In One Nostril. Out the Other

I'm not much on you-tubing, passing on funny stuff, or the internet in general. But I gotta pass this on from my buddy Jay Brooks. As he says, once the image is in your head, it ain't goin' nowhere. It's at Jay's blog as an entry for January 8th titled "Rhinodrinking." But here's a direct link to the video. After I watched it, I googled the "idea" and discovered there are entirely too many people in the world with too much beer and time on their hands. Warning: do NOT watch while ingesting liquids.

Beer and Chocolate -- Ancient Companions

Okay, so we already know that some beer styles are sublime when consumed with chocolate. Turns out the connection is older than we knew! A piece in today's New York Times reports on new archaeological research about fermented cacoa in Mesoamerica.

Addendum two days later: As usual, Jay Brooks and Stan Hieronymus are MILES ahead of me on this. Check out their takes and links to lots more info. Stan is here. Jay is here. What's NOT to love about those guys????? (Answer: Not much. They're two of my favorite people.)

Music and Drinking

Okay, in a million years I would not have thought of or about this. But now I have, and I must say: the human brain never ceases to amaze me. Start here with W. Blake Gray's piece in the San Francisco Chronicle. Then read Stan Hieronymus's take on the topic. I love knowing that Vinnie Cilurzo is a believer (and that his dad loved Sinatra). It's, well, just too marvelous. Too marvelous for words. Etc.

Meanwhile, over at another blog........

I'm a bit late in posting a link to this discussion (for some weird reason -- maybe the full moon? -- every time I tried, my "protection" software told me that Alan's blog was A VERY DANGEROUS SITE. It's not.) Anyway, Stan, Lew, and Alan are smart guys. Definitely smarter than average. And they, and some other folks who've wandered by, are having a more-or-less beer-related discussion here. Long, but worth reading. And a rare example of blogging's potential for generating and sustaining substantive, civilized conversation.

Crafty Number Crunching?

There's an interesting piece in today's Wall Street Journal about "big" brewers taking on "craft" brewing. If nothing else, it offers a larger perspective on the much vaunted "double digit growth" of craft brewing. Because I'm always just a weeeeeeee bit skeptical of the numbers tossed around. I hasten to add that I don't doubt the sincerity or the dedication of the folks in Boulder. But what, precisely, are they counting in those press releases touting craft brewing as the industry's hottest "growth" segment?? Whose beer is "craft" beer?

This all reminds me of a newspaper piece I recently read that REALLY set me thinking about the relative meaning of "size."

Thanks to David Fahey at the History of Drugs and Alcohol website for sending me the link. In beer, as in life, perspective is everything.

Presto! Magic! Old Interview Reappears!

I did a mental double-take when a link at the History of Drugs and Alcohol website took me to this interview. For a millisecond, I thought it was bogus. I had zero recollection of talking to anyone in Fond du Lac, at least not recently. But then my brain dredged up a memory of a radio host named "Silk." The post is a transcript of a radio interview I did about a year ago.

Whew! For a minute, I thought maybe my brain had spun, crashed, and burned. Live, on-air interviews always feel so ephemeral. But here's one embedded in e-print, complete with plenty of the verbal grammatical howlers that are an inevitable part of the thinking-on-your-feet process.

Tip o' the mug to "Silk" Casper and David Fahey.