Monday, January 16, 2012

Weekly Brew Bits Update: 1/16/12

Here's a bunch of unrelated stuff from the great wide world of the craft brewing segment. This weekly update is usually Philly-centric, but there's a bit more randomness in here this week. Figured many of you will, nonetheless, enjoy most of it.

There's a lot here. My goal has never been to make these too long and overwhelming.

~ One of the best food and beer events of the year takes place right here in Philadelphia. Tickets to The Brewers Plate on 3/11/12 have gone on sale and can be purchased via this link. And, if you'd like to know more about this tremendous event, you can read my past reviews of 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. Lots of good and tasty stuff there, check it out. Don't know what happened to 2010's, but we can assume that it was equally "great".

~ Speaking of great events in the Philadelphia region, Iron Hill is gearing up again for its annual celebration of funk and fun on the last Saturday of January, 1/28/12. Belgium Comes to West Chester is a great showcase for Iron Hill's funky fantastic brews and also for nearly twenty other invited breweries. Check out the list of beers on their website.

~ Good friend and great writer, Stephen Beaumont, takes his unique approach to year-end lists in the form of things bartenders, patrons, writers, and raters should not do. Check 'em out and chime if you don't agree that almost all of them are rules we should all live by for a better beer experience.

~ I've passed through the Tampa airport [TPA] enough to find this interesting tidbit to pass along to you, in the case you find yourself there for spring training, spring break, or springing for a beer. Local brewery, Cigar City, will soon be making and serving up their highly sought after brews at its airport pub and Gerard at Road Trips for Beer shares some of the details.

~ After following a revealing piece from 2010 on Andrew Zimmern, I also stumbled across a nice piece on Philly boy, Michael Solomonov. He has had high-profile stops at Xochitl and Percy Street Barbecue and worked under Terence Feury, Patrick Feury, and Marc Vetri, with his last stop heading up Marigold Kitchen.

~ And, last but not least (or, least, depending upon your viewpoint), Dogfish Head has been in the news in more ways than one recently. For starters and in a positive light, they've got the gluton-free Tweason'ale and the Noble Rot both ready for the market. They both sound interesting to check out for, obviously, different reasons. Read more about the Tweason'Ale at the DFH website.

But then, oh boy, but then, brewery owner and industry poster boy Sam Calagione kicked up a bit of a storm within the storm that can often be found on the BeerAdvocate website forums. It was one of those typically routine and inane threads entitled "Most Overrated Brewery". Calagione's remarks were fairly well-measured and delivered. Yet, it only added to the debate amongst the geekerie think-tank about how effective criticism should be dealt and measured. Me? It reminded me why I rarely dip my toes into the waters of the frustrating forums at sites like this.

If you thought I might link to the forum, sorry. You'll have to go digging for it, if you really care. It really wasn't news, per se, but it sure did have people talking.

~ Then, when I thought I had this wrap-up completed, a couple more snuck in that I thought you may wish to read up on.

First, the CraftBeer.com website has a nice little guide for ordering and, if need be, refusing a beer in today's more enlightened world of beer consumption.

~ Then, a "story" about binge drinking. I found the article, the numbers, the analysis, the positioning, the half-baked conclusions confusing and misleading. What about you?

~ And, finally, a light-hearted story about dealing with potential litigation. Adam at BeerNews.org has the original story and link. Then, follows it up with a bit of post-mortem.

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