Pic(k) of the week: Talk, Eat, Drink, Muse.

It was a damp and stormy Saturday afternoon ...

... in May, when members of the North American Guild of Beer Writers (NAGBW) met at Pizzeria Paradiso Dupont, in Washington, D.C. The pizza was savory; the conversation collegial; the hospitality warm; the beer cold and tasty.

The NAGBW was originally active from the 1980s through the 1990s, before disbanding. In 2013, beer writers Jay Brooks, Lucy Saunders, Don Russell, and others resuscitated the organization. Beginning with last year, it organizes an annual competition for beer writers, bloggers, broadcasters, and authors.

The group met up that day because many of its members were in town for SAVOR, an exposition of beer-with-food, held annually, since 2008, in Washington, D.C. (except in 2013, when the host was New York City). The event is organized by the Brewers Association (BA), an advocacy group for breweries in the United States producing fewer than 6 million barrels of beer annually.

Pictured in various meet-up poses, left to right:

• Greg Kitsock —editor of the Mid-Atlantic Brewing News (MABN), and beer columnist for the Washington Post;
• Marin Morse Wooster —writer, MABN;
• Chuck Cook —Baltimore, Maryland-based Belgian-beer blogger at Belgian Beer Specialist;
• Julia Herz —Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association, who writes a column entitled, Craft Beer Muses.

"Are you going to SAVOR," I was asked by another attendee? "Naw, the admission is too rich for my wallet," I replied. (That the BA forbids non-journalists from using cameras at SAVOR was another factor. Beer bloggers are a nefarious lot, you know.)

"Ah, that's why I'm a journalist," was the response.

Washington, D.C.
10 May 2014.

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• Ruth Gresser —the chef and owner of Pizzeria Paradiso— was the gracious host for the NAGBW gathering. She is the author a new cookbook: Hands-On Cooking Lessons for Making Amazing Pizza at Home.
• Tickets to SAVOR were $155, which gave one admittance to the National Building Museum for 3 1/2 hours of beer-tasting and admission to one of several seminars on beer and/or food, grandiloquently referred to as "Salons".
  
  
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject. Camera: Olympus Pen E-PL1.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.