or Berkeley. Or search a little harder to find a Marzen style beer out there to watch the shining moments from this years games.

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A Book & A Beer – Watford Forever

Before Welcome to Wrexham, there was the yellow brick to Watford.  Elton John a lifelong Watford fan was owner of Watford back when they were really struggling back in the days before the Premiere League.  The book by John Preston in collaboration with Sir Elton covers the time frame of when the club started a truly meteoric rise under the watchful eye of manager Graham Taylor.

This was such a fun and joyful read.  Obstacles are overcome.  Even truly harrowing ones such as racism and drug addiction.  Players who may have not made a mark are vindicated and a town finds itself back on the rise.  But the moments that really stuck with me are tinier.  The friendship between Elton and the manager’s wife, Elton racking up long distance charges just to listen to a game, the introduction of statistical analysis to football.

This is one of the rare books that you wish did not end.  And now I do want to watch a Watford game from either the Graham Taylor Stand or the Elton John Stand.

For beer, since Watford has a connection to the Bee nickname, let’s look to honey ales as they are usually quite sessionable for when you are watching a 90 minute game.

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The Firkin for February 2025

Beer is highly dependent on agriculture. But agriculture is tied to beer as well and nowhere is that seen as much as with hops.

Dave Infante from Vinepair recently delved into that connection with his rhetorical flourishes HERE but I want to add my two cents as well.

What struck me was that hop production was only down 16% in 2024. I expected much more than that. It does take a while to reduce, it is a big boat to steer after all, but it has been three down trending years already so I thought the number would be in the low 20’s.

My question is how will craft breweries rebound? Will it be with a hard thud onto a plateau? Or will there be some bounce to it as new breweries seize on opportunities of used equipment or turnkey operations.

If it is the latter, I hope that farmers prepare for the former so that they can re-calibrate acreage from a position of too little rather than oversupply. That may sound odd but brewers can steer to lower hop usage styles better than hop growers can control hop growth.

Whatever happens, this is more economic uncertainty and business does not handle that very well so there is probably more shifting ahead.

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Sports & A Beer – How to Fix the Portland Trailblazers

Before my beloved and frustrating Trailblazers went on a big 8-1 winning streak in January and February things were looking dire. They were sitting at 13-28 and had suffered some serious blowout losses. It was looking like yet another season of waving the white flag in the hopes of getting a shot at drafting Cooper Flagg.

But now things are looking better and with continued good play we just might be the top of the non-playoff tier in the Western Conference. The next progressive step would be playoffs next year.

To do that there are two things that I hope the organization and head coach Billups do to evolve the team like the logo above…

First, we do need to trim the roster a bit and hopefully acquire some additional long term draft picks. The Time Lord Robert Williams III could fetch some attention as could Jabari Walker and Matisse Thybulle and as good as Jerami Grant has been as a Blazer, he could garner us some picks as well. The roster reduction will provide a flight path for more minutes for Clingan, Scoot and Dalano Banton.

Second, solidify a rotation and send in waves of fresh players. Being able to bring players who have started like Scoot, Shaedon, Dalano and Clingan off the bench allows us less of a productivity drop off so I would kindly suggest doing hockey like shifts and just tire other teams out.

For beer, I would suggest locating a new brewery and buying a few of their beers in a can taster flight of sorts. Wild Parrot Brewing in East Pasadena springs to mind as does ISM Brewing in Long Beach.

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Sean Suggests for February 2025

This month, gonna keep this an all We Love L.A. edition of the beer shopping list.

Crowns & Hops Heritage Amber Lager – 5.6% – “our special release beer brewed for Black History Month to celebrate the history and current contributions of African Americans.”

Trademark Brewing Ocean Thunder West Coast IPA – 7% – a Double Dry-Hopped IPA featuring Nelson, Citra and Strata hops.

Beachwood Brewing Jukebox Jammer IPA – 7.1% – “this West Coast IPA is packed with a bold, dank four-hop blend (Mosaic Dynaboost, Columbus Cryo, Mosaic, Talus) that hits all the right notes!”

And here is a wee bonus option that you might want to track down….

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A Book & A Beer – Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

This is my first real big book in a while. Nearly 600 pages for Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez.

This is a supernatural / horror genre book with locales in South America and England and Africa for a tiny bit too. For a long novel, it moves pretty swiftly snd considering the time jumps from section to section and lead voice changes, is easy to follow along with.

The book is centered on Juan and his son Gaspar in the days and then years following the death of the wife and mother., Rosario who was born into a truly weird cult whose members thinks they can find eternal life from the Darkness. But you do not want to mess with the manifestation of it because it will take fingers, arms or eat you alive.

Juan is the medium from which the Darkness is summoned but being that middle man is killing him and he does not want that for his son which is the main plot driver.

I would give Our Share of Night a mild recommendation. If you can get past the inescapable fact that the father does not communicate to his son anything that would help him against the cult then you will be OK. So many events could have been avoided with a simple five minute conversation. The other big issue for me was the rushed ending. A book this long shouldn’t have to speed through the action at the end and then just abruptly end.

You will need a few different beers for this one and my main choice would be to try a couple things. First, look for a raspberry or cherry chocolate stout. Blood and darkness. You could also do a Guinness blend with the Irish stout with a fruited wheat beer or if you want to get experimental, a fruited sour.

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A Podcast & A Beer – An Arm and a Leg

I am not a true crime podcast fan but I have started an NPR podcast that is all criminality. An Arm and a Leg hosted by Dan Weissmann.

From profiteering to charity care it can be depressing but the podcast is also trying to be empowering as well by getting knowledge out about inner workings of the vast medical business.

With additional labeling being recommended for alcohol a possibility and with Dry January in the rearview, I would say that for beer to drink with this, go find some session IPAs or some low alcohol British-style beers with low ABV

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The Firkin for January 2025

Just before leaving office, the Surgeon General of the United States, following the lead of officials in Europe has suggested that an additional warning of cancer risk be added to alcohol products.

You can read up on the main points HERE but I have three questions that I would like additional information on…

  • is this for ALL alcohol? are grapes better than malt or apples better than toasted oak? are the botanicals in gin OK?
  • what is the math on amounts? is 16oz of 5.5% beer better than a cocktail with 45abv spirit?
  • what is the research (if any) on people who drink but do not get cancer. we have all heard about the old lady who drank scotch every week for forty years and lived to be 100. what is different about those folks.

This is all bearing in mind that science is ongoing, what seemed obvious now might be much murkier ten years from now.