James Spencer is the brains behind Basic Brewing Radio. You can visit his site here.

He dishes up a weekly podcast and a twice-monthly video cast, both of which focus primarily on homebrewing. But today he interviewed me.

Most people who talk to me about Ambitious Brew focus, no surprise, on the history of commercial brewing. But James, again no surprise, wanted to talk about homebrewing’s history.

I’m glad he did, because it’s so easy to overlook the role of homebrewing in the creation of today’s craft brewing industry. The first generation of microbrewers (in the late 1970s and early 1980s) came out of homebrewing. Not all of them succeeded, but they helped shape the microbrewing revolution.

Indeed, I’m not sure if microbrewing would have happened had there not first been a homebrewing revolution of sorts in the 1960s and 1970s.

I discovered the significance of homebrewing when I researched the last two chapters of Ambitious Brew and interviewed people like Byron Burch, Charlie Papazian, and Michael Lewis -- and of course microbrewers like Jack McAuliffe and Ken Grossman, both of whom came to commercial brewing via homebrew.

Even today, homebrewers make up the heart of the enthusiastic audience for craft brewers. And craft brewers readily acknowledge the importance of homebrewing. Some of them sponsor homebrewing competitions. Others regularly meet with homebrewers to share their expertise and experience. They participate in judging homebrewing competitions.

In short, homebrewing is a vital and historically significant component of American brewing history.

So here’s to you, homebrewers. Raise your carboys high!

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

. . . .at Powells.com, where I'm the guest blogger.

I know, I know: given how much I hate blogging, it's more than a bit ironic. But I LOVE Powells and simply couldn't say no.

Go here to find the blog pieces, starting today, Monday November 13, and running through Friday the 17th.

If you've never visited Powells online or in person, you're missing something. The main store in downtown Portland, Oregon, occupies an entire city block and three (or four?) stories. Fabulous. Book heaven.

The website is also marvelous! Lots of good "content," and their customer service is superb.

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 05:59 PM | Permalink

HEY GUYS! (whose names I don't remember...but I sure remember you from the World Beer Festival in Durham).

I just read that Georgia beat Auburn!

WHOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

(And given how toasted y'all were when we talked at the beer festival, you may not remember that that was the night that ArKANSAS beat Auburn............)

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 11:10 PM | Permalink

This has nothing to do with anything -- but WHAT is the deal with parking lot design these days????????? Is it the refuge of drop-outs from urban planning programs?

There's one lot here in Ames that was my first encounter with Parking Lot Hell: short, curvy entrance (and only one entrance) with a sharp left turn onto a too-narrow strip of road that takes vehicles into and back out of the lot itself.

But during this book tour the past six weeks, I encountered one horrible parking lot after another, all of them in new or newish shopping centers (which is where I could find bookstores so I could sign copies of my book).

Driving lanes barely wide enough for two cars. Entrances that double as exits and entirely too narrow for either purpose. Narrow boxy lots that can't possibly handle the traffic roaming in and out. And not nearly enough parking spaces for the center itself, which means that at any given moment, dozens of cars are zooming in and out of these too-narrow, too-small lots as drivers hunt for elusive spaces to deposit themselves and their cars.

I really don't get the rationale behind the designs. If the idea is to provoke people into leaving their cars at home and walking to the shopping centers, well, that won't work because in most places there aren't a lot of residential areas nearby and even if there were, pedestrians would have to negotiate six or eight lanes of traffic on foot just to get into the shopping area. And if you're an avid pedestrian like me, you KNOW how dangerous that is (because most suburban areas are designed for cars, not people on foot.......)

Okay, enough of this rant. But really -- who is designing these things?????????

Or -- wait -- maybe no one is. Maybe engineers and traffic planners are now using computers to do this: they feed in the number of shops, the number of expected shoppers per day, and let the computer design the lot.

Surely that's the explanation. Because no rational human being could be designing these things.

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 07:41 PM | Permalink

Jay Brooks has another terrific piece on his blog today. It's everything editorial prose ought to be: provocative, thoughtful, and reasoned.

I'm not sure I agree with him, but that's beside the point. As I've said elsewhere (my one comment on the mini-furor over the Powells.com review of my book), ain't nuthin' I like better than lively discussion based on thoughtful content (rather than irrational rant).

(Not that all those comments at the Powells.com site are "thoughtful." Nothing like confusing the book and its content with the review and its reviewer......)

So check it out here. It's Jay's piece for November 2, 2006.

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 06:03 PM | Permalink

Until last week, I'd never heard of the "page 69 test."

According to Marshal McLuhan, if you want to decide whether to read an entire book, turn to page 69.

The contents of that page will likely exemplify the whole, and if you like what you read there, you'll probably enjoy the entire book.

Why? Beats me.

By page 69, has the writer hit her stride and is spewing endorphins and creativity like crazy?

Is page 69 the point at which the novelist gathers all the plot threads and they begin rolling toward their inexorable conclusion?

I dunno. All I know is that it works.

I applied the test to
1. books I've already read
2. books I started but didn't finish, and
3. books that I've not yet read.

In the first case, page 69 exemplified the book's whole content.

In the second case, page 69 provided me with nothing that made me want to keep reading.

In the third case, I was completely absorbed and wanted to keep reading.

Okay, so why am I bringing this up? Because Marshal Zeringue, who blogs for the Campaign for the American Reader (his blog is here) has invited writers to submit their works to the Page 69 Test and is posting their comments on the blog.

I just wrote my piece for the blog, which I think will show up there next week. Interesting stuff.

And you can bet that next time I'm standing in the library or the bookstore, trying to decide whether to read/buy a book, I'll apply the test.

Because I don't know about anyone else, but I am sooooooo tired of picking up books, mostly novels, starting them, and abandoning them after 20 or 30 pages as unreadable. I won't start on my "where have all the good novels gone?" rant, but ....... jeez, where HAVE the good novels gone??????

Posted by Maureen Ogle at 09:02 PM | Permalink