Tag: Appalachia

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New from the White Labs Vault

It is common to see posts about new hop varietals on this blog. Sometimes malt gets a high five but yeast and water rarely factor in despite their massive importance which is why I though this Instagram post from White Labs was cool…

WLP631 is in town. There’s probably won’t be any beers promoting that title on a label but it is important to see yeast terroir in action. Maybe there will be a Great Lakes Tart yeast or Big City SoCal version. The fact that science can cut these up into distinct little products is great because each time we gain a little more understanding of beer.

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A Book & A Beer – Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

I am not a big memoir reader (except for this year it seems) but as the author of Hillbilly Elegy states at the beginning of his book, this isn’t really a memoir.

It is a hybrid memoir with scattered bits of social policy thrown in. To me, the history of the J.D. Vance’s growing up is fascinating with one of the key take-aways being that the skills that he needed to survive childhood are not the same ones that he needed as an adult. I found the political and how to help the poor (aka hillbillies) to be a bit simplistic at times though Vance does go out of his way to say that the problem doesn’t have a one size fits all solution. Those thinking that he is some staunch Republican would find little in common with the current powermongers in DC or with most Republicans. He is basically right-center on the spectrum.

I will be highlighting breweries in Ohio and Kentucky where the book was primarily set this month, so for my recommendation, I would suggest (if still made) have a beer that was around when you were growing up. For me, I would find some Widmer or McMenamin’s to take me back to my past and the places that made me who I am.

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Mountain State Brewing

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My expertise is skewed to the left coast but I do no want to leave out the rest of the country on this blog so for those in West Virginia and Maryland you can try out Mountain State Brewing “born and brewed in West Virginia. As with alot of our great craft brewers they started at home in the ’90’s and now you can taste the hard work Brian & Willie have put into their beers.