Blogger on hiatus

I have some pressing matters to attend to, and while I promise I still love beer, I don't have time to dedicate to blogging about it. There are many others who do it, and do it well. See blogroll for references.

Also, to PR peeps, I am not trying to be rude, but it's really not likely that I will post your random press release, loosely related to beer. Thanks.

Cheers!

Great Guinness Blaze

Do not fret, friends. The fire at the Dublin brewery didn't harm any beer, according the the AP. Apparently it didn't even halt the tourist activties on the same campus, while the fire blazed on, per Business Week. Two Dublin firefighters are in the hospital, but no one was else was harmed. While this is another hit for Diageo, who was planning to make some dramatic shakeups before the bad economy hit, it will not cause any Guinness shortages or anything. No need to panic. But send your positive thoughts over to Ireland - they had a heck of a day.

Ahem! Announcement time

If you've been an unfortunate long-time reader of this blog, and I mean LONG TIME, going back to what, 2004? Then you know that I adore Magic Hat #9. I get to have one every once a year or so. Seriously. I hate all fruity beers EXCEPT Magic Hat #9.

Magic Hat #9 is light, English Pale Ale with fruity flavoring, of the peach/apricot variety. It's a total chick beer, but NOT a sickly-sweet chick beer. It finishes dry and crisp, which I really like.

AND IT IS NOW ON TAP IN KANSAS CITY. (via FatCity)
You may or may not find me at any of the bars listed below in the near future:

Record Bar, Westport Flea Market, Harry's Country Club Bar, Charlie Hooper's, Grinders, Swagger, Blue Grotto, The Well and Johnny's Tavern in the Power and Light District

Oh hey! I wonder if this means I could get a keg of it from one of our bar business friends for the office? Hmmmmmmmm....

What Beer Should I Drink?

Just in time for those wonderful Holiday parties, Eating The Road to the rescue. They figured we may need this one a bit more than the others seeing that we may be a little…ahh, under the influence. Due to that, please use this chart with caution and responsibility.

I tried to post it here, but it is simply to huge to post nicely on my poor little blogger template.

Scientific Studies = DUH

I know that every beer drinking male in the US caught this side item in the news recently. A German study (go figure) determined that a chemical in hops actually lowers testorone in men, which in turn may reduce their risk for prostate cancer. A snippet of that can be found here, on Guyism.

A competing study on women turns in a less rosy result - moderate female drinkers, that have recovered from breast cancer, are INCREASING their chances of getting breast cancer again. Here's the story from CNN. Of course, the women's study also noted that the 34% of moderate drinker survivors that had a return of cancer were also overweight or obese.

I didn't note those kind of stats in the male study, but rather than rant about any of that, let's add some common sense, shall we? If you're obese, lazy and drink all of the time, you're probably not going to live all that long. Male or female. Just my thought. And now, I am going to the gym. Cheers!

20 Things

20 Things Worth Knowing About Beer
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/beer

from @oatmeal
http://twitter.com/oatmeal

How cute are they?

As the jobless rate climbed toward 10 percent this summer, Erica Shea and Stephen Valand, quit their advertising jobs, took $10,000 in personal savings and started selling their 1-gallon home brew beer kits from a stand at the Brooklyn Flea Market, testing the theory that beer is recession proof...

Personal commentary: they worked in advertising, live in Brooklyn, and in a crappy economy the QUIT their jobs to do THIS?!

...Valand said in September online sales through their website - www. brooklynbrewshop.com - surpassed in-person sales at the market for the first time and the couple would like to drive more traffic there, but know that entails a major revamp of the site. In addition Shea said they are also looking to get the kits into retail stores in time for the Christmas rush. That will likely entail hiring more people to do the packaging to free up their time to devote to marketing the product better.

"Our challenges as we continue to grow the business are time and space. There's only so many hours in a day that you can be doing things and there are so many ideas that come up that we really want to pursue, but ultimately there are two of us and we get tired."

via Reuters.com

Can I order a kit from KC to send to someone in Brooklyn? Heh. Guess what my brother & sister in law are getting for this holiday? They'll be thrilled, I am sure. Especially when they find out that brewing inside makes the kitchen smell like dog food.

Excuse me, your beer is showing

An article in AdAge this week claims, "What Your Taste in Beer Says About You:
How Choice of Brew Relates to Personality, Politics and Purchases."


Being a marketing/advertising/stats nerd as well as a beer nerd means that I read it with a grain of salt and still think they nailed it. This is what marketers are looking at when they craft their messages. Who do they think you are? What are they saying to you? How does that make YOU feel? ;)


My favorite part of the article, of course, is this, because it is the most flattering to me. And because I DO love the Dos Equis campaign:

People who drink a broad portfolio of beers are different than one-brand drinkers as well. Those "indifferent" beer drinkers are more open-minded and emotional people who enjoy a variety of life experiences. Mr. Durant pointed out that they might be the types of people who would identify with a marketing campaign like that of Dos Equis: "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis."


And that is the point of the research, of course -- it's not just all fun and drinking games, but it comes with marketing lessons, Mr. Durant said. For instance, there are a lot of Bud Light drinkers in general, but there is a big difference between the ones who also drink only other domestic beers such as Coors Light and Miller Light, and ones who also prefer craft and import beers.

Extra rice, please

Last night my husband & I finally went for birthday sushi, only 2 days after my birthday. While we were debating what to eat, my husband considered ordering a stout. I wrinkled my nose at him. A stout? With sushi? Ew. There is a time and a place and a combo for everything. I am sure someone will comment about an amazing stout & fish/rice pairing they like. I just can't do it.

Every time I go for sushi, I drink one of three beers: Kirin, Sapporo or Bud Light. Because they are similar to my undistinguished palate. Not exactly the same, just not dramatically different. They are all inoffensive, clean, filtered and best cold. Perfect for washing down some raw fish and rice without mudding up flavors.

Both Kirin and Sapporo are Japanese Rice Lagers, brewed with *ahem* rice. Beer Advocate says a JRL should be pale yellow in color, soft hop nose, and expect a rounded, firm malty character, moderate bitterness, and a trademark dry finish.

Bud Light is a Light Lager style, which means that a high amount of cereal adjuncts like rice or corn are used to help lighten the beer as much as possible. Bud uses more rice, Miller uses more corn. Very low in malt flavor with a light and dry body. The hop character is low and should only balance with no signs of flavor or aroma.

I like non-intrusive beers with my rice & fish. I don't wander over to the wine side often, and sake is a bit much for most of my nights. (Side note, sake always = Jagermeister to me, with the potential to get a little too wild & crazy. I think the only reason I believe this is because they both can be ordered in "bomb" forms.) What do you normally order to drink when eating sushi?

Boulevard Brew News

I am not late on this due to laziness, for once. I attended the Boulevard Brewmaster Luncheon today, featuring food and beer pairings from KC Hop's restaurant Barley's Brewhaus. It was amazing. As the post on BeerAdvocate promised, it was a power lunch for my taste buds. The lunch also included a quick tour of the brewery, which is truly a work of art. I have not been over there since the bottling line was installed where the old basketball court had been. Hours after lunch, I am still full from this outing. And after lunch I went back to work instead of taking a nice long nap, which is what I desperately wanted to do! But seriously, take a look at this menu, and tell me you wouldn't need a nap afterwards?

Tank 7 is a lovely, citrusy beer to pair with shrimp (prawns, if you want to be particular) and we all know how much I love Bob's with anything. As the chef recommended, I took a sip after every bit of pork and butternut squash gnocchi. OMG. The Seeyoulater pairing with dessert was inspired. One of the many lessons from lunch is that I need to get myself back to Barley's sometime soon. I haven't been in years, and I couldn't even tell you the last thing I ate there. But if this lunch was anything like what I could expect, it's back on my radar. Huge, massive thanks to Jeremy for the invite.

The brewmaster @ Boulevard, Steven Pauwels, is a great personality for these kind of events. If you see these pop up again, I highly recommend taking a friend, and then taking the rest of the afternoon OFF!!

So in other, related news, Boulevard sent out a press release today about a joint effort between the brewmasters of Boulvard and Orval teaming up for one limited release beer in KC. The press release was covered in it's entirety over at the KC Beer Blog. Not everyone is pumped about an Imperial Pilsner, but I think it'll be a great interesting brew. Not something I would drink all the time, no, but still interesting for nerds and award opportunities, right? Boulevard has been pumping out tons of different limited releases this year, and I couldn't keep up with all of them on the old blog. They've been quite busy and innovative over there, and I am in love with almost all of the Smokestack series, and of course the Single Wide IPA.

So just in case you want to know what on earth an Imperial Pilsner is, I looked it up. My general understanding of anything called "Imperial" is that it is stronger than the regular version, in both flavor and alcoholic content. But I figured a more academic explanation would be more helpful to everyone. Now we just have to wait until January for the release of the Boulevard/Orval take!

Beer Advocate says an Imperial Pilsner is: Similar to a Pilsner in appearance, but expect a more pronounced malty backbone and an intense bitterness. Malt flavors tend to be quite sweet in many examples. Alcohol can be quite aggressive and lend some spicy notes to the flavor.

Great Guinness - Win!

Raise your glass for a Guinness Toast! The famous Guinness story began in 1752 when Arthur inherited 100 pounds from his godfather. It wasn't until three years later that 34-year-old Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease for his new Dublin brewery 250 years ago on September 24, 1759, and began brewing stout, a very dark beer the world knows and loves today.

Today is Arthur's Day, and a global toast is organized to take place at 17:59 Dublin local time around the world. That is about 7 hours from now, or midnight for us Midwesterners. I won't be up that late tonight, I am afraid, but the kind folks at Guinness have sent me a lovely little care package to celebrate the day. It includes a bar towel, glass, baseball cap and an autographed glossy photo of Guinness Master Brewer Fergal Murray. I don't have enough readers to try a radio station style contest (250th commenter wins!) but I probably can still up enough of you for 25th commenter, right?

Comment away friends. 25th commenter wins the package. I'll contact you for shipping info.

Stay Classy

Some think this "viral" campaign by Bud Light for the Bud Light Lime cans is clever or funny. It's not. Not clever. Not funny. Not entertaining. I like dude-rtising. I think the majority of ads targeted to men are funny. Bud Light ads were always funny on the verge of stupid, but this is just flat out retarded. If you had dropped in a line about getting it in the can ONCE, that could have been funny. Repeated over and over, it's not. I think Jonathan over at the Pitch got it right - it 100% reminds me of the movie Idiocracy.



"The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources were focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections. "

Dreams Smashed

The men at my house this morning from 1-800-Got-Junk were suprisingly strong for their appearances. They carted away my broken retro deep freeze, after 2 Dads, 2 friends and my husband vetoed the idea of hauling the thing up from the basement, lifting it onto a truck, and driving it to the new house, only to have to fix it anyway. The Junk guys had it out of my basement in5 seconds flat, and I considered trying to bribe them to take it to our new place. But I gave up, and let it go. No retro kegerator at our house, then.

Retro Recycling

This old deep freeze has lived in my basement for a very very long time. It came with the house. It does not work. Now that we're emptying the house to move, I find that I've become attached. How do I turn this 1964 Frigidaire freezer into a most awesome retro kegerator? Anyone know a local who's handy with refrigeration?

Tony Toni Tone know all about it

It's our anniversary,
Made for you and me and
I've only made plans
To hold your little hand
It's our anniversary (anniversary)



Happy Four Year Blog-a-versary to us, little blog & me. The official 4th anniversary suggestions are fruit or flowers. The only fruit beers we can stomach here at a beer sort of blog are Magic Hat #9, and Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale. I'm ordering some of each.

How y'all doin?

Sooooo, I just back from Bristol. Tennessee. We rented RVs. It takes about 12-13 hours to drive there from KC. We worked our tails off, saw some NASCAR, debated loving/hating Kyle Busch, made friends in the campground and tried moonshine called "Catdaddy." I picked up a wicked southern drawl that it will take a week of solid Henry Higgins style voice coaching to drop. I now address singular individuals as y'all. No word actually ends in a "g." I can understand Boomhauer from King of the Hill. We drank Busch Light, Miller Lite and Bud Light. Yep. And you know what? I enjoyed the heck out of it. Random post over.

Nada Surf in my head

I got an email a little over a week ago titled, "Wanna be in Ink?" I said, "Well, yeah, why not?" So I had an interview and photo shoot today. It turns out that they are doing a spotlight on local bloggers, and I am the most sporadic blogger on the list. I was a little sheepish.

So in order to make myself feel a little better, I pulled up some stats on this mess:

Blog Age: 4 years old
Published Posts: 303
Kansas City Related Posts: 86
Beer Reviews: 72
Beer-Related Posts: 161
Non-Beer Related Posts: 70
(So I stay on topic about 77% of the time. That's probably higher than in real life, right?)

Monthly traffic averages a little over 2,000 unique visitors, with about 88% of them being NEW visitors. Thank you, Google Search. You are a strange friend.

With all those newbies visiting, one wonders how they get here.
50% find me by name, blog name, or type it in direct (which makes me think they aren't all NEW visitors)
25% found my WW points for beer post (also the most emailed post, by far)
10% come from feed engines, like the beerinator or alltop.

The remaining 20% are a hodgepodge of sources. Some click from one of the other bloggers who are kind enough to link here, some are searching for one of the hundred actual beer brands/labels included in this blog, some find pictures I have posted here via image searches, or are lead astray by my BeerAdvocate profile. Very rarely do I get the random searches for "beer girls," but when I do, they don't stay long.

So, new visitors, welcome to the world of a beer sort of girl. It's a bit lazy, a little random, and a lot about beer. Drinking it, enjoying it, contemplating it, marketing it, and sometimes even attempting to brew it. Here are a few posts I would recommend, ever so humbly, if you don't want to wade thru the tags on the left:

ATTN BEER BREWERS! Great comment feedback from brewers on how to start homebrewing.
Irish brew breakdown Recommendations for celebrating St. Pat's day without green beer.
Dark Beer 101 Don't be afraid of the dark side, I'll show you the way.

A beer sort of day

KC Hop Head and OregonAmy were nice enough to let me host July's Brew Day, and despite some ungodly humidity, I think a good time was had by all. I know I learned a lot, just by watching them do their brews. I chickened out, because I still had yet to figure out how to properly carbonate my Questionable Cream Ale in the keg, and am not loving the results I get from extract brewing. KC Hop Head managed to get my beer all set, so it was tested, and deemed drinkable if not delicious. :) The brews brought by Amy and her husband quite awesome, and I am freshly motivated to move on from "kit" beer. It doesn't look quite as scary and difficult, when everyone else can knock it out while hanging out on my back deck. So thanks for the fantastic company and examples to follow. I'm personally interested in the oatmeal raisin stout that was smelling so nice while boiling! Friends showed up all day and evening, and I thank you all.


Everyone brought summertime brews to share, from home brew to special finds. I think my top favorites were the Belgian Cherry that Average Jane brought, the Founder's Scottish Ale brought by Tim, and the IPA brewed by Amy & her husband. Good stuff!

My dog is so exhausted from yesterday that he has only woken up twice so far - both times to eat. Ha!

Edited to add that I inherited both a tan Coleman cooler with one unmarked bottle of homebrew, and a hula hoop after everyone left on Saturday. If you'd like to claim either, let me know!

Brew Day! Deck Party! Super Happy Fun Time!

Everyone is cordially invited to a Brew Day at a beer sort of house! Saturday, July 11th, starting around noon. We're going with a Summer Beer Trade/Brewing/Drinking theme. Think lagers, pilsners, fruit brews, kolsch, etc. We'll fire up the Weber, have a few yard games, and lots of awesome people there, some even brewing up their own concoctions. The forecast says 92 degrees, but it is always cooler in the shade of Prairie Village, so plan to stop by! Bring your favorite brew to share, and possibly a camp chair. :) Email, twitter, IM, etc for directions.

Oh yeah, edited to add that our house is a couple of weeks from going on the market. If you or anyone you know really wants to move into a remodeled ranch on an awesome street in Prairie Village with great neighbors, come check out the house before it goes on the market.

Ketchup

Second batch of homebrew is almost ready for second fermentation, so fingers crossed. Bubbling is mostly stopped, gravity truth to be unveiled tonight. The Cream Ale involved way less STUFF, so maybe it's more idiot-proof? We shall see.

Works busy, economy is crap, and I think I am putting my house on the market to buy another one down the street. Gotta keep it interesting, you know.

I am going to Baltimore & DC for the 4th, any recommendations on where to get a decent beer?

Also, Jessica from Obsidian Public Relations thought I might find this interesting enough to post on my blog, so here you all go:

Flying Saucer will present a beer tasting featuring Schlafly Beer on Monday, July 6 at 7 p.m. The event will be hosted by Stephen Hale, head brewer at St. Louis-based Schlafly. Six of Schlafly’s bottle-conditioned and barrel-aged beers will be paired with selected meats, artisan cheeses and dessert. Featured beers include the Tripel, Grand Cru, Bière de Garde, Quadruple, Oak-Aged Barleywine and Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout. Tickets for the event can be purchased at Flying Saucer and are $30 for U.F.O. Club members and $35 for non-members.