In addition to blabbing about homebrewing, I served a kolsch, brown, Irish stout, ginger wheat, and brown coriander wheat. The beer’s all gone, so I guess I got it right

I’m sure video of the presentations will be up in the next week, so I’ll post that when it’s ready. So thanks for letting me speak, for listening, for drinking my beer, and having an awesome time!

History of Beer

Check out this great timeline showing the history of beer, with entertaining illustrations and commentary. Maybe the facts aren’t all 100% true, but then again, what about history ever is?

It’s an ambitious project, since there are other beer review sites out there, but this one is geared more toward the “average Joe” reviewer. Some people have complained about having to fill out too much information for reviews, but I’d argue that in order for a review to be helpful there need to be some basic standards for information. Users are prompted to select the beer source, serving type, and even free-form some attributes to help with tagging. Don’t know what “mouthfeel” means? No worries! You can post your review anyway.

I’ve added a few reviews to the site, including some for beers not cataloged in their database, but I just can’t get in to the habit of using the site. The reviews are almost too subjective and “average” as to have no meaning. One person may love every beer made by Leinenkugel, but I know I think they’re all mediocre. The quality of the reviews seems to have a direct correlation to the type of beer. For example, the more rare, Belgian, stout, or exotic a beer is, the better the review might be. More experienced beer drinkers seek out these beers, and the reviews are more detailed. Other times, a relative newbie to craft or specialty beers might post a review that just describes the beer as “pretty good” with no details on why they thought this.

While it’s nice to get a list of all currently reviewed beers sorted by style or brewery, it doesn’t match up to the experience of going to a bottle shop and scanning the shelves for that rare find or favorite malty friend. In a town like Portland with so many fantastic pubs that carry all kinds of specialty beer, I’m more likely to follow a pub on Twitter and read about their latest tap list, or mosey over to a favorite brewpub and try something new. I know others aren’t this lucky, so I’d be curious to see if 97 Bottles has more value or interest for people who don’t live in Beervana.

And I think that is why I forget to use the site; it doesn’t match the experience I want to have when I’m seeking out new beers. I don’t really care what other people may think of it, the joy is in the hunt for something new and trying it without knowing what you might be about to drink. If I want to write about a beer, I do it here. If I want to tell more people about that beer, I’ll do it in person or on Twitter.

If you’re curious to find out about 97 Bottles for yourself, let me know. I’ve got a few private beta invites left and would be happy to share them. I know the team at BlueFlavor is looking for feedback on the site!

Here are the ones I’m really looking forward to trying:

• Cascade Brewing (not to be confused with Cascade Lakes Brewing) is bringing a Barrel Aged Double Flanders Style sour Red ale called “Drie Zwarte Pieten ‘Sang noir’”
• Firestone Walker Brewing Co’s Barrel Aged Imperial Stout “Velvet Merkin Stout”
• Hopworks‘ “Noggin Floggin’ Barleywine”
• Lagunitas Brewing’s “Black Pepper Chocolate Stout”
• Stone Brewing’s “Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans”
• Track Town Ale’s oak aged rum stout “Track Town Shot Put Stout”

Of course, there are 30 other beers to taste, but these are my top 6 must have beers of the season. I’ll report back after December 5 with reviews of the event and beers.

Now back to my Kona Brewing Pipeline Porter…

The final tally:
58 bottles of Dubbel (12 oz.)
13 bottles of Dubbel (22 oz.)
24 bottles of Grand Cru (12 oz.)
18 bottles of Kolsch (12 oz.)
7 bottles of cider (22 oz.)
1 gallon of mead

Good work, party people! That was all in addition to 7 cases of wine, 60 bottles of craft beer, and 7 gallons of kegged beer.

The good news is that nobody was scary drunk and everyone got home safely (or camped with us). Hooray for weddings!

But the surprise of the month was finding that the mead I started in February had finally cleared and was ready to drink. And what a fine drink it is! Clear, crisp, honey-hued, sweet and delicious! So we’ll be serving that at the wedding for sure. I’ll post some photos later.

This, along with the availability of gorgeous local blackberries at the farmer’s market, inspired me to start a batch of blackberry mead this weekend. 15lbs of local honey, a half-flat of local blackberries, water, and yeast. Such delightful simplicity!

Luckily, there are lots of other beer styles to enjoy! Let’s just hope I can keep my Wits about me in the future.

Finally, my hops is putting on some flowers! I already had to slay a bunch of the vines because the darn thing was taking over the garden. So far there aren’t a TON of cones coming, but it’s not bad. It looks like the hops season will be 2-4 weeks behind usual on account of the weird weather we’ve had this spring and summer. It didn’t stop plant growth, but certainly inhibited flowering. My guess is that I can harvest the cones in mid-September, at which point I may try making a green-hopped beer.

Have hops but don’t know what kind? Check out this photo-list from the Oregon Hop Commission! Yep, I’ve got Willamette even though the friend that gave them to me thought they were Cascade. I love that we have our own hops commission in Oregon. What a perfect place to live!

To my friends who enjoy a glass of Beer… and those who don’t. As Ben Franklin said: ‘In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.’

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop. However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

Remember: Water = Poop. Beer = Health. Therefore, it’s better to drink beer and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of shit. There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I’m doing it as a public service.