In the Tap Lines for July 2024

For me, May Gray and June Gloom are the best time in SoCal but I know that I am in the minority and that most people love the sun. Whichever Angeleno you are, please make July – Visit a brewery month. It is really needed beer fans.

~ e-visits to (3) new breweries in my home state of Oregon

~ special featured reviews of barrel-aged beers from Lough Gill Brewing in Sligo, Ireland

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Napoleon of Crime by Ben MacIntyre

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Finally! A Show About Women That Isn’t Just a Thinly Veiled Aspirational Nightmare

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Sports and climate change

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

A Podcast & A Beer – The Curious History of Your Home

You reach into a drawer and pull a fork out.  Common place.  No big deal.  But did you know that the Catholic Church at one point banned the use of them?  Obviously fork use leads to sin.  That is just one fact from The Curious History of Your Home hosted by domestic historian Ruth Goodman.

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This is just a cool and fast paced jaunt through history via things in your home like the dishwasher or your cat and it is super fun and weird to see the evolution of wallpaper or coffee. Or specific to this blog, the May 27th episode about beer!

To pair with this podcast, you can go one of a couple routes.  You could go historical beers.  Find a Scotch Ale or a Witbier.  Or you could go further down the rabbit hole and pair a beer to each specific episode.  Gardening could you lead to a beer with say lavender or strawberry or other small garden items.

In the Tap Lines for June 2024

June is L.A. Beer Week Time so the BSP blog will be celebrating that all month long.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the Sister Cities of Los Angeles

~ special featured reviews of whatever is in the refrigerator throughout the month

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to The Curious History of Your Home

~ Sports & A Beer returns with NIL thoughts

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

A Podcast & A Beer – Into the Tardis

The 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, made a memorable entry and then followed up with goblins at Christmas and is set for his first full season of adventures starting this month.  But if you need more Doctor Who, the place to go for a prolific amount of content is Big Finish which produces audio stories of all the Doctors.  Want more Paul McGann than just one TV movie and cameos?  They have some. Looking for more Christopher Eccleston?  They have it.

Up until now, you had to buy it but there is now a podcast version which will give you a taste of the danger and whimsey just minus the visual effects.  Into the Tardis is hosted by Colin Baker and it also includes little snippets of behind the scenes info.

For an ale accompaniment, I would suggest the easy route if finding some British beers either from Britain like Samuel Smith’s for instance or if you can find that rare American made mild or bitter, go for that. If you wanted to dig deeper, try to get some Scottish beer (just not Brewdog) to honor the heritage and accent of past Doctors and the current one. More American would be Single Hill’s Partner in Time IPA.

Or if you into that sort of thing, there are quite a few blue hued beers. Great Notion is one purveyor of non beer colored beers.

In the Tap Lines for May 2024

With the Craft Brewers Conference in the rear view, it is time to prepare yourself for summer beer festival season. Though not as busy as in past years, there will be plenty to do and plenty of souvenir cups to collect. Below is what is currently planned for the month of May here on the blog.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the Central Coast of California in advance of the Firestone Walker Invitational

~ special featured reviews of whatever is in the refrigerator throughout the month

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Tales from the Tardis

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Drafting for QB1

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

A Podcast & A Beer – A Crispr Bite

Cultural anthropologist Dr. Lauren Crossland-Marr hosts the five-episode spanning podcast A CRISPR Bite. It takes a look at gene editing with a critical eye but also with hope too.

I like me a limited podcast series where a topic can be presented and a deeper dive can be made and this cleverly titled food podcast does just that as it clears up the difference between GMOs and gene editing as well as discussing the long term implications of changing, say, tomatoes to have more of a certain vitamin. The episode about creating cows with no horns was particularly thought provoking.

Since this topic is in the agricultural weeds, I have three drinking suggestions for you. First is cider, second is mead and then third, a little harder to find, a single malt or hop (SMASH) beer. Anything that has an easy link to nature.

In the Tap Lines for April 2024

Spring sprang a day early this year and SoCal has been getting actual weather with slight variations instead of 80 degrees and dry as hell, so time to celebrate the season and bottom left corner of the country.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from San Diego

~ special featured reviews of Spring beers

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzales James

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to A Crispr Bite

~ Sports & A Beer returns with

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

A Podcast & A Beer – Heritage Mezcal

This month we listen to stories of Mezcal at Heritage Mezcal with host Chava Peribán.

It is a unique spirits podcast in that the coverage is wide ranging and not just mezcal. Rum and coffee are talked about but so is overall happiness and logistics and just the general vibe around mezcal.

Peribán has a good solid agave knowledge and is very enthusiastic to the point of partially getting in the way of some interviews but in a charming way. He even sometimes asks questions and says you don’t have to answer.

To pair with this podcast, I would be as eclectic and bubbly in the beer selections. Have a sparkly pilsner and then a rum barrel-aged beer or pick up a Mexican craft beer or a cocktail beer. Anything goes.

In the Tap Lines for March 2024

Springtime in SoCal as we move into what I jokingly call “early summer”. Hoping to find some bock beers, either strong or dopple would be nice plus the following features this month….

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the newer cities in the NWSL

~ special featured reviews of a potpourri of beers

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads The Trees by Percival Everett

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Heritage Mezcal

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Thoughts on March Madness

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

A Podcast & A Beer – True Detective: Night Country

True Detective is back in creepy form with the 4th installment, aka Night Country. The sign of a good show and a talked about one is when the streamer also plumps for a podcast as well.

And care has been taken from the jump by having an indigenous member of the Alaskan community serve as host. Alice Qannik Glenn is an activist and podcaster and does a good job moving each episode along and pulling information about both the process of creating this show as well as additional information about Alaska and its peoples. I kinda wish they would delve a bit deeper into the Easter Eggs and possibilities of what’s to come but it is a small quibble about a good companion piece to the show.

Obviously, the best choice would be something from Anchorage Brewing or Alaskan Brewing but we hear in SoCal do not see much of those brands. Ditto for anything from Iceland where the series was filmed. The next obvious choice would be to have a new cold IPA each episode to match the corpse-sicles in the show.

That leaves me thinking about the dark, since the show is set when the sun is not shining. Russia has made weird claims on Alaska recently plus Putin is a dick so we will steer away from a Russian Imperial stout and instead look for Baltic Porters.