And In This Corner: The Anti-Beer Wars Contingent

Rant from frustrated beer person, worth reading, if only to get a handle on the misperceptions about the film "Beer Wars" (because, among other things, the film isn't aimed at the small percentage of people who are into craft beer/homebrewing). (Just as my book Ambitious Brew wasn't "aimed" at beer people; it was written for a general audience.)

As I've said here before, if you view yourself as being on the side of the "little guy," then support Anat's work by seeing her film. (And since it is an indie film, without any studio backing, it's incredibly hard to get the word out. Some may be sick of the press releases, but my guess is that the vast majority of non-beer-geek Americans still, alas, don't know about the film.)

And if you want to see an interesting documentary, then, hey!, here's your chance. Meantime, I think I'll ponder the nature of insularity/blinders that prevent "groups" from seeing the big picture. (No pun intended.)

Stan Weighs In With Another of His Blasts From the Past

Stan has posted another piece he wrote some years ago, this one about relations between homebrewing and craft brewing. As always, great reading!

Congratulations, Jay!

Big congrats to the amazing Jay Brooks: Starting Wednesday, he'll be writing the beer column for Oakland Tribune. This was the gig held down by Bill Brand, who died recently. 

This is terrific news for a terrific person. It affirms his chops as a serious journalist and beer writer (not, mind you, that I think he needed additional affirmation). I suspect it's also a bittersweet moment: he was a good friend of Bill Brand, and I'm sure Jay never dreamed he'd be taking on this job under these circumstances.

Again, congratulations and best wishes to Jay.

Women? They Want WOMEN Beers.

This is so funny. I have no idea who created it, but it's over at Lew's site, where it had flitted past my busy eye a day or so ago. Astute Reader Dexter enouraged me to pause a moment to watch. Just a hoot. Oh, bartender! I'd like a beer with a pink label that features shoes and chocolate, please.

Speaking of Beer and History and .... Jeff Alworth Looks At Widmer Brothers

This got lost in the shuffle of me trying to learn how to use this new blogging platform the past couple of weeks (*1): Jeff Alworth at Beervana wrote a lovely essay about the history of Widmer Brothers Brewing, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

Take a look, and thanks to Jeff for keeping the (history) spririt alive. By god if it kills me, I'm gonna convince at least a few Americans that history can be interesting. . . While you're there, check out the well-deserved praise Jeff received from Sunset Magazine:

"Alworth's near-poetic descriptions of beers and craft breweries make us proud to live in the West." Sunset Magazine

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*1: I love my new website and especially the 21st century blogging platform I'm now using, WordPress, (as opposed to the truly antiquated version of Moveable Type I used on my previous site), but the learning curve has been, shall we say, steep. The the good news is that learning how to do one thing enables me to figure out how to do ten other things. Although I pity the poor person who doesn't grasp the fundamental "logic" of using the internet, because almost none of it is obvious. And thanks again to all who chimed in with advice so that I was able to figure out how to put images in the sidebars. So wowy!

More Group History

And the fun continues! In the spirit of collaboration, Stan Hieronymus has posted a story he wrote several years ago about the early years of Zymurgy, the magazine published by the American Homebrewers Association. You can find it here. Totally worth reading. My several-months-ago series on the founding of the AHA is here . I discuss Zymurgy in parts 5 and 6. (Remember: the series I'm running this week concerns the early years of the AHA and the way it morphed into a craft brewing organization. The earlier series focused on the impetus behind the creation of the AHA.) (Confused yet?)