ITH Beer Guide

It seems I haven't done a monthly recap since my initial one back in January. That about sums up my love/hate relationship with writing. Occasionally I come back to it, and usually when I do beer is the inspiration. For the most part, writing this all down is in hopes some of these beer memories stick in my head a bit longer. And possibly serve as a a reminder, "Hey that was damn good beer that one time--- I should have one of those again soon!" Well, let's keep this going before I lose my motivation again. Summer Time ...and the beers are going down easy. Seriously, there are so many beer-drinking occasions during the summer, from ballgames to concerts, roadtrips to cookouts, vacations and staycations and everything in- and out-between. June kicked off a busy summer for us and we can't wait for all that still lies ahead. One thing I am always interested in is trying new beer, and I'm super excited for a roadtrip this year down to North Carolina. We won...

It started with a tweet . It ended with a blog post . Well not ended I guess, because here I am keeping the "conversation" going here. Having come of age while in college in Boston (go Huskies!), I still  feel a strong connection to the beer in the region; it certainly helps being back in the northeast! So what would my New England Craft Beer Hall of Fame be? Hoo boy. That's quite the challenge. I'll start with the criteria listed by @HoppyBoston :  The beer must be brewed by a New England-based brewery. I know that Sam Adams and Shipyard make some of their beer in other parts of the country but they are based in the region so their beers count. The most important factor is the impact the beer had on the craft beer community in the region. While many of these beers still hold up today, I care more about the influence they had on a generation of beer geeks and aspiring brewers than how they would do in a blind tasting against current versions of their respective...

There was a post a short bit ago on Good Beer Hunting about the writer's "Mount Crushmore" of beers. A monument to supremely influential beers in their life. I wanted to partake, but struggled because of my disdain for the actual monument. It is built on sacred (stolen) land and I struggle with that. As a therapeutic release, I decided to look at the exercise a little differently. Craft beer fans think of ABInbev as big, bad guys looking to conquer and assimilate all that stand in their way. Sound familiar with any history stories? Perhaps the stories of some folks memorialized on stolen land? Maybe not to many of us as Americans, but that's like looking at ABInbev through Goose Island goggles. So if these guys on Mount Rushmore were ABInbev beers, who would they be? Let's do this! George Washington - At the time of the revolution, one could argue the British were the largest imperialist nation. However, George Washington helped turn the tides (and establish ...

Dryuary : The art of not drinking  alcohol  for the entire month of January. I considered it this year, probably for the first time. However, we had some things already planned. A beer festival in Syracuse and a brewery trip with another family (although it ended up being just us). Guess I'll make it a Drinkuary then! Thanks to the festival and two visits to local breweries, some good beer was had though. K2 Brothers was a brewery pouring at the festival and had some excellent beer, including some juicy DDH offerings and a wonderfully balanced jalapeno cream ale. They are a new brewery in the Rochester area and we already have a trip planned to visit in early March--gotta use up that membership to the Strong Museum of Play anyway, right?!  Thin Man's version of Smooth Maneuvers was packed with tropical juiciness. Thin Man Brewery (Buffalo) had some beer at the festival as well, but the highlight might have been the beer we had from them on the drive to Syr...

All that recent reminiscing on twitter about Saint Arnold had me wondering something. I've had a a lot of their beers. Are they the brewery I've had the most unique check-ins from? Thanks to recently becoming an Untappd supporter, I could easily find out... And the answer is? Yes. Buuuut...not for long. I'm about to become primarily a NY beer drinker. Well at least according to Untappd. I don't religiously check in to beers. Sometimes I am better than others and probably moreso recently, but I do usually remember to check-in to a new beer. Mostly because I'm a beer nerd who likes seeing the numbers. Seeing my "unique" beers gives a nice revelation. Saint Arnold of Houston, TX is my top brewery for unique check-ins. Makes sense after living there for 5+years (although I was on Untappd for just under 4 of those). As of today, I have checked in to 53 different beers of theirs. However, they are soon to be dethroned. I'm now up to 52 unique check-ins f...

I recently re-read an October 2016 Beer Advocate article about breweries suffering from festival fatigue. There's so many festivals these days, which ones are worth and which ones aren't?  Here's a quote from the article that sturck me: "Meanwhile, Brewers of Pennsylvania’s LaBert says beer festivals must be more than, “just a transaction,” stressing that third-party-run festivals often have part-time personnel pouring beer with limited knowledge about the products. Leone agrees. (Note, that's  Paul Leone, executive director of the New York State Brewers Association) .   He takes a two-fold approach to his New York festivals, finding they must simultaneously market beer through consumer education and strategic lobbying while building a connection to the breweries. In his opinion, festivals that rely on random volunteers to pour samples, in essence, dupe the consumer into faulty ties to the beer." As it turns out, we had tickets to an upcoming beer festi...

There's a new brewery in town set to open seemingly any day now.* Not gonna lie, I'm pretty damn excited to have another brewery in Ithaca. The state of beer around here (Tompkins County at least) leaves a bit to be desired . A new brewery is opening up you say?! There looks to be some potential here. I love the location. The guys have a science background which I think bodes well for QC/QA. The branding is sharp. And the tasting room sounds like it's going to be fun (check that first link). But-- you knew there would be a but --while having not tasted any of their beer yet, I already have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It comes down to a crowd-funding campaign.  To me, crowd-funding campaigns are about making something possible that wouldn't exist without the help of us commoners. At the same time there needs to be some sort of return on the investment. Crowd-funding artistic endeavors is cool I think. If enough of us pledge 10 bucks, this band will be ...