Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 9, 2012, 8:26 pm
Usually when you read about university students with a kegs and kegs of beer you are not reading a story about the exercise of great responsibility: The University of British Columbia’s student union, the Alma Mater Society, believes it can profit off that fact when it opens a brewery on campus in...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 8, 2012, 8:04 pm
The other day I read one of the more interesting passages of beery thought that I had read in some time. It's from a response to a post at Jeff's Beervana about the wonky less than linear history of beer styles: While it’s entirely possible that malt bills and hopping rates of many of craft brewin...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 7, 2012, 7:34 pm
This is one of the funnier quotes I have read from someone whose livelihood involves getting people to buy more good beer: The beer belly myth is also something McClelland would like to help dispel. "A lot of Canadians perceive that beer is high in calories, or fattening," he said. "That's one of th...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 6, 2012, 8:04 am
Here's the thing. I don't like to drink all that much on Sunday and really like to avoid drinking on Monday. It's not that I plan when I do but have always liked clear days. And, for other reasons, I have to stay clear anyway. But I was asked to present some IPAs to some good beery people tonight an...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 4, 2012, 1:58 pm
The 64 ounce beer jug - or growler - is sufficiently interesting to the guys as Washington Beer Blog that they made it the topic of this month's edition of The Session: These days people take growlers for granted. In my neck of the woods, growlers are a relatively new phenomenon. I don’t recall ex...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 2, 2012, 7:40 am
Stan asked me to elaborate on something: Could you elaborate on what you mean by 'beer thinking'? Hmm... I think there is beer thinking. If there is anything, there is a lot of under-thinking about beer thinking. If I were honest with you, there is a lot of under-thinking about over-thinking, too. ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Feb 1, 2012, 7:31 am
So they finally got to the bottom of a box of Iraqi cuneiform tablets dug up in 1976 and found some written by some guy trying to be funny as reported in the New York Daily News: This one could also benefit from cranking up the laugh track: “In your mouth and your teeth, constantly stared at...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Jan 30, 2012, 6:55 pm
The response to the post about the ethics of running a series of posts for a fee has been interesting - and, shockingly, far more civil that then outburst of Engerlander finger pointy hand baggery over at Taking the Beard Out of Beer today. It's as if they don't know that being in a beer community m...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Jan 29, 2012, 9:21 pm
What is local when it comes to beer or anything else in southern Ontario? Today there is someone who need not be mentioned drearily tweeting a series of xenophobic exhortations for we Ontarians to drink "local" beer. It reminds me of how the naivety of my former co-residents of Prince Edward Island...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Jan 29, 2012, 8:33 am
In December 2010, I decided that I had to get at the task of drinking the Fuller's Vintage Ales that I had been hoarding in the stash. I figured I needed to compare beers that were brewed five years apart and posted the '05 v. '10 results. Now, it's time for the second edition comparing 2006 to thei...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Jan 28, 2012, 12:38 pm
I have been quite impressed with the idea Evan had to post an essay on Amazon and ask a very modest fee for payment. I have also loved and supported Lew's idea for the TV series American Beer Blogger funded through Kickstarter. They've got me thinking. The price point and revenue streams for writin...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Jan 27, 2012, 7:18 pm
Me-me's. That is the whole stock in trade of blogging when you think of it. A story to nick and build upon with a hope that someone builds upon it further, mentioning your name or at least offering a link. Not today. I blame the freezing rain in the middle of the night. It sounded like someone with ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Jan 25, 2012, 7:34 pm
I got a review copy of Evan Rail's essay "Why Beer Matters" via email today. It's published for the Kindle and available at Amazon.com for an embarrassingly low price. Buy it. Why? Good question. Ever since his coming out party chez ici, he has been one of my favorite beer bloggers, a steady source ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 15, 2011, 7:37 am
I had no idea that residents of my former home town of Halifax, Nova Scotia have such a problem with the drink... and ice skating: Selling beer at the oval was not part of the sponsorship deal or any of the discussions leading up to it, Mayor Peter Kelly said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t think (we) wo...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 14, 2011, 5:34 pm
Just a note. I am watching you. I may be the last to know but Google Analytic's beta real time display has enthralled me. I am in its thrall, its slave. The image above does not do this justice. It moves. I can watch you go on the site, what you are looking at, where you are from, how long you are t...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 13, 2011, 8:51 pm
I wish I was more diligent. Every year I think I am getting close to a prize for every winner but, again this year, the answer is no. Sadly. But the prizes are sweet. Look at what the winner of winners wins. ♦ Oxford Companion to Beer, Oxford University Press. ♦ A subscription to TAPS The ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 13, 2011, 7:50 am
Change is tough. The toothbrush that is always and ratty blue suddenly is new and green. Throws me off. So much more disruptive is the shock of the new information and communications technologies. And no one knows that better than the US Postal Service - but a bipartisan set of US Senators are to th...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 12, 2011, 8:21 pm
I suppose I should check under the sofa, in the mail box and out in the garden, too. One really never knows where one will find photos does one. Robert Gale sent in these eight entries on Saturday but I missed seeing them as Lord Goog thought he knew better where they ought to go. He lives in Torfae...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 11, 2011, 8:43 pm
There you go. Another year's worth of entries for the Xmas Beer Blog Photo Contest 2012. By my court there are 211 entries this year, up over 10% from last year. Stats. That's the true meaning of Christmas... and Hogmanay for that matter. Let's see who sent what, shall we? My pal Dan James of Princ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 11, 2011, 8:32 am
Ron has posted a great interview with Minnesota brewer Kristen England brought to us by Northern Brewer, the US home brew supply shop. I don't normally like web video due to production values (or surprisingly squeaky voices) but this is a straight one camera interview that does not pretend to be any...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 10, 2011, 2:53 pm
Could you do this on TV now? A comedy about brewery workers? Probably not. By the way, I sing a song like that to myself as I am beer shopping. Every time. Don't you? Under 24 hours to get your photos in. Tom Cizauskas of Yours For Good Fermentables did as did Simon Johnson, the Reluctant Scooper. ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 9, 2011, 7:33 pm
Seem you just get started and before you know it... it's the time we have to say... man, the 2012 Xmas, Yule, Kwanzaa, Hogmanay and Hanukkah Christmas photo contest has flown by. The entries have to be in by Sunday at noon eastern standard time but so far we are close to where we were last year - 17...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Dec 7, 2011, 7:45 pm
I lost Martyn's submission of a photo in late November. It's not like I have staff running this thing. Wouldn't that be great? Staff who hits up prize givers all year. Staff to re-size these photos? Enough daydreaming. Martyn's offering is called "The Traveller's Relief" and was taken at Istanbul A...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Nov 1, 2011, 9:33 pm
I have a soft spot for Yorkshire's Black Sheep Brewery as it is one of the brands imported from time to time by the LCBO for over a decade. It's dependable, tasty ale. Good to hear, then, that they are moving ahead with getting ahead: The company is also trialling Black Sheep in a can in Tesco store...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 31, 2011, 10:15 pm
Well, I didn't expect to be called out - or, rather, have my suspicions confirmed - by the east coast media establishment. I did say that I expect this to be a slow project from day one. Nonetheless, Clay Risen's observations at The Atlantic today on the state of beer writing are well worth reading,...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 30, 2011, 8:46 pm
With all the talk about recently released beer books your are forgiven when you forget there are even newer beer books out there. I ordered my copy of ATJ's new book CAMRA's Great British Pubs from Amazon.co.uk the other day. I see that there is a new book on Burton upon Trent by Protz, too. But for...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 28, 2011, 7:49 pm
It is important to remember the unimportance of beer or rather its place as an aspect of pop culture that both pervades and yet lays below the surface. Jay reminds today us of both ends of that continuum. So, in another way, does Simon. Stan takes it one step further and tells the tale of Heinrich K...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 27, 2011, 7:49 pm
Next week is November. Baseball will be over and somewhere it is snowing already. Somewhere like Albany, NY judging from Craig's Facebook post just now. Photo contest time. This will be the sixth annual photo contest. The winner in 2006 received this response in the comments: Sorry, perhaps the stor...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 26, 2011, 7:44 pm
It's been mad. Mad as in nutty crazy, not angry. Well, a bit of anger. And saucy retorts. How did it come to be that mild mannered beer fans had all this pent up emotion. I had no idea. Me, I'm not so much like that. Evan has it right. I'm just all about the whimsy. But its been busy and, you know, ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 24, 2011, 6:25 pm
A few days after starting the OCBeerCommentary wiki, Garrett Oliver - editor, brewer and ambassador for good beer - emailed me and asked if ... be correct, is rather like saying “there is no direct evidence that Neolithic peoples breathed oxygen.” “Foaming at the mouth” – these his own wo...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 23, 2011, 9:50 pm
The ad is from page 4 of the Kingston Gazette, 6 January 1816. You can see at the bottom that it was placed on 15 December 1815. So many questions. What were Messrs Robinson and Gillespie up to? Why is rye placed between barley and hops in the large font while oats sit down there with the peas? Also...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 23, 2011, 7:18 pm
I have been on a lot of brewery tours. In Halifax in the early 1980s it was a euphemism for college kids being locked into a room at the brewery and given all the beer they could down in a Friday afternoon hour. More recently, it's the chance to hear craft brewers explain their processes. At one Jap...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 21, 2011, 9:23 pm
I don't really go much for packaging or even branding when it comes to beer. All that tiny writing on Stone bottles from some PR hack telling me I am not worthy? Yawn. All the millions wasted on design that gets unnecessarily added to the cost of my beer? Spare me. Yet... yet, there is this cube of ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 20, 2011, 8:13 pm
I would have not thought Pakistan was ripe to become a beer exporting nation until I read this article... though I am not sure I would show up at the brewery growler in hand: The brewery is next to the headquarters of the armed forces, which has helped to guarantee its security. "The best bars in th...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 18, 2011, 7:09 pm
Josh Rubin wrote a great review of Les Trois Mousquetaires Porter Baltique in the Toronto Star today. It's a beer I love, having had my first in May 2010 after a beer run to La Belle Province. But I noticed something on the bottle that accompanied Josh' article. The bottle said "Automne 2010" and th...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 17, 2011, 7:32 pm
Charlevoix is a favorite brewery of mine even if it was unknown to me just three years ago. I have loved their dubbel since April 2009. I picked up this one, along with some elk and wild boar sausage, at Broue Ha Ha a few weeks ago. I was a little intrigued by the "?" Double IPA idea, the mystery...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 16, 2011, 9:02 pm
Between have a cold, having five kids and helping out with the fledgling North American Beer Writers Guild reincarnation... in addition to thinking about next year's Oktoberfest speakers series... in addition to the bright idea to start a web based concordance to The Oxford Companion to Beer, someti...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 14, 2011, 7:21 pm
You may recall that I had a first look at The Oxford Companion to Beer a few weeks ago. Comments have flown here and elsewhere. I am convinced that the book will be a great focal point for discussion for years. I am also convinced that by definition is it not definitive. Why? Well, it is a collectio...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 13, 2011, 8:06 pm
What would he thought of it all? Monseigneur D’Esgly, the first bishop after the conquest of New France. Strong, black ale. Fitting? Fitting enough for me. I needed something richly purifying after all that mixed ethical talk. Who knew Joe won't accept samples? Win leaves it to the informed reader...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 13, 2011, 8:42 am
We did this one in 2008 but it is good to visit this question repeatedly. Me? I like cash. Because, apparently, the people who run pubs, make beer and publish beer periodicals like it as well. There is an odd assumption that bloggers (and drinkers) participate out of "passion" - a catch all word for...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 11, 2011, 8:48 pm
Interesting article at the web site... the web presence... of The Atlantic about pumpkin ales. I have thought about these beers for years now and have a few ideas of my own. But I still appreciate these thoughts: Some beer styles are loved, some are ardently despised, but none is more divisive than ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 10, 2011, 9:56 am
Beer for sale! Hallallujah!! BEER FOR SALE!!! Remember what I suggested before? That where there is peace there is beer? Well, on 27 November 1815, my town of Kingston was just nine months past the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent and five past the Battle of Waterloo. The proposed terms of Napol...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 8, 2011, 10:40 am
Irish blog Tale of Ale posed the question for this month's edition of The Session: I decided that I wanted to do something out of character for many beer blogs on the internet. I wanted to say thank you to the large multinational brewers and show that we are not all against them. Seems like only y...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 7, 2011, 8:46 pm
We have not found more Albany ale information for a while but this is your moment of zen. Just consider what it means. There is no Erie Canal. There are rapids on the St. Lawrence all the way to Montreal. There are about 4,000 people in this town. The War of 1812 ended one shipping season before... ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 6, 2011, 8:44 pm
What better to drink for election night here in Ontario than a beer that the LCBO deemed too hot. Not the temperature or the level of alcohol but that label. Yes, the state owned beer monopoly is anti-cleavage. How the Quebecers who made the beer must have laughed. h/t markosaar. Ontario sometimes s...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 5, 2011, 9:19 pm
One of my favorite things about beer writing is how, ultimately, it is not very important. I say that as someone who has spent more than half his days over a number of years trying to get a decent bit of beer writing out the door. But it's the very lightness makes for a great opportunity to catch a ...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 3, 2011, 8:25 am
One of the more revitalizing things to come out of the weekend was the opportunity to listen to to people discuss beer. Whether in a conversation struck up with partying fans in the shuttle bus or more formally in the speakers' sessions, people were describing beer. We speak of beer as a social lubr...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 2, 2011, 7:55 pm
It happened in a field in eastern Ontario. Very eastern. So eastern, exit 27 to Vankleek Hill had a sign for one of the Montreal airports. The field is actually the fairgrounds. They've been there for a while, celebrating their 167th anniversary. What was so great about it? Buses. Buses...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Oct 1, 2011, 10:10 am
Like the laundry flooring? That's eight growlers and 18 clay bottles that I am returning to Beau's today. Hoping that the deposit pays for the gas. It's about a three hour drive to the north-east where by all accounts fun is being had. This will be my first Oktoberfest and actually my second fest o...
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Alan M. posted an article on A Good Beer Blog - Sep 29, 2011, 8:08 pm
Well, I opened the package from Amazon about two hours ago, so I must be ready for a review, right? What the heck. That is what I say. First impressions are what they are so let's have a look. Some irritations first. There are a large number of empty cross references like this on page 557: magazine...
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