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Quebec: Weizenbock, Trois Mousquetaires, Brossard

Posted: December 31st, 2009, 3:01am CET by Alan McLeod

Eleven percent. Year old Quebec weizenbock picked up last April for $7.99 for 750 ml at Marche Jovi. A lot for a little.

Fortunately, it's extremely yum. A bit of a cross between a quad and the classic wheat double bock or weizenbock, Aventinus. The aromas are of pumpernickel and dark cherry with maybe even a rich deep pipe tobacco thing. In the mouth, very lush soft watery even with the well covered boozy burn and the heavy body. Date and nutmeg. Honey and cocoa. White pepper and dark cherry. Rough and earthy on the finish. Quite extraordinary.

Big BAer respect.

What Was My Best Beer Thing Of 2009?

Posted: December 30th, 2009, 12:19am CET by Alan McLeod

It has been a good year both inside and outside that beery part of my life. It is hard to measure what that means in some ways as If I was reporting to higher authority, I can state that I have put good beer in the hands and glasses of more of the uninitiated than in earlier years. It is a good thing to do but I am not reporting to any higher authority, just noting for myself and those of you that care about what I have seen and enjoyed in 2009:

Best Beer Books. This has been a phenomenal year for books on beer. I name three of the best. Pete Brown's Hops and Glory, supposedly an examination of the route IPA took in the early years of its travels from Britain to India, is actually a book about Pete. Ben McFarland's World's Best Beers has updated the bazillion beer review format and breathed new life into what had become a bit of a musty concept. Beaumont and Morin in The Beerbistro Cookbook have given us the best book on beer and food which, while suggesting recommendations, has saved us from the shackles of overly specific "pairings" instead encouraging us all not only to explore beer but to explore with a sense of one's own taste.

Best Beer Trend: It has to be the setting of the sun on the tyranny of extreme. Finally, beer is learning what everyone but skate boarding thirty-year olds know: extreme may be more than a gimmick but not very much more. Few beer fans are really begging for even more hops and booze and barrels in 2010. Conversely, bigger craft brewers and even some regionals are making interesting beers which are not bombs. Lew recently noted both Magic Hat Odd Notion Fall '09 and Narragansett Porter both of which I also found to be stunning for their value as well as their elegance. Yesterday, Andy was thankful for well crafted simplicity. Expect 2009 to be remembered for how we learned that cacophony in glass is not a brewers or a drinker's "go to" brew.

Best Beer News. What is beer news that isn't brewery PR, advocacy group paranoia or corner store failed robbery? Not much really but that does not make it a waste of time. The biggest beer news was Obama having a brew courtside last March. Best saucy beer news was the announcement that BrewDog complained on itself to the shadowy Portman Group, aka the competition. Other than that, it's all about naked drunk frosh being caught on security cameras at corner stores in Kansas. Jay has a better list of big news stories of 2009 - though I have to admit that Beer Wars is more likely to turn out to be the Ishtar of beer documentaries. It was news because of the irritating PR.

Best Bodyslam Of Beer Pros By Beer Bloggers. This is a new category for 2009. First we had the ridiculous lecture from small market western Massachusetts beer columnist George Lenker whose pomposity triggered a response that Stan anointed as "The Beer Link of the Month (or Maybe 2009)" which made me get all verklempt... seriously... but which saw George drowning in his attempts to explain while sorta still insulting people. Then, we had Roger Protz, one of at least the top 20 beer authorities on the planet, freaking out over Brewdog and then get all superior and "begone you plebs" over bloggers correctly pointing out how little he understood the topic at hand. Then, just this week, we hear that there is some guy called Alan Brewer going all "pro" on poor old Max the Pivní Filosof alleging that, by hiring Max a mere a beer blogger, a Spanish beer magazine has "allowed the fox into the hen-house" and says that "if the hiring standards of the magazine have fallen so low, he could recommend a homeless man he knows, who is an expert in strong canned beers of less than a dollar."

Sounds like a call for a good rumble of rock, paper, scissors between paper based semi-pros and web based semi-pros. Cherry belly time. Because let's be frank. There are about 12 people in the world who really make a real living from writing about beer. The rest have other business interests in the hospitality world, a separate professional career or sources of other family income and patience. And there is that other thing: the Internet is not going anywhere. It's a good thing, too, because anyone who says that the quantity and quality of beer writing on the web is not a good thing is a fool. A rising tide raises all ships and the more good discourse about good beer the better.

I'll leave it at there for now. I think I have picked a beer of the year and a beer photo of the year for more than half a decade now and who am I to break the rules of convention even when it is my own.

What To Do During With This Break From Beer?

Posted: December 28th, 2009, 3:46pm CET by Alan McLeod

Being a serial obsessive, it is not a surprise to me that I have spent years drilling down into my interest in beer. I've done this before. Somewhere in the house is my pre-internet map collection. I would pore over detailed maps I had mailed from all over the world as I followed the news on shortwave radio. Somewhere else is the hockey card collection, the 60's and 70s British sci-fi DVD and VHS collection, the soccer jersey collection and the who knows what else collection. For most of my adult life I have been fixated on something or other and usually more than one at one time. Heck, I have two banjos and play neither well.

But, like a summer camping weekend that gets you away from the computer, the break in the action as you get at Christmas it makes you think. Traffic at Facebook, Twitter and the hits to my blogs all dive as soon as Christmas Eve comes and only come up for air sometime around January 5. The break from thinking, planning, hatching schemes is the best part of the season. Time stands still because there really isn't much needing done - and not much needing escaping from. The information super highway sorta loses its point at times like this.

All this wondering about the cause of seasonal internet disinterest dissipates as soon as I cross reference the web stats to the human work week. All my writing, my beery activity - it's all just desk jockey day dream porn. Should this be a surprise? Should I feel badly that I contribute 0.000073% of the western world's productivity lost to surfing web sites? Not really but it does make you wonder. I used to say that if I didn't do this I would have learned Finnish (not to mention the banjo) by now but, if my activities at Christmas are any indication, the beer blog writing and reading and stuff are not a surrogate for long lost productive activity so much as a veneer over a deep and abiding commitment to unproductive inactivity. It's obvious. I haven't even been spending the time off in an armchair considering any new beer, reading any new beer books or even wandering off to pubs. It's not what I do. I wonder how much I really like this stuff at all.

The beery web we weave will pick up again I suppose. The hunt for another story about an off beat brewer. The thing I notice in that dubbel I haven't noticed before. But I don't mind that my obsession goes quiet at Christmas so that the more important things in life get a chance at my time - like naps, watching cartoons with the preschoolers or picking up the banjo... or the other one for that matter.

Belgium: Christmas Ale, St. Bernardus, Watou

Posted: December 27th, 2009, 1:14am CET by Alan McLeod

I had this stuck away as a nod to Ron, the patron saint of Watou. As I can't get the 12 on tap, this is according to Ron the second best thing.

And it is a best thing. Brownest brew under rich deep cream froth and foam. A nose of dark plum and date with cinnamon and nutmeg. All that plus cream, a little burlap and a boozy tingle in the mouth. Just the thing for sherry trifle not to mention the Leafs and Habs on Boxing Day. At 10% - pun warning - it is not to be trifled with even if trifle goes with it. Say what you like about puns but it is true. These Christmas scale large format bottles are powerful beasts in velvet garb. Not sure that I could open a second. Like drinking gravy if gravy was a by-product of the cake and icing making process. Licorice and thyme in the malt laden finish.

BAers love it.

Michigan: Weizen Bam, Jolly Pumkin, Dexter

Posted: December 26th, 2009, 3:51am CET by Alan McLeod

It's been all too much, really. The photo contest, plus the shopping, then the work lunches and drinks and then shopping and the seminars and concerts and church and... now it's Christmas night. Present opened, lamb consumed, half the kids in bed and the rest headed that way. What to have to cut the cloy of these rich days?

Jolly Pumpkin's Weizen Bam clocks in at a mere 4.5%. It pours quite pale gold with a pure white head sustained by some pretty active carbonation. The aroma is full of zesty, acidic herbals and citrus. In the mouth it is semi-dry with rice wine vinegar and lemon juice zip but still some light malt presence along with a bit of spice. Recessed yeastiness imparting some light banana thing but this is no tribute to hefeweizen so much as a nod to it from a stack of oak barrels. Completely refreshing. One might even use the word zing in one form or another. Bought for a bargain at the brewery last August. Plenty of BAer love.

Don't Forget To Heat Your Beer For Christmas

Posted: December 24th, 2009, 4:18am CET by Alan McLeod

The Washington Post introduced a piece on Christmas ales today with a reminder that they harken back to the pre-Puritan days of England, days of steaming bowls of hot spiced ale and shorter life spans:

... originally, the word -- from the Middle English greeting "waes haeil," or "be hearty" -- referred to the strong drink that inspired enthusiastic if tone-deaf renditions of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and "Good King Wenceslas." Wassail was a freestyle punch made with a strong spiced ale (sometimes wine) and flavored with sugar, nutmeg, cloves, apples, oranges, toast; in short, whatever the lord of the manor might have lying about his pantry. During the Christmas season, it was customary to offer a warming drink to bands of carolers. In 1644, the Puritans in England banned the practice (and all other public celebrations of Christmas) on the grounds that it led to wastefulness and debauchery.

Screw you, Cromwell. I have been wanting to heat some beer for the heck of it this Yuletide and think I will make a drink called a Lamb's Wool. My copy of Acton and Duncan's Making Mead tells me a good Lamb's Wool starts with baking apples with honey and nutmeg in the oven, then pouring two quarts of brown over them when done and ladling it over the apples on the stove until it all piping hot after which the apples are eaten with a jug of the hot sweetened spiced ale. Excellent - a beer that is also a good source of dietary fibre.

Now, which beer to wrack with such punishment? I am sure as heck not going to experiment with something expensive but here in Ontario you can pick up a 750 ml of 8% Maudit by Unibrou for about five and a half bucks. It's also a bit dry for a dubbel sThat should do the trick. The apple variety would make a difference as well. I am thinking an earthy Russet or a sharp Northern Spy. I am not thinking Golden Delicious. An apple should taste like something. Like, you know, an apple.

Anyone else planning a mulled ale?

My First Hospitality Seminar - And What Do I Say?

Posted: December 22nd, 2009, 1:32pm CET by Alan McLeod

I like to think I know a thing or two about beer but I probably know diddly when it comes down to it. I go on here and yak at other people's blogs but have I really been put to the test? Well, I have been invited to lead local folk in the hospitality trade through an introduction to good beer and I took up the challenge seeing both that the stash needs a little culling and I need a break from shopping. Even though they are rookies to good beer, I was actually getting a little nervous about what I would say... but then I realized that I am the guy bringing all the free beer and, in the world of guys, that makes me the greatest guy in the room if not all of the town. Here is what I have learned so far:

Good beer is cheap. I have only about ten people coming and in gathering my part of the gift of good beer I probably spent 75 bucks to gather about 50 or 75 generous sample servings splitting 500 ml two or three ways. We grumble sometimes about the LCBO but we are pretty lucky to have that as well as borders you can cross to get the rest.
We have good beer available to us even if beer hounds hunting for the next tick might grumble. The selection include London Pride, Ontario's 10W30 by Neustadt, Beau's Lugtread, Unibrou's Maudit, Westmalle Dubbel, Brooklyn Chocolate Stout, Aventinus Eisbock, Weihenstephaner Weissbier as well as one smokey bottle of Schlenkerla Rauchbier, my ribeye marinade. I decided to lean on the available as it does no good to get people revved up and then tell them how they can't buy it.
I plan to illustrate usefulness. For all the talk on travel, styles, authenticity, ticking or pairing at the end of the day all that matters is whether your beer is useful. And the use of beer is generating conviviality. At it's best it is a easily bought, readily accessible, social lubricant that enhances the moment with ease. That moment may include good food, attention being paid to the beer or it may be a moment where people stand around and talk or watch the game. It is all convivial.
I plan to cheat. I am taking my laptop as well as Oliver's Brewmaster's Table, Beaumont's The Beerbistro Cookbook, McFarland's World's Best Beers and a few more gems by Stan, Lew and others to illustrate how much information there is available to restaurateurs - and, again, on the cheap. Two hundred bucks gets the start of a good beer library for any bar and even its customers.

There may be more beer, too, as I will raid the stash for some examples of the pricier stuff - you know, those bottles that cost about as much as an Australian mass marketed plonk - and we are praying that the box with Panil and other fabulous samples to make it here via FedEx care of the continuing kindness of Roland and Russell.

The goal is to see if I can start help my town take it up a notch by helping spread the news to those who can, in turn, share it on. I am planning to talk about simple and complex, price and value, import and local, bottle and tap, temperature and glassware as well as simply versatility by having a beer with an egg, a piece of cheese or chocolate as well as a bunch of other stuff. I may be no fan of "pairing" but I sure do like eating and drinking. So, my question to you is this: what else would you talk about and make sure was in the room? Even if this is more of a working session than a tasting - whatever that is - it needs to tell the story well. What would you want me to tell people who can start rolling out the barrels if they get the message?

When You Can't Say "Good" Just Say "World Class"

Posted: December 22nd, 2009, 1:50am CET by Alan McLeod

Stan has asked questions at his blog that have me quite puzzled. It's about some weird idea that a beer could be "world class" as if that is the apex of some sort of sliding scale of swellness.There are a lot of words or phrases like "world class" that are equally meaningless even if not synonyms - "top" and "foremost" not to mention "aficionado" and "connoisseur" come to mind for similar trembling vacuity. At least "favorite" means someone actually likes whatever we are talking about.

A teacher of mine once used a trick to get his students to stop using "very" which was a variation on having us interchange "frigging" for "very" every time "very" was proposed to be used in a sentence. The result was generally not to use either word, although once in a while a well placed "frigging" did the trick. So, what can we use instead of "world class" to test its meaninglessness in actual application? Anyone? To start you in the right direction, I might propose the following:

"curled wass"
"class of the world"
"world classy"

It is likely every use of the phrase "world class" could be improved by exchange for "world classy" or at least it's failings would be better understood as a phrase. More to the point, is there any use of "world class" that could not be better stated in some other way?

The Madness Of Not Doing What You're Told

Posted: December 21st, 2009, 12:50pm CET by Alan McLeod

Even before that silly rant by Protz last month, it had become more than evident that BrewDog was taking paths not trod in an effort to get the word out about its beer. But all the focus was on their successful abuse of the old guard and those who were satisfied, including financially, with having had it all worked out - and not some of their other approaches:

... a group of design and media students from Wrexham's Glyndwr University have won an 'Apprentice' style contest to do just that. Mark Scott, Michelle Roberts, Qingyun Hu, Yz Wez and Phillip Chan had to design the bottle and packaging, pitch the brand and suggest the flavour of a new beer, which will be manufactured by Scottish firm BrewDog, for sale around the university. "We wanted our brand to feel Welsh, have strong associations with the university, and have a catchy name which people could remember to ask for when they'd had a few," explained Phillip Chan, part of the winning '1412' team.

While a small thing, it's part of the gathering story that BrewDog is not a one trick pony or the advertising gimmick that some would have it. Much has been said, for example, about their reaching out to bloggers but it is not a matter of just sending beers for reviews. Questions are asked and email discussions are held. A decision to be responsive seems to have been included in the marketing plan. I also like the idea that there is a range in price as well. Punk IPA has shown up on Ontario's shelves this month at a very locally modest $2.60 a bottle even as a bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin can be delivered to North America for a mere (but, face it, insane) $125.

Just as there is head scratching that no one thought of grabbing the work "punk" for an IPA and making it their own before - so, too, there must be some chin rubbing over not thinking to ignore convention in all ways to get the word out.

Belgium: Fantome Noel, Brasserie Fantome, Soy

Posted: December 20th, 2009, 3:25am CET by Alan McLeod

I was good to myself. Having a family reunion with one great uncle in the house, I thought I would pop this gem as we consume t-bones and lamb chops. Have you noticed that steaks go discount at Yule? It sure does here. We always have the beef feed in the lead up.

Barn. Moinette Brune meets Fantome Saison with autumn apple orchard windfall skank. Rich dark fruit on a dry palate. Dark cream foam and rich lacing rim over clouded smoked amber ale. Tang as tangy as a blue cheese as opposed to a vinegared lambic. But more than that, it is like a beer that has gone rusty. The aroma is stunning - gravenstein apple, rising yeast dough, spring time and autumn. Earthy as long as we as speaking about the Earth I want to live on. Happy Christmas to me.

Yule '09 Photo Contest: I Plain Forgot Three Prizes

Posted: December 19th, 2009, 12:46am CET by Alan McLeod

It is the scatter brained time of year. Why isn't there a mythical nutty character at Christmas time - a Loki or a jester of some sort - that captures that the business of the business of the season makes us do odd things. There ought to be - so pity me and, more to the point, Dave Selden of Portland Oregon who sent me this email this morning:

Did I miss something, or did you forget to give away 3 copies of 33Beers to a lucky photo winner? I'm happy to save the prize for next year if I'm not sold out. In one of your early posts, you said you'd give them away, but if you've changed your mind, that's okay, too.

If you haven't heard, 33Beers is a handy dandy beer rating tool that Dave and pals have come up with and sell at a site called 33beers.com. So we need to give three away - like this:

Picture	Artist / Reasons	Prizes
	Troy Burtch of Toronto, Ontario took this photo of an overflowing spile at Cafe Volo's 2009 Cask Days.	33Beers VIP package
	Knut Albert Solem of Olso Norway because too often we forget the connection of beer and bike.	33Beers VIP package
	Jason Faulconer of Boston, Mass because that is the view of beer I would have if I were, you know, eleven years old.	33Beers VIP package

Now you will notice that these three last winners are bloggers. Another - Stan - just posted his ideas about what the 33Beer tool can do. Maybe sharing this gift will also mean sharing the discussion of what it can do.

The last emails will go out this week confirming the prize winners and connecting them with prize givers. I would do it now but I need a nap or a beer. One of those nap or beer moments you need to respect before Christmas to recover from all the running around so you can ensure you are in the right place for naps and beers at Christmas.

A Good Beer Blog's Final Photo Winners For 2009

Posted: December 18th, 2009, 1:39am CET by Alan McLeod

So here we are. The last post of the 2010 Good Beer Blog Yuletide Photo Contest and Marital Patience Examination. The entries have been swell and the prize givers have been even sweller - if that is possible. We have had photo entered from across North American and Europe and maybe a few points farther than that. We've had sixteen prize packages so far and are about to give out the last six. Plus, I did not write "shutterbug once" and we have all been the better off because of it.

The next four generally all equal runner up prizes before the announcement of Grand Loser and the Grand Winner are:

Picture	Artist / Reasons	Prize
	Peter B. Collins, brewer assistant at Grand River Brewing in Cambridge, Ontario for capturing the last day at the cottage	A hardcover first edition of Ambitious Brew direct from the author Maureen Ogle.
	Gary Melenhorst the millwright and maintenance guy and John Stephenson the electrician and IT guy from Ontario's Creemore Springs Brewery because they can share it at the brewery and come up with a new wheat beer.	The upcoming brand spanking new book on wheat beers also direct from Stan Hieronymus.
	Thomas Cizauskas of Yours for Good Fermentables because I want to be right there and I want to know that guy and be there with him... even if TOM CAN"T COUNT!!!	Swag from Creemore Springs including a hockey jersey
	Rob Symes of Toronto, Ontario because - even though that hand pump is unfortunately located - the image of a Japanese salaryman at Popeye's in Tokyo hitting the cask beer after an insanely long work day is both sad and appealing.	unsigned copy of Hops and Glory by Pete Brown from me

Some great entries there with a heavy slant towards Ontario. My bias will not continue as next up is the 2009 Grand Loser as it is such a gloriously bad photo. The winner wrote:

There's a brewpub under construction in my neighborhood (Migration Brewing), and the do-it-yourself owners have a kegerator in their tunneled-out future pub, to make sure everyone is nourished enough to work. I hope I haven't moved the picture out of last place by putting it into context.

No worries about that. It is not only in last place but I made up a new award for it and bought the prize myself. Click on what we have below. It is a documentary moment. A dirt pile but an important one.

Picture	Artist / Reasons	Prize
	Bill Night of Portland Oregon and It's Pub Night because that is the ugliest picture I have ever posted on my blog.	Unsigned copy of Man walks into a Pub by Pete Brown from me. This is the ugliest cover of a very good book and so is a perfect match for the dirt pile portrait.

So even though it is the Grand Loser, I hope that the prize is appreciated and received with the thanks with which it is given. Which leaves us the top beer photo submitted for 2009.

[Drumroll]

And the Grand Winner of A Good Beer Blog's 2009 Yuletide Photo Contest Is...

The champion photo every year has spoken to me about the vitality of beer. In the contest's first year of 2006, it was about beer in the state of nature as captured by Dave Selden of Portland Oregon. In 2007, the quiet of the pub was the subject of John Lewington's photo "Two Pints of Bitter" - a candid photo John took of two old boys enjoying their Sunday afternoon ale in a 17th century pub in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Last year, it was about the labours of the brewer captured in the photo submitted by Matt Wiater of Portland Oregon of Chip Conlon at Roots Organic Brewing.

This year, the theme is the same - the moment of human interaction with beer - but the moment captured is a new one, the tapping of a cask. Like the other grand prize winners, there is something captured - the light, the moment, the people and the interaction that makes them all partners of a sort. Taken by Kim Reed of Rochester, New York, it shows the second we all wait for, we all day dream of as we play our roles as desk jockey, dairy farmer, coal miner, bank teller. It is the moment beer's work becomes beer's pleasures. For this seeing this moment and placing it an image Kim gets:

a signed copy of Hops and Glory from Pete Brown, last week's winner of the UK Beer Writer of the Year 2009;
a great Jubelale gift pack from Deschutes Brewing including a Jubelale ornament, Jubelale long-sleeve T-shirt, Jubelale pint glass and a Jubelale poster signed by the artist;
a bottle of Yule Tide, the Christmas release tripel from Clipper City; and
a year's subscription to All About Beer magazine.

Kim also sent in four other strong entries which you can see here. All good and all for the goodness of beer photography. Merry Christmas, happy holidays and have a great 2010.

Day 17: Beer Advent Calendar - N'Ice Chouffe

Posted: December 17th, 2009, 1:09pm CET by Alan McLeod

Jon Abernathy of The Brew Site asked me to join in and place one beer on his Advent calendar this Christmas season. Well, as Jon is I think the only pure beer blogger who may well have been posting longer than I have who am I to say no? I posted my first beer blog post on this stand alone beer blog around Monday 25 October 2004 while his site went back to June. Here is a post from Jon the next day as he finds A Good Beer Blog as he looks throughout an empty internet for other beer blogs. My post was also about hunting out beer sites.

So Yuletide beer, eh? I wrote about a favorite almost two years ago now and I expect it would be a beer that could warm the heart of even the meanest anti-baby activist:

Light chestnut-caramel ale under the fine tan rim and foam. Pumpernickel and line scented. In the mouth, this is a really interesting ale with the thyme giving a real roast of lamb effect. A beer that begs to soak a wee sheep's leg as much as a hefeweizen begs to meet pork. Nutty malt with brown sugar richness and a very distinct but balanced thyme presence...pungent even. The coriander is more of a counterpoint, however much it is there in the nose. This beer could match a strong hard cheese well, too, like aged gouda but maybe not anything blue unless it came out of a sheep. Or roast parsnips. It would go with roast parsnips.

You have no idea how angry it makes me that I don't have a lifetime's store of this beer laid up in the basement - or at lease a deal with Brasserie D'Achouffe that sees two cases show up every December 18th. Life's tragedy summarized right there. Anyway, happy Christmas and a merry New Year to you all.

An Unexpected Photo Contest Prize Bonanza

Posted: December 17th, 2009, 1:17am CET by Alan McLeod

OK... maybe a bonanzette. But still, it was a happy surprise to received two emails today. In one, Jared, a brewer at Harpoon Brewery, confirmed that he had swung a selection of beers from that great Boston beer institution. It is a pick-up sorta gift but there is an opportunity to match beer with boy through the generosity of Harpoon and Jared's hard work.

In the second, Patrick Morrison, Circulation and Marketing Manager with All About Beer Magazine, wrote to offer a group of prizes and it looks like we have five full year subscriptions to the magazine. One will be added to the pool of prizes for the Grand Winner but we'll place another four in happy and lucky winners' stockings tonight. So, without further adieu, here are six more prizes in the 2009 Good Beer Blog Yuletide Photographic Challenge Royale:

Picture	Artist / Reasons	Prize
	Holly J. M. Haliniewski of Germantown, Maryland for the photo "Last Call at the Englischer Garten" in Munich	A Subscription from All About Beer Magazine
	Brian Parker of Audubon, Pennsylvania for sharing this incredible tattoo with the world.	A Subscription from All About Beer Magazine
	Ed Gittines of Southbury, Connecticut for having a beer at the greatest place on earth - Fenway Park.	A Subscription from All About Beer Magazine
	Scott Grenier of Clinton, New York because not one of you has ever considered the lonliness of the hop bine at dawn... or sunset for that matter.	A Subscription from All About Beer Magazine
	Tim Connelly of Cambridge, Massachusetts because I can't get enough photos of Cantillon. I can get enough of their beer (other than gueze) but not photos of the place.	Selection of Beers from Harpoon
	Chris Berry of Kanata, Ontario because that baby is freaking me out!	copy of The Beer Book from Stan Hieronymus

That still leaves four more general prizes plus the Grand Loser and, finally, the Grand Prize Winner for 2009.

Ron's Food and Beer Christmas Pairing

Posted: December 16th, 2009, 1:55pm CET by Alan McLeod

I love Ron Pattinson's writing. There is something so mid-1700's about it. Vague trembling scientific examinations, untrod paths of first person observations, the search for the ah-ha moment even with the odd reference to the era of A-Ha. And then there are the personal reflections, philosophical essays on the universal truth of the state of man's place in this mortal coil, like today's ruminations on what has been described as "pairing" beer with food, this time at Christmas:

I don't plan my Christmas drinking as much as stumble into it. Then stumble through it. And end in some type of unconsciousness. Matching beer and food is paramount to my enjoyment of the day. Personally I find St. Bernardus Abt with a Lagavullin on the side matches any meal or snack perfectly. And any mood or time of day. Unfortunately, this year may be different. "Why don't you drink all those beers you have lying about before buying new ones?" Dolores is way too logical. But opposing her isn't a good idea. I still have the scars - both mental and physical - from the last time I tried.

There, just when we think we are dealing with the early beginnings of the Age of Enlightenment we are suddenly a century later in Dicken's Victorian era of violence, excess and domestic drama. And what food pairings. Everything goes with exactly what is at hand. A true Christmas miracle.

Seven More Prizes And... Well, Not Much More

Posted: December 16th, 2009, 1:08am CET by Alan McLeod

I am getting vain about thee tables. I should have tables of something in every post. But what would I put in them. I can't judge photos every day and, franky, it is too hard to do even for just these three nights. This are not necessarily the seventh to twelfth best entries but they are the fourth to seventh awards given. Five more to go and then the Grand Loser and the Grand Winner. We may be able to guess the Grand Loser but there is a decent and appropriate prize coming right from me for that one.

What do you think of these ones?

Picture	Artist / Reasons	Prize
	Patrick Hirlehey of Waterdown, Ontario provides us with this sharp take on an Ontario annual favorite, Mills Street Vintage Barley Wine.	Prize basket from Roland and Russell for a lucky winner in Ontario.
	Scott Mueller of Lawrence, Kansas for robot beer and baby.	Tee-shirt from craftbeerclothing.com
	Zak Rotello of the Olympic Tavern in Rockford, Illinois of a funky bung stopper on an active lambic barrel at Cantillon.	unsigned copy of Hops and Glory by Pete Brown from me
	Lars Marius Garshol of Oslo, Norway for one of the few pub shops submitted. I think this is the Jerusalem in London, England. Tavern	Tee-shirt from Maine's Shipyard
	Gregg Wiggins of Arlington, Virginia for seeing the opportunity in a fridge.	Tee-shirt from craftbeerclothing.com
	Nate Howe of Lausanne, Switzerland because he got both the snow and the backlit glow of the beer.	Tee-shirt from Maine's Shipyard
	Jeremy Craigs of North York, Ontario for capturing the futuristic moment at a brewery.	The one year subscription to TAPS magazine, Canada's beer quarterly.

See you tomorrow.

Three Prizes Announced: Two UK Plus One German

Posted: December 15th, 2009, 3:21am CET by Alan McLeod

Announcing three prizes tonight because I am still trying to make sure the table works and, if you must know, the Olympic torch came through town this evening. It was cool and cheesy, earnest and corporate all at the same time. Maybe like this annual photo contest.

First, however, a big shout out first to reader Jen in Florida aka blogster Scurrilous Tosh who offered to fix me up a HTML table by both comment and email. I hope I did you proud, global HTML friendship ambassador.

Next, the disclaimer. I try really hard to pick prize givers who I think will honour their pledges and these two are among the best. Tami at Shipyard and James at BrewDog have been big supporters of this here blog as well as others who share the dream - or at least, you know, dream a little dream of beer. But if there is a blip, a delay, a snafu or a screw up - well - at that point it's like a 1970s UK sci-fi show and I am the face on the little wrist watch screen on the arm of the astronaut whose cord has been cut during a spacewalk that shouts "I can't reach you, Larry! I can't see you!!! Laaaaarrrrryyy!!!" By this I mean, if the mail fails or the prize giver fails or stuff happens, you can email me and I will pester and most pestering works. But one prize might not be under a tree.

One. Elf. Cries.

But enough of the disclaimer. We are here to give and studies have shown that well over 96% of prizes from A Good Beer Blog annual Yuletide, Xmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Festivus and Hogmanay Photo Contest do make it through. They do. They do. They do.... So, here are the first three prizes.

Artist / Reasons	Prize	Given By
Robert Gale, Torfaen, Wales because there were two UK entries and two UK-only prizes and these were good.	One mixed case of BrewDog beer	BrewDog Scotland
John H Lewington of Suffolk, England because there were two UK entries and two UK-only prizes, former grand prize winner and, heck, why not. Serves the rest of the UK right.	One mixed case of BrewDog beer	BrewDog Scotland
Barry Masterson, Muenster, Germany because of the expressions.	One Awesome T-shirt!	Shipyard Brewing Portland, Maine

More tomorrow. Can't wait.

Perhaps Think Of Beers For Giving Not Receiving

Posted: December 13th, 2009, 6:36pm CET by Alan McLeod

There are lot of I want, I want, I want lists going around, however well intentioned, but it strikes me that the whole point at this time of year is you placing goods and services in the hands of others. It's in fact the most transactional time of the year - which means, as Mr. B. reminds us, the gifting goes in both directions. So, while we all know our own appetites and avaricious desires when it comes to all things beery, surely there are some suggestions for giving beer that can be established:

Do not let Christmas lead to remorse. Guard your stash with your life. Don't tell your house guests where it actually can be found and be careful when dipping in yourself. Nothing kills a party more than the challenging surprise of a case of bone dry geuze foisted upon the uninitiated. And you will feel unwell if you catch it being secretly poured down the sink or even sneered upon.
Conversely, don't be a scrooge. There is a reason we have Christmas beers and winter ales - not to mention dubbels which will do in a pinch. They are the gateway drug for all strong beer. Even barley wine can lead a novice wondering why but add a few spices and some Belgian yeast and, whammo, we are all happy again. I stockpile these for my own holiday cheer and, frankly, it would do me and you good to share given the punch they pack.
This is a good time to move some flavoured beer. Right now in my neck of the woods there is a good supply of Southern Tier Creme Brulee. At 10% and packed with real vanilla pod scrapings, it is unctuous and quickly filling. But it would also go well poured over steam pudding or next to a trifle. Same with sweet lambics, the umbrella in the coconut of the good beer world. Face facts: people like dessert so people will like trying a little new sweet flavoured beer.
Finally, lay in something closer to what your guests drink than you do. No one really likes the missionary's zeal even at this holy time of year. It is a time of giving and what you can give all your friends and family is a break from your insane hobby interest in the obscure and the difficult.

There you go. Mull some beer for the family, give a mixed six of Belgians to a co-worker. Give but give wisely and wisdom tells us that not all are fascinated by beer to the degree or in the way that you are. So, save that real geuze for your own New Year's Eve. You know you and your guests want you to. Any hints of your own?

Day 27: The Contest Closes With These Final Entries

Posted: December 13th, 2009, 1:08am CET by Alan McLeod

Well, that was fun. The fourth annual 2009 Good Beer Blog Yuletide, Xmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Festivus and Hogmanay Photo Contest closed two hours ago and once I post these ten last entrant's selections, well, then I get to pick the winners. I am going to take a couple of days to review the photos, pick the winners and then announce them all at one time. As a preliminary observation, plenty of beer and snow. And little or no beer and a plate of food. Well done. On my count we have had 45 entrants who submitted a total of 185 photos. There was a drop in UK participants due to me not partnering with Jeffo of the Gunmakers. So we had 45 participants in 2009 compared to 70 beer pornographers in 2008. But the five picture rule made my life sane by reducing the total I had to save and post from the 524 I had to deal with last year. And sane is good.

On to the last wave of entries. First up, Stan Hieronymus of New Mexico, USA has sent in these five including one that immediately challenges the eye as to what beer is.

Next, Jared Kiraly of Cambridge, Mass. and a brewer with Harpoon sent in these photos from the inner sanctum of the brewery.

Troy Burtch of Toronto, Ontario and the blog Great Canadian Pubs and Beer as well as the prize giving TAPS magazine sent in these five:

Next, Kim Reed of that great beer city Rochester, NY sent in these five excellent shots including one of the best I have ever seen of a keg being tapped.

Moving right along, Holly J. M. Haliniewski of Germantown, Maryland sent in six pictures but explained she is "a long time reader (lurker) of your blog and after three years of watching the photo contest go by I decided to send in my 5 entries this time!" - meaning that there are counting issues. But as the photos cover trips to Germany, New Zealand as well as a holiday in Cambodia, well, what the heck:

Getting close to the wire, Mike Contasti-Isaac of Peterborough, Ontario got these entries in with 41 minutes to go before the contest closed:

Starting to push his luck, Robert Gale of Torfaen, Wales sent in these five solid entries with only 35 minutes to go. He also mentioned that he likes BrewDog and "and I've got a few bottles of their latest beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin to try." A few bottles?!?! I think all of Canada only got a few bottles of this one. The last of the set is from an old pub in Newport, Wales that dates from 1530:

Finally, the last submission today came in with 18 minutes to go from John Kleinchester of Brooklyn, NY and, ominously for the rest of the participants, from the website beertography.com.

But we are not done as I missed two. These were sent in earlier but needed cleaning up. First, Ashok Argent-Katwala recently of London England but now of Toronto sent in these two portraits of a bottle of JackD'or by Pretty Things. I have a bottle of this in the stash and plan to pop it over the holidays:

Last and certainly not least, we have Robert Curran of generous prize giving Ontario's Creemore Springs Brewery who has forwarded five pictures by Gary Melenhorst the millwright and maintenance guy and John Stephenson the electrician and IT guy. They went on a tear through Germany this summer. They took in Klosterbrau Ettal, which is a Benedictine Kloster. Hofbrau Berchtesgadener. Berchtesgadener is located near to the Obersalzberg and the Eagles Nest. They did indeed find themselves at the top of the Eagles Nest. They also visited Schloss Linderhof, which was Ludwig's hunting lodge [not too shabby]. They managed a visit to Weihenstephan and Schneider Weiss, and Klosterbrau Weltenburg as well, too many other breweries to mention. Rob has gleaned these ten pictures out of a total of over 500 Gary and John took.

That is it! Let the ruminations begin. I don't even know how many prizes we have to give out but I don't have one for everyone.

Day 27: The 2009 Yule Photo Contest Extravaganza Ends Today

Posted: December 12th, 2009, 9:45pm CET by Alan McLeod

Still an hour and 16 minutes left to enter. Lurkers Holly and Robert entered in the last 15 minutes. You can, too.

Day 26: The Day Before The Day It All Ends This Yule

Posted: December 12th, 2009, 1:36am CET by Alan McLeod

It has been a placid time this Yule so far. The plan for the beer blog contest being less onerous has worked out very nicely. I know that because my wife tells me so. Thanks for your understanding as I know there is a lot of interest in the goofy idea of me making people I have never met send free stuff to people, well, that I have never met. So with less than 24 hours to go, I give you the prize and photo submission updates.

More Prizes. Stan has offered a copy of The Beer Book edited by Tim Hampson which has a section on US beer written by Stan. Tami, my correspondent from Shipyard in Portland, Maine has offered three t-shirts celebrating their Pugsley’s Signature Series shown to the right. Let me check the email. There may be more.

We go around the world with today's photo updates. John Lewington of Suffolk, England sent another entry to the left taken on the Spanish island of Tenerife and Hunter Williams of Shanghai in China forwarded the photo to the right taken at Windsor in England.

And Knut Albert Solem of Oslo, Norway of Knut Albert's Beer Blog fame forwarded three photos below of his recent trip to London, England. You know, you people really get around.

Mike Nereng of no fixed address, Planet Earth sent this one photo of a rather surprised spouse at Hofbräuhaus - which I take to be the one in Munich and not the one in Edmonton, Alberta. Adam Reinke of Arden, North Carolina provided this photo of Bud on ice with this story: "While traveling for business, as I returned to my hotel room after a meeting, I met the room service staff delivering a guest a beer. The presentation of the Budweiser sitting in ice like a fine bottle of champagne was a photo opportunity I could not pass up."

And Mark Michalsk of Owings Mills, Maryland sent in these five pics. I think took the hint about beer and snow very literally. I don't think that is necessariily a bad thing but...

Brian Parker of Audubon, Pennsylvania and the blog I am Beer Wise sent in these five photos including one displaying a true dedication to the great beers of Stone:

Jeremy Craigs of North York, Ontario sent in these five including one that looks like its from a set of a 1970s sci-fi TV show going cheap on the sets.

That is all for now. There are more in the cue and you still have time to take and forward that magic moment between boy and beer or girl and glass. Keep them coming.

Book Review: World's Best Beers By Ben McFarland

Posted: December 11th, 2009, 3:50am CET by Alan McLeod

Cole Porter laid it out for us all. The mathematics of what is "top" proves is a very difficult thing to determine. Whether you say "top" or "leading" or "foremost" or "best" it is all the same. You are not saying much. Consider that Cole Porter's equation inherent in the lyrics of You're The Top is essentially the equation "top = X where X = ???" If your math is weak consider the text itself:

You're the top!
You're the Coliseum.
You're the top!
You're the Louver Museum.
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare's sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse.
You're the Nile,
You're the Tower of Pisa,
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

And that's just the first verse. What you can see from both Porter's arithmetic as well as his poetry is that the meaning of a superlative form of good is an utter quagmire. For example, what the hell is a Bendel bonnet? Who knows? Who cares? It has become decontextualized by the passage of time so that even if I bothered to ask Lord Goog what it was, it would not explain what the reference meant to Cole Porter.

And it is with that knowledge that I have approached Ben McFarland's beer book World's Best Beers: One Thousand Craft Brews From Cask To Glass. But first things first. I come not to bury McFarland but to praise him. This is a great book and in part not only because it is a huge list but because it is a number of lists. A lot of lists in fact.

It is a list of the great beer regions of the world. That is the primary organization of the book, as an atlas.
It also contains a list of great beers found within each region. It does not contain a list of #1 to #1,000. So while I can say I am about to open a bottle of third down right side, page 191, I can't say that I am opening a bottle of #537.
It also contains a list of great beer writers in that McFarland does not write each region's list but outsources many of them to writers like Stephen Beaumont and Lew Bryson. And there are even new names to me like Bryan Harrell in Japan.
But, more as gazetteer than atlas, it also has other lists - like the beers and foods that Garrett Oliver likes to consumer concurrently; like the top ten beer drinking cities; and even like the top ten iconic beer packagings.
And there is even a list of beer sites you need to following... including (big girlie thrill) this very one right there on page 274.

Lists of lists. It is an approach to beer. One avenue to beer and it is an avenue McFarland explores thoroughly. Sufficiently even. I don't think I needed another list. I know Stan doesn't. Stan is against lists these days but he took the time to think about how even he might list beer. So we might at this point summarize as follow: Ben likes lists, Stan doesn't and Cole Porter thought them an outlet more for his wit than as a means to achieve any precise definition.

Mr. Beaumont has also been listing this week but his is a list of aphorisms - so while he calls them his "Beer Rules for the Holidays" it is more a code or codex even, like the Old Testament's Book of Proverbs. Indeed, he takes a stand that is rather mad minor prophet raging against the howling wind with staff in hand, telling us more what not to do that do with wise lessons like "Pay Up or Shut Up" and "At a Social Gathering, You Are Expressly Prohibited From Saying, 'This Pale Ale Isn’t Very Hoppy, Is It?'" Why do I mention this in a book review of the work of someone else? Well, I think it illustrates that the way to good beer has many paths and so while Stan rightly dislikes lists and while Ben rightly likes them - one can also find good beer's righteousness proverbially as Mr. B does or also rightly through detailed gleaning through brewing records like Ron Pattinson or as Knut, the beer ticking traveling Norwegian, does... rightly. There is a place at the table for every sect and denomination. It is right that it is so.

Point? There is a world of great beer and it is enjoyed by the world. There are many ways of good beer. And even if there is no best way, each and every worthy route and every worthy form of analysis is a path to knowing more about good beer. McFarland's book is one such path and beats the hell out of the list as a medium for describing what good beer can be. And he does it very well.

One Way To Not Promote Craft Beer All That Well

Posted: December 10th, 2009, 3:16am CET by Alan McLeod

I was pleased to see Canada's other national newspaper, The National Post, feature some information about craft breweries in Ontario but was a bit saddened to see the odd approach that was chosen - five generic questions leading to an opportunity to trigger five Pavlovian advertising copy responses. Consider this one exchange:

Q: Describe your facilities.
A: Wellington Brewery is noted for its distinctive exterior appearance with the look of a traditional hop roast house and hop vines. At 7,200 square feet, the brewery has a hospitality room available to the public, retail store and a production facility, housing its traditional English infusion mash tun and direct fire brewhouse, as well as it's state of the art canning line.

I don't know why the description of the facilities is a question that represents 20% of the "best possible questions to trigger interesting information about the subject" that one might hope is a part of a journalist's skill set. But I did learn that hops are roasted and that this is one of the two traditions celebrated in the architecture. Key to attracting me as a craft beer buyer is, after all, the architecture. Other gems gleaned using up another 20% of the allotted Q+A time include that their "brewing philosophy is to use the finest ingredients available and to strike a careful balance with the malts and hops" and that their "business philosophy is service, service, service to our over 700 customers throughout Ontario." Now, call me old fashioned but if a brewery says it is the oldest in Canada, soon to be celebrating its 25th anniversary and I, the potential customer, learn it only has 700 customers in a province of over 13 million souls? Well, you can fill in the rest.

How did such a thing happen? How did hop drying become hop roasting? How do (what one hopes) 700 successful bar accounts come off sounding like 700 measly consumers? How does this opportunity get lost?

Day 23: Only A Few Days To Go But More Pics Daily

Posted: December 9th, 2009, 1:26am CET by Alan McLeod

This bit above is a detail from a picture received today from Germany. What to call it? "I Wish I Had A Cell Phone, Too" or maybe "I Really Should Leave These Two Alone"? Sums it all up really, this 21st century. Click for a larger revelation of the facial expression. I wish I had a yellow tie.

Now, more entries. For starters, John H Lewington fo somewhere in England and winner of the 2007 grand prize offers this one photo to the right and takes the lead in the so far one man BrewDog beer race for best UK entry. In other Euro-land news, Barry Masterson of Muenster, Germany provides us with these views below - including one of maybe the same bottles I think we saw from Joe Stange in 2008:

Mike Stich of Toronto has forwarded these entries:

Timothy Cox of Hampton New Brunswick offered these photos up:

Keep them coming...

Day 22: Wherein We Get A Photo Contest Update

Posted: December 8th, 2009, 2:45am CET by Alan McLeod

Let's start with an entry. An entry from another man who cannot count. Thomas Cizauskas of Yours for Good Fermentables sent in six pictures with the message "one, two, three, four, six" which just goes to show you. It really does. I like them and I like Tom so six it is. One's up top there and here are the rest. Hey ain't getting an extra prize, though:

There are more entries down below and more in the cue still but let's catch up on on the prizes. It has been a bit nuts lately but, thankfully, I seem to not have to really drum up prizes as the pledges are coming through the email nicely on their own. Here is what we have so far:

A one year subscription to TAPS magazine, Canada's beer quarterly.
A hardcover first edition of Ambitious Brew direct from the author Maureen Ogle.
the upcoming brand spanking new book on wheat beers also direct from Stan Hieronymus,
a prize basket from Roland and Russell for a lucky winner in Ontario
a group of prizes from Maine's Shipyard which I will further define.
beer from BrewDog which can only be won in the UK. But we have no UK entries so it may go begging,
a signed copy of Hops and Glory from Pete Brown, last week's winner of the UK Beer Writer of the Year 2009, as well as a few unsigned copies of his books,
a bottle of Yule Tide, the Christmas release tripel from Clipper City
two shirt from craftbeerclothing.com which also offers a 15% discount to beer blog readers who use the a special coupon code called "holidaybeer",
some swag from Creemore Springs including a hockey jersey in it, a "prairie shirt" as well as a hat or some glassware depending on distance to be shipped.
and last but not least a great gift pack from Deschutes Brewing The gift pack includes a Jubelale ornament, Jubelale long-sleeve T-shirt, Jubelale pint glass and a Jubelale poster signed by the artist

Wow. And I get none of it. That is the problem. I should just do all this for me, me, me. But that would not be nice at Yule. Summertime? Watch out for the man in the mirror, that's all I am saying. Entries next. Andrew Bartle of Toronto Ontario sent some verse ("The eyes of the beholder/Just the tip of the iceberg/nothing wrong with a scuffy glass/it's enough to see) and got all experimental with his entries:

Nate of no last name and no postal address but of the blog Bier Adventures sent these five. Notice his attention to one requirement for Yuletide photo context mastery, snow:

That is it for now. Still days to go before I rest. Keep them coming...

Information UpNate: Got the skinny on our entrant Nate - he is Nate Howe of Lausanne, Switzerland. Who knew?

Day 21: Prize Buying With One Week To Go

Posted: December 6th, 2009, 2:33pm CET by Alan McLeod

I was checking out Amazon to see what beer books I missed this year. Huge sale on so, being the canny Yuletide 2009 beer photo context administrator I am, I picked up a few extra copies on the cheap of Pete Brown's books for you US readers who have been frozen out by some insane publishers who refuse to place it into your bookstores. Never fear. Canada is here. Entries are getting backed up and I don't know if I have enough to give away. Remember to get your entries in this week as next week is too late. Contest closes 12 December. Rules: 5 photos (unless you can't count), no flash photos of beer next to a plate of food, snow shots get a bonus, remember to include your postal address. I think those are all the rules. Oh, and not 19,476 KB photos. I don't like spending my evenings reducing the scale of digital photos on a 2003 era computer. You can hear the cogs creaking when I do.

Also, heading off into the northern reaches of upstate New York today for Christmas shopping and hopefully a dip into Bessette's stock in Canton NY. Taking a six of McAuslan oatmeal stout as a gift for the hosts of the NCPR volunteer Christmas party - I answer volunteer phones in another country. Who ever thought it would come to that? More later.

Update post haul: Got the tiniest lecturette at Canada Customs, the guard eager to point out that half my taxes and duties were "due to that beer" - like I ought to know better, like I shouldn't. Too bad he was unaware that $4.99 a bomber for Stone is pretty sweet as is $5.99 for Sly Fox Route 113 IPA so far from home. The larder is well padded now. Found one six of Troeg's porter just sitting there, 17 miles from the Canadian border. Other stuff as well. I am giddy as a schoolgirl. Well, maybe as a 46 year old who is totally Dad.

Session 34: The Wobbly Road Home

Posted: December 5th, 2009, 2:29am CET by Alan McLeod

I have to say that the topic "Stumbling Home" is hardly inspirational as it has nothing to do with craft beer - but as I have posted a post for every edition of The Session, well, I didn't want to break my streak.

The real reason, however, is that I have a little something in the can on this one, the story of a pal who made it home alive after falling asleep in the snow. It was over 20 years ago and it was in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And he was saved by the donair wrapped in foil he had tucked in his jacket over his heart. True story. In celebration of his salvation by savory snack, years later we held a small poetry contest recalling the event:

#1

Dark. Snow. Ale fun hours.
Young man prone, alone, drift-hid,
Blood thanks meaty warmth.

#2

Just a cone wrapped up in foil,
Oozing whitish sauce and oil,
Gave the world one doctor's toil.
Fate's foe played a spicy foil!

#3

Look...there, quite by the fence,
Dark, laying in the drift:
Too full of Keiths his head to lift.
Not near the home he rents -
Heedless now of consequence

The snowfall lays upon his head

And gathers by his arm.
Jon is slipping nearer harm
and a frosty final bed!
How can Jon not be dead?

Ah...one small patch...the snow melts there.
Above his chest of sweaty hair,
Upon his heart, the guardian fare,
Within his coat, a large donair.

#4

Snow stings my forehead.
My footprints slowly fill in.
The taste of last night's donair.

Pete's The Man - More Later With Video

Posted: December 4th, 2009, 3:55am CET by Alan McLeod

If I could do an ABC Wide World of Sports 1970s video retrospective on the man's career to date I would. Brown wins! Pete Brown wins!!!

Joints: Collaboration Not Litigation, Avery / Russian River

Posted: December 4th, 2009, 1:45am CET by Alan McLeod

What to call these beers? For the last few years, brewers have been getting together to make something new together. This one has a deeper back story than most but the point is the same. In the end they are joint projects, opportunities to get together, to share and learn. And no doubt to have a lot of fun. But what do they offer us, the consumer? They are the specials of the specials. The seasonals with only one season. Yet surely they have to stand up for themselves as beer and not be the wall hanging commemorative china plate of the beer world. What can I learn from just this bottle?

Blended three years ago, it pours a lovely light cola colour with a frothy deep cream head. The aroma (aka smell) is dandy - date and sharp apple.with a floral thing that is almost rose. On the sip and swish, there is plenty of rich pumpernickel malt but with that Avery drying hard water. Dark chocolate, dark plum and a nod to cinnamon with an interesting juiciness that nods to pear or white grape. It is styled as a Belgian strong dark ale and that makes sense. Yet there is an the underlying tone. The hard water for me is not working but that is a personal thing for me that I have noticed since I tried a line up from Colorado's Great Divide. I am a soft water man. Yet there is a rich plum dark sugar finish. Solid if, for me, slightly sub-moreish.

Plenty o' BAer respect. Take their advice.

Thanks To Our Google Reader Subscribers

Posted: December 3rd, 2009, 12:59am CET by Alan McLeod

Nothing deep or profound this evening. Just a thanks to the readers and, tonight, especially those on Google Reader. After six years of beer blogging, it has become harder to figure out how many people actually follow a blog given those followers on various aggregating services. But one, Google Reader, hit 5,000 followers recently. 5,011 today. I think I'm also glad that you are not all sending in photos to the beer blog Xmas photo contest. Thanks for that, too.

Day 16: Stonch-a-tross Forsaken... And Pics

Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 1:00am CET by Alan McLeod

This 2009 Yuletide Beer Photo Extravaganza and Gift-a-thon is a little different. It's a little quieter than recent years. It's a little lonely. I was wondering why that was so I wrote a poem to express myself in the style of a certain salty 1800s epic:

The Rime of the Ancient Beer Blogger

There was an ancient beer blogger,
With contests one, two, three.
"By thy coffee cup and dressing gown,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?

The Gunmaker's doors are opened wide,
And I am going in;
My friends are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his pudgy hand,
"There was a contest..." quoth he.
"Hold off ! unhand me, blogging fool !"
Eftsoons a tale dropt he...

[An interjection here to shortcut and avoid 53 more stanzas about the smelly old beer blogger outside The Gunmaker's Pub. Seems that there was a blog of good omen that brought luck to beer bloggers which was treated unspeakably ...]

...On trips to Rome, or brew at home;
This blogger we did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the ancient's hollo !

In London's mist, in tavern loud,
He perched the barstool fine;
Whiles all the night with cask ale bright,
And drank the white Moon-shine."

"God save thee, ancient beer blogger!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus !--
Thou look'st so lost?' "...He mumbled out:
"I forsook Stonch, such great loss!!!"

There! The poetic arts have been the balm that have brought it all into view, made it all so clear. See, when I decided to slim down the photo contest, I figured Jeff was far too busy to even be bothered. But lo and behold, we have not had a single entry from the UK so far and only two from outside of North America. And we have one UK-only prize, two boxes of assorted BrewDog. This is what vanity leads to, you know. This is what you get for rushing. Make me think of another poem...

No beer blogger is an Island...

But, on second thought, I'll save that one for another day. Here are more entries in the photo contest. Ed Gittines of Southbury, Connecticut sends in these five including a very good view at Fenway Park:

Scott Grenier of Clinton, NY sent these three photos of hops from an abandoned 1860's hop farm here in Central New York. He says the hops are an old variety of Cluster and are pretty tasty in an English style bitter or brown ale but that they can have a pretty intense grapefruit flavor when the beer is young.

I got this further update from Scott in an email just now:

Each fall I harvest around 3lbs of hops from the property, dry them, and brew with them a few times a year. Historically, the hops grown here were English Cluster and the ones I harvest are essentially the same variety, but have gone feral. I have brewed a number of beers with these hops, including a brown ale that I brewed according to a 1870's recipe from the Oneida Brewery? (Utica) that used hops grown from this area. I am pretty sure it is the first time someone had used these hops to brew a beer in around 140 years - And the beer tastes great! It is pretty amazing how much beer history is located here in CNY - though most people have no idea. All around this area you can find old hop barns, kilns, and hedgerows full of hops waiting to be picked.

Prizes? So far we are looking at the new book from Stan Hieronymus, a prize basket from Roland and Russell, stuff from Shipyard, beer from BrewDog, the new book from Pete Brown, a tripel from Clipper City, a shirt from craftbeerclothing.com, some swag from Creemore Springs and a not yet defined something from Deschutes Brewing. Great stuff... yet I need to work on more prizes. I know it. You know it.

Day 15: War, Xmas Photos And Roger Freaks Out!

Posted: December 1st, 2009, 12:54am CET by Alan McLeod

I got a great gift in the mail today. Copy 8 of 10 of Ron Pattinson's new book, WAR! He wrote about the book's release this very morning from his home in The Netherlands and by suppertime a copy was in my mailbox here in Canada. Compiling his studies to date on the years of World War I and World War II, it is a great example of the work he is doing to bringing actual detailed primary research to the question of the history of beer.

One wishes all beer writers were so concerned with the facts as we witnessed today from Roger Protz who went all freaky handbags over BrewDog's new and insanely strong beer. He's received a number of head shaking responses, deservedly so given his use of language like "over-inflated egos and naked ambition" and "the wild buckeroos" and "what were you smoking last night, chaps?" and "this bunch of ego-maniacs" and "anxious to give beer a bad name." The oddest thing is that he goes off on his own ice flow all the while misunderstanding the technical process used for actually making the beer, baldly claiming it had wine yeast in it... not that wine yeast would get you a 32% beer. One wonders what Protz was thinking or, in fact, had been smoking himself when he wrote such a blurt. He has certainly gone a long way to discredit his own opinions on experimental beer generally. For a more measured response, you may want to read Pete Brown's post on the new and insanely strong beer from last Thursday...you know, when it was news.

Now with the Xmas 2009 Beer Blog Yuletide Photo Contest Extravaganza. First, a couple of solo entries from Canada.

Chris Berry of Kanata, Ontario sent this one picture to the left which sorta looks normal... until you have a good look at the baby's face. Frank MacDonald of Torbay Newfoundland kept the kids out of the photo to the right. It was taken at the Grizzly Paw Brewpub in Canmore Alberta.

Next, Jeff Alworth of Portland, Oregon has sent in some photos from the scene there. I have no idea how he got to put in 8 entries but never having been to Oregon I can't be sure this is not some sort of cultural thing, some sort of secret message to us all. Maybe he can't count. Better not mess with the photo set just in case:

Finally Tim Connelly of Cambridge Massachusetts sent in these pictures which are entitled "Inside Cantillon," "In a Galway pub," "Outside of a Galway pub," "The Franciscan Well Brewery Pub, Cork' and "Brooklyn Brewery":

Four more great entries. I better starting beating the bush for more prizes. Here I go. Off to email brewers until all I have are bloody stumps for hands. Why? I don't do it for you. I do it for Santa.

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