Some bits and pieces this weekend.
One of my daily blog reads is a wine blog: Bigger Than Your Head.
Are you a beer drinker who is willing to learn more about wine? Then read this blog. Not willing? Read it anyway. You may expand your beverage palate. Fredrik Koeppel has just won Best Wine Reviews from the American Wine Blog Awards 2009.
Our beer blogger abroad, Evan Rail, recently watched as a lot of his blog writing disappeared into an e-wormhole. Fortunate for him and us, he's found a trans-warp drive to retrieve much of it, such as this interview with Jean-Pierre Van Roy of Brasserie Cantillon. It's worth reading if only for this bon mot:
Beer is not made for judging nor for looking at. It’s made for drinking.
Yes, yes, and if you've missed my point, YES!
BeerNews.org reports that Philly Beer Week is in high gear. Other cities, such as Asheville, North Carolina and Baltimore, Maryland may soon follow.
The BeerActivist reports that US acreage of organic hops is increasing. Colorado is at the forefront.
On the American Brewers Guild web site (www.abgbrew.com)there's an article I wrote a few yrs ago about British Brewing for a homebrew publication. The last paragraph read thus:
ReplyDeleteAlthough the venerable bard of beer Michael Jackson hails from the moors of Yorkshire it is important to realize that most British beer drinkers, and perhaps brewers, subscribe to the following opinion put forth recently by a former head brewer of one of the big 6 British breweries.
"I have to admit that the whole of my social background, and my professional experience, has convinced me that beer is the drink of the masses. It is not intended to be the exclusive preserve of a discerning, bibulous elite, nor savoured, knowingly and ostentatiously, by our rulers or those who would influence opinion. Even less, should the minute details of its ingredients, production, flavour, aroma, or physiological effect be the subject of prolonged, intense intellectual or sensual debate. No, beer is made for quaffing, in large quantities and often."
Or as Anheuser Busch once put it "Why Ask Why?"