While I was out....

....on a Rhine and Moselle Rivers cruise with the esteemed Mr. Stephen Beaumont (beer cruise tour director of 'Beers on the Rhine'), things appeared to be humming along as per usual in and around Philadelphia. As I continue to dig out from around 2,000 emails, 3,000 RSS feeds, hundreds of missed Facebook and Twitter connections, and hundreds of podcasts, it will be nearly impossible to catch up with everything that I might have missed. But, that was the intentional direction of this trip--it was designed to be a vacation away from everything. For almost 17 days, I did absolutely no Facebook updates or RSS surfing and replied only to the emails that looked like they required a timely reply. Prior to leaving on October 8th (Happy Birthday to me :), I wrote around eight articles to be posted on a scheduled basis at both The Brew Lounge and After Hours at The Brew Lounge (Washington Times Communities). So, while it may have looked to some of you that I was still actively on line, nothing could have been farther from the truth--and, it was good! Now, I'm back and getting re-engaged. Here's a bit of what I missed that I could glean from various sources. If I missed something important, like responding to your email, please forgive me and gently nudge me with a follow-up e-mail. - Lew Bryson reported on PBC's Harvest from the Hood. I saw a shelf-full's worth at Wegmans this morning and, if it wan't 5am (y'know...jet lag...the body clock thing), would have purchased a bottle or two to bring home. This is a fine beer to do such a thing. - Adam the NonconFermist was busy. Not only did he finish his garage floor in preparation for a new homebrew system, but he was able to sneak some time in at Iron Hill's West Chester location where they were conducting a homebrew contest. (And, here's a link to Iron Hill's take on the event.) - Victory will be at Rattle 'n' Hum in NYC on 11/2/10. Lots of their beer like only Rattle 'n' Hum can do it. Reportedly 40 lines, plus cask, and Bill Covaleski too. - More from Lew...he'll be at Craft Ale House in Limerick tomorrow (10/26) and he's fond of their Pennsylvania lineup in honor of his book promotion tour that he'll be there for. Check it out and see if you agree. - I haven't quite figured out the whos and whats of Thirsty Girl yet, but Whitney Thompson of Victory Brewing is one of them. A nice bit of reading about her over on the Facebook page. - Just a few miles south down I-95, Alexander Mitchell covered Baltimore Beer Week with passion and a lot of ambition and motivation. Check out his site and scroll through some of the fun stuff that he posted along the way. I get a feeling that if we hadn't been out of the country, an overnight trip to Baltimore during BBW would not have been out of the question. - Back home here in Philly, Joe Sixpack discussed pre-Prohibition as both a time period for beers as well as a modern-day style. He also touches on the very cool event occurring this coming weekend in a cemetery--yes, a cemetery. - Jack Curtin, last but certainly never least, kvetched a bit over session beers. I'm not sure if there was any motivation to the posting other than wanting to start a conversation. Basically, my response is that a session beer is very personal when it comes to ABV level. Because of my size and my eating and drinking habits, I've always considered my own "session level" to be at around 5.0%-5.5% Do you feel differently? Go to Jack's site and contribute to the conversation. - Bringing this full circle to Steve Beaumont, he, on the other hand, did take his laptop with him and manage to squeeze in some blog posts and Facebook updates. Scroll through and find a couple of Rhine-related postings of his over here. My telling of the 16+ days in Europe will have to wait until I can wade through 1,000+ pictures, dozens of videos, and scribbled notes (oh, typed ones, too, on my iPhone) and determine just exactly how to present some slimmed down portion of them to you. Until such time...