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Election day is just a few weeks away, and in some states, early "satellite" and absentee voting have already begun.
Regardless of your political beliefs, I hope you’ll vote. It’s one of your most important rights.
Learn more about how and where to register to vote in your state here or here. Neither site is affiliated with a specific political party.
November 10, 1944: The Federal Trade Commission ruled that beer and bread are not the same thing.
This breathtaking announcement was aimed at the members of the Minnesota Brewers Association.(*1) They'd been running ads claiming that the "nutritional value" of beer was "comparable" or "equivalent" to that of bread.
The FTC ordered them to cease and desist. Why? Because the two weren't equivalent. Consumers would have to down 3.5 bottles of "ordinary" beer in order to gain the same carbohydrates found in four slices of "enriched white bread" (like Wonder bread). They'd have drink 4.5 bottles to obtain as much protein and B1 -- although they'd only have to drink one and a half bottles to get the same number of calories.
"Accordingly," explained the FTC announcement, a "working man" would have to "ingest relatively large amounts of beer to obtain the [same] nutrients and calories" contained in "a relatively small amount of white bread."
Moreover, the FTC added in case the brewers still didn't get it, beer and bread were fundamentally different: Bread contained fiber and fat; beer did not. Beer contained alcohol; bread did not.
American tax dollars at work, 1944.
*1: The Minnesota Brewers Association included Duluth Brewing and Malting; Fitger Brewing; People's Brewing; Ernest Fleckenstein Brewing; Schutz & Hilgers Jordan Brewing; Kiewel Brewing; Mankato Brewing; Gluek Brewing; Minneapolis Brewing; John Hauenstein Company; August Schell Brewing; Theo. Hamm Brewing; and Jacob Schmidt Brewing.
Source: "FTC Rules Bread Tops Beer As Food," New York Times, November 11, 1944, p. 16.
Enough wit da doom and gloom already, says I to myself.
I'm a big fan of the liquids that roll out of Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, Oregon. You don't know the meaning of sublime until you've tasted its pear brandy. Swoon City.
Anyway, nice piece about Clear Creek written by the Wall Street Journal's "drinks" writer, Eric Felton. I've given up trying to figure out what's free and what's not at the WSJ website, so if the link doesn't work, take it up with Rupert Murdoch.
While you're there, take a detour from sublime to sad and read the Journal's obit of Bill Leinenkugel. Although maybe not sad? After all, Mr. Leinenkugel's was a life to celebrate.
Side note: the Journal's obits are few in number and run on Saturday in the "Remembrances" feature in the main section of the paper. The editor sticks to the offbeat, meaning the column features the lives of people who don't show up on the obit pages of the New York Times. (Indeed, according to the Remembrances editor, with whom I spoke on Thursday about Mr. Leinenkugel, the Journal's house rule is: It's gotta be someone who's not in the Times.)
The order of the day is anxiety-bordering-on-fear. The stock market and LIBOR zig, zag, and sag. Banks fail. Layoffs multiply.
Members of the House and Senate wrangle, argue, and dither, even as the president (who’s he? Oh, right. That guy from -- Texas, is it?) warns of doom (and no one listens to him because, um, what’s his name again?)
Good news. There’s an upside to this nightmare. In fact, there are two.
First, those lawmakers in Washington. You know: all those old white guys in suits and ties who seem to spend all their time jabbing fingers at each other but otherwise not getting much done?
They ARE doing something. They’re doing the most important “something” of all: They’re operating the complicated, often ugly, and always machinery of a democratic republic.
That’s right: This is what a free society looks like when the mechanism is running full tilt. We the people elect representatives and dispatch them to spend their days making the laws and rules and regulations so that the rest of us can get on with our lives waiting tables, driving trucks, writing books, and making beer.
Are our constitutional and legislative mechanisms inefficient, messy, and slow? Definitely.
Is the process perfect? Hell, no. Is it maddening? Yes.
Is there a speedier, more efficient, more streamlined alternative? Yes.
It’s called "dictatorship." Dictators move fast because, ya know, they don’t have to consult anyone. They do they want regardless of what the citizens want.
Me? I don’t want to live in a dictatorship.
So every time I hear another “breaking news” update about the often stalled, and even more often ridiculous, closed-door talks that don’t seem to be going anywhere, I ponder the alternative. And then I send a silent thanks to the people who are devoting their lives to making this democratic republic work, clunky though the machinery may be.
Okay, so what’s the second silver lining?
The economy may teeter on the brink, but the presidential campaign continues.
That’s right: On November 4, we Americans will vote. We’ll engage in the first step toward a peaceful -- and legal -- transfer of power. And then round about noon on January 20, 2009, we’ll watch the second step unfold: The person we elected will take the oath of office and become our new president.
So what? you say. Ho hum. Big deal.
It is a big deal. It’s the biggest deal we Americans have (aside from the Constitution). Pick up a newspaper and read about the millions of other human beings experience transfers of power: Through bloodshed, intimidation, riots and shooting -- and with no elections at all.
So if your anxiety levels are soaring; if the market tanks on Monday; if Wachovia crashes on Tuesday -- take a minute to rejoice in our fundamentals. They’re what make us who we are. And they’ll get us through this crisis.
In 1952, the members of the Small Brewers Association, the trade and lobbying group for the nation's smallest beermakers, decided that the word "small" did not accurately reflect the prestige of the association or its 150-odd members. (At the time, there were some 300 breweries in the U.S.)
Time for a new name. Henceforth, the SBA, which began life in 1942 as the Small Brewers Committee, would be known as the Brewers' Association of America.
The BAA survived until 2005, when it merged with the Boulder-based Association of Brewers to become the Brewers Association.
Source: Modern Brewery Age 48 (September 1952): 79.
Bill Leinenkugel died on September 23. As I noted a few weeks ago, he was one of those people who make a difference in the world: He was kind, unpretentious, and hard-working. A loving father and husband. A man who cared about his neighbors and community.
I'm grateful I had the chance to interview him for the book -- and sad that I never got to meet him in person.
His hometown newspaper's obituary is here. As far as I'm concerned, it's the one that matters most.
But oh! -- how delighted he would have been to learn that his life and work mattered enough to warrant notice on the AP wire service, in the "big city" Chicago papers, and on the internet.
Tonight, I honor the life of a human being who lived a good life -- and leaves the most valuable of legacies: love, generosity, and kindness.
In late May, 1985, a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera interviewed Daniel Bradford, director of the Great American Beer Festival, a two-day event scheduled to begin later that week in Denver.(*1)
Bradford predicted that three or four thousand people would attend the GABF, whose 1985 theme was "Oktoberfest of the West." Festival-goers would sample beers from thirty-four "microbreweries" (up from 20 who submitted beer in 1984). The GABF coincided that year with the National Homebrew Competition, where judges would taste more than six hundred entries.
The first 2,000 people through the door would receive "commemorative mugs," as well as a "60-page almanac" containing essays on beer history and beer styles as well as information about homebrewing.
Tickets were $10 in advance, $12.50 at the door.(*2)
*1: In the early 1990s, Bradford became publisher of All About Beer magazine and also served as director of the Brewers Association of America, the trade group for small American brewers. In 2005, the BAA merged with the Association of Brewers, the sponsor of the GABF, to become the Brewers Association. Bradford is still publisher of All About Beer, which also sponsors the World Beer Festival.
*2: $10.00 in 1985 is equal to about $19.00 in 2006 dollars. Tickets for the 2008 GABF? $50.00 ($20.00 for designated drivers.)
Source:
"Great American Beer Festival Offers 100 Brews for Tasting," Boulder Daily Camera, May 29, 1985, p. 2e.
In my previous post, I noted the role of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in forging a path out of the horrific economic depression of the 1930s.
But, as every historian knows, the onset of World War in the late '30s, and American entry into that war in the early 1940s, significantly accelerated the end of the Great Depression. Wars require uniforms, guns, weapons. Wars also spur research in science and technology. Put another way, war creates jobs, and jobs need workers, and those workers earn paychecks.
That's useful to remember that now, in 2008. We Americans can hasten our road to economic, emotional, and moral recovery by waging a war of our own: Let's declare war on the global climate crisis.
As Tom Friedman notes in his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the crisis is upon us. It's here, both environmentally and politically. And if the foul air doesn't kill us, our enslavement to petropolitics will. (*1)
The United States lags other nations in reconfiguring daily life to minimize human impact on the environment; we're way behind in shifting from "dirty" energy to "clean" energy.
Making that shift will require a massive investment in science, technology, ideas, and manufacturing. In short, making that shift will be good for the economy. It will provide jobs -- high-tech, low-tech, and everything in between.
So --- let's declare war on environmental degradation. It'll be good for the planet and good for the economy.
Now -- all we need is . . . a few courageous, creative leaders. Senator Obama? Senator McCain? You ready?
*1: Well, okay, it's already killing us and other human beings every day in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tragic irony, of course, is the chain of money involved. We Americans haven't got the money needed to fight this "war" on terrorism. So we borrow it -- mostly from the Chinese and from oil-rich Arab states. The oil-rich Arabs, of course, are also funding the terrorists. So -- we're borrowing money to wage a war being funded by the people we're borrowing from. Sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine -- or a Kafka novel.
Times like these remind me that being a historian is both a curse and a blessing.
A blessing because I love my work. A curse because in any situation, my historian’s brain automatically takes the Long View of the Big Picture: Where are the roots of this current moment? How will historians fifty years from now assess this moment?
All of which, I’m here to tell you, only exacerbates my gloom and anxiety.
Anyway, history is much on my mind -- The New Deal of the 1930s, of course. American refusal to acknowledge the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1970s. The way in which Viet Nam and Watergate eroded Americans’ trust in government, so that 30, 40 years later, most Americans refer to elected leaders as “them,” forgetting, apparently that WE are our government. So that now, at a moment when Americans need leadership, they are least likely to turn to elected officials to provide it.
And of course, I’ve been thinking about Franklin Roosevelt. When FDR took office in the midst of a economic disaster, he committed himself and his administration to two major courses of action.
First, he and his team of advisors tossed out the rules and used their imaginations to develop plans for extricating the nation from its crisis. They faced an unprecedented global and national crisis. The old rules/methods simply didn’t apply. Not everything FDR's team tried worked. But they understood that what mattered most was doing something, anything.
Second, FDR understood that nothing would work unless Americans were willing to share in the gamble, and they would only follow his lead if they understood what was happening, and why he was doing what he did.
It’s easy to look back on his fireside chats as some quaint relic of a by-gone radio era, but they had an enormous emotional and psychological impact. FDR made sure that Americans knew that people in Washington were working hard to create solutions to huge problems. That fostered trust, and trust, in turn, translated into a willingness to cooperate with FDR’s projects and plans. (*1)
Put another way, FDR provided leadership.
That word gets thrown around a lot these days, usually covered in mud. So much so that most of us have stopped listening.
But leaders are good things, especially in times of crisis. Leaders step to the front and take the first step into the unknown. Great leaders create an atmosphere in which people will follow, trust, and believe. (*2)
People WILL rise to the occasion -- if they trust the leader, and if they have hope.
I don’t know how the rest of the country feels, but I’m worried, more so than I’ve ever been in my life. But I’m also ready to do what needs to be done.
So: any leaders out there?
*1: Yes, I understand that many Americans hated FDR, among them my grandmother who railed against him until the day she died in 1979.
*2: Yes, leaders can be evil. Adolph Hitler provided extraordinary leadership, rising to power at a moment when Germans were desperate and wanted someone to take the first step.
Worth noting this.
Given the disaster unfolding all around us, a beer deal seems, well, not such a big deal. On the other hand, even the fact that analysts are raising an eyebrow is evidence that things are not what they were even a few weeks ago. As if any of us need anymore evidence of that........
There is something supremely odd and depressing about the discussion of Sarah Palin’s ability to serve as governor or VP and “serve” as a mother. Odd and depressing because the question is irrelevant and, sadly, rooted in sexist, but taken-for-granted, assumptions.
Palin’s ability to do both jobs has nothing to do with her gender -- and everything to do with her access to help.
When people ask “Can she do both jobs?” what they’re really asking is “Can she be governor or VP AND fix dinner, do the laundry, dress the kids, buy the groceries, etc. Because, ya know, that’s what women do.”
When it’s put that bluntly, the issue becomes, well, a non-issue. I mean, no one wants to admit that they're assuming that of course women do the household work.
But I understand why people are asking a dumb question: In most families, women who work outside the home are also the ones who are managing the kids, groceries, laundry, etc. And it’s difficult. (*1)
In fact, I don’t know how most working women manage. I don’t have kids; my household consists of myself and my husband, and I devote an insane amount of time to the daily routine of laundry, buying groceries, running errands, cooking, etc. (*2) How women with three or four kids and a job cope is beyond me.
But back to Sarah Palin. Of course she can’t do BOTH jobs. She can’t be an average “working mom” AND governor or vice-president. No one could.
But she’s NOT an average American mom. She not DOING both jobs.
She doesn’t do laundry or housecleaning. She doesn’t race home from the office to fix dinner (running six errands between home and office.) She’s got a staff who does it for her. (And, apparently, a househusband, too. I gather her husband doens’t work outside the home anymore. He’s the “wife.”) (*3)
So the whole question of “Can she do both jobs?” is a non-starter and a distraction. Give any woman in the world full-time help with housekeeping and childcare, and any woman in the world can be both a mother and a vice-president.
And for those who are interested, no, I don’t plan to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.
I would, however, love to vote for some common sense and rational debate.
*1: Yes, I'm aware she has a five-month-old baby. But again, that's not an issue for people who have hired help. I have no idea how Palin is feeding the baby, and don't much care, but it's obvious that someone other than her is taking care of the baby. When it's feeding time, that someone makes sure the baby gets fed. Palin herself doesn't have to mess with the details (and yes, if she's breast-feeding, she needs maybe some privacy, but that's not of a problem. All she has to do is step out of the room.)
*2: Lest you think my husband and I live in some man-woman 1950s twilight zone: We don’t. He makes more money than I do -- LOTS more. I couldn’t possibly live on what I make as a writer (almost no writers can). His paycheck makes it possible for me to spend all my time writing instead of, say, working as a professor and writing. So I use my labor to compensate for the money that I don’t bring in. Make sense?
*3: Moreover, her family doesn’t live in the governor’s mansion. They live in Wasilla, which is about 500 miles from the state capital. That, I gather, is a point of contention in Alaska: apparently Palin spends most nights in Wasilla, and charges the taxpayers for her travel expenses back and forth. But again, it’s a safe bet she’s not running home for the airport to fix dinner.
I have to admit: I'm looking forward to the booth hosted by the Oregon brewers at the Guilds Pavilion at this year's GABF -- especially if they're gonna pour some fresh-hops beer.
I had a chance to attend a fresh-hops brewfest in Portland two years ago (thanks to an invite from Abram Goldman-Armstrong)(*1), where I discovered: oooohhhhhhh, boy. Fresh hops make a difference.
*1: can't find a website for Abram, but if you google his name, you'll soon find where his interests lie. Hint: beer and organic.
Just a heads up: I'm taking the blog off the rsBs feed.
The feed is a great idea (why don't more interest groups use one??) but I realize, after the fact, that by adding my blog to it, I had to stick to blogging about beer.
And -- that's not a great idea -- if only because the new book I'm writing is about meat, not beer, and ya know, I might want to say something about that. Or -- other things non-beer-related.
Smacking myself up the side of the head. Again. What can I say? I'm an idiot.
So this blog will roll along, but not on beerinator's feed.
THANK YOU to the great folks at beerinator for creating the rsBEERs feed. (Everyone on the planet needs to visit beerinator's site every day.)
Oh, man, I finished a dinner-hour rant to my husband about lipstick, pigs, and the state of the campaign -- and then I read Charlie's blog on, well, lipstick and beer.
It's times like these that I appreciate perspective. Charlie, you're a good man, indeed.
Terrific piece in yesterday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the InBev purchase and its impact on two Missouri beermakers: Schlafly of St. Louis and Boulevard in Kansas City. No surprise, the article was written by the P-D's excellent man-on-the-beer-beat, Jeremiah McWilliams.
In the 1880s and 1890s, British investors enjoyed what can only be described as an excess of cash. No surprise, they hunted for places to invest it: Africa, Asia (especially China), South America. And, of course, the United States, where they poured money into railroads, mines, cattle ranching -- and brewing.
Dozens of American brewing companies passed into British hands, including Blatz Brewing (for $3 million in stock, or $60 million in today's dollars).
Many brewers applauded this trend, including the editor of the nation's most important brewing trade journal, Western Brewer:
"Though it may conflict with the American idea of patriotism that the breweries of this country should pass to . . . the control of foreign capitalists," he wrote, the British invasion should be seen as evidence that "the brewing business is in good substantial condition, that beer is becoming the popular beverage of Americans and that intelligent . . . foreigners with money to invest believe that the fanatics" who favored prohibition were "fast losing ground."
Indeed, he added, rising sales indicated that beer was on its way to becoming "the national beverage." Moreover, the fact that Americans preferred beer to "hard liquors" indicated "steady progress" toward "rational temperance." This, the editor concluded, was likely the "leading factor in the calculation of the [British] investors."
Source: "The Lesson of the Syndicates," Western Brewer 14 (June 1889): 1294.
This from a report in today's New York Times:
"Edward Koen, 87, sat in his wheelchair outside the center Sunday in the shade, staring up at the blue, sunny skies, waiting for the bus.
''Why should I be nervous, because of a hurricane?'' Koen said. He'd rather stay put. ''My gosh. I've been living here all my life.''
Ohhhhh .... that comment brings back an important memory:
I've written three books and the inspiration for each came from some deep place in my brain -- as in, my brain said to me "HERE. This is what you should write about."
That's what happened one day in the fall of 1998. I was living in Mobile, Alabama, where I taught at a university. A few weeks prior to this particular day, I had decided to leave academia to write history for a popular audience.
This was a major life change and I was figuring out what this would entail and how to start this new career. No surprise, a large part of my brain was occupied with the most important question: What should I write? What topic would I use to launch this new part of my life?
On that particular day, I was driving home from playing golf (which, full disclosure, I played badly and which I can't play anymore because of my shoulder). The radio was on. Hurricane Georges was on the prowl and a reporter for NPR was in a place called Key West. At the time, I had no idea where or what Key West was, although I gathered it was somewhere near Florida.
The reporter talked to a 92-year-old woman who told him that she wasn't worried about the hurricane. She'd lived in south Florida all her life and lived through a worse storm in Havana in 1928.
Although I wasn't sure where KW was, I knew something about the history of south Florida. Enough to know that if this woman had lived in Florida her entire life, she came nearly pioneer stock. (South Florida was settled relatively late; anyone who was there in the early 20th century was there early. )
And the idea of Havana in 1928? That sounded ... romantic.
That interview hit a nerve that I didn't know I had.
"Wow," I thought. "That sounds ... fascinating. Maybe I should write a history of Key West."
And that's what hurricanes and Key West have to do with my life.
So, to my pal George, who has a house in Key West, and to everyone else on the island: Be safe!
I hasten to add that as many baby boomers know, it's a paraphrase of a hippie-maxim from the 1970s (and for all I know, there's some other version that's even older):
"Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.
I first heard it c. 1974 (give or take a year or two) while sitting in an apartment in Iowa City smoking a joint. No surprise, under those circumstances, it struck me as the most profound thing anyone had ever said.
Temperance and prohibition were hot issues in the 1850s and early 1860s. The "drys" tended to hog the floor because then as now, it was politically difficult to express public affection for the pleasures and benefits of drink.
The editors of the La Crosse, Wisconsin Union were having none of it. As far as they were concerned, the problem with Americans, especially women, was that they didn't drink enough beer.
"Queen Victoria," the newspaper pointed out, "has raised eight or ten babies, and drinks beer. German women drink beer and are as robust as any women in the world."
"There is no denying the fact . . . that our total abstinence American women are sadly degenerating, and that the present race of Young America are dwindling, compared with generations past. The most ridiculous thing of our time is to hear little, sallow, 'dried up' men and women making an immense blow about the vices and indulgences of the community, when one good, rollicking fast-liver could clean out a regiment of them in ten minutes."
Source: The La Crosse, Wisconsin Union, as quoted in the Milwaukee Sentinel, March 3, 1860, p. 2.
There's an amazing photo on the "front page" of the New York Times website. Leave your politics behind and enjoy the wonders of the internet age.
The image (it's actually a series of images taken rapid-fire) is from last night's convention, just after McCain finished speaking.
This link should take you to the large version.
Then click on "full screen" and roll your mouse. Almost enough to induce vertigo! And truly truly cool.
And in case that link doesn't work, just go to the Times website; it's the image right there front and center.
Yes, it's fall (or it feels like it here) and that means freshly sharpened pencils, the end of the peaches, the appearance of the apples and -- beer festivals right and left, including the Big Daddy, the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, now just a month-and-change away. (Tickets are still available.)
Charlie Papazian has a nice list of guidelines for enjoying festivals without going nuts. To his list I would add this:
1. pack a supply of throat lozenges (festivals are noisy; you're gonna be shouting)
2. carry some earplugs (see above)
See you in Denver!
For those just tuning in, "Detour From Beer" means this post has nothing to do with beer.
And believe me, this particular post REALLY isn't beer-related -- hmmmm . . . unless you want to visualize beer.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg test drives Google's new browser and compares it to the new version of Internet Explorer. For the time being, I think I'll stick with Firefox.
Unrelated to browsers and several degrees up the "wow" scale is many-eyes.com, a website with software that allows people to create visual comparisons and analyses of, well, just about anything. Someone could use the software to construct a visual that compares the number of times Obama used the word "tax" in his acceptance speech to the number of times McCain used the same word.
Warning: I've had only sporadic success getting into the website the past few days. My guess is that its owners, a group at IBM's Watson Research Center, weren't prepared for the traffic generated by this New York Times article about the website and software. The article is worth reading because it provides a short, coherent explanation of what the software can do, complete with an image mapping the occurrence of names in the New Testament (no surprise, "Jesus" gets the biggest bubble).
Good news: article here about a national rollout of Leinenkugel beer.
I know people in craft brewing have mixed feelings about Leinie's, but to me, it's a midwestern brewery run by the same family for decades. And that family has worked hard to make good beer and treat people right. The Leinie-heads are legion. Me? I love Leinie Creamy Dark.
That's the good news. Here's the bad news.
When I was writing the beer book, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jake Leinenkugel and his dad, Mr. Bill Leinenkugel. Lovely people. Lovely.
Bill Leinenkugel, who is now 87 and long retired, is one of those brewers who kept the faith during the dark days of the 1960s and 1970s. The beer business is never easy, but it was particularly difficult then for the nation's smallest brewers. Their numbers dwindled dramatically and those who survived did so only by dint of hard work and, well, faith.
For the Leinenkugel family, it was all about keeping faith right there in Chippewa Falls. The brewery's survival mattered not just to them, but to their friends and neighbors who worked there.
The Leinenkugels have been criticized since then for selling to Miller in the late 1980s, but the family could see the writing on the wall: There was a good chance the company might not survive and they knew that the people who would be hurt the most were the people down the street and around the corner.
So they sold. As a result, people in Chippewa Falls continue to enjoy the benefits of local beer and a good local employer.
Anyway, back to Mr. Leinenkugel: When I finished the initial draft of my manuscript, I sent a copy of the relevant pages to all my interviewees. (I wanted to make sure I hadn't screwed up basic facts or grossly misrepresented what people had told me.)
A few days later, Mr. Leinenkugel called me to thank me. He was obviously please as hell that anyone had taken the time to write a history (albeit short) of his family. He was kind, gracious, and .... thrilled. I was in tears by the time I hung up.
Last week I learned that he has an inoperable brain tumor. He's dying. He knows he is. But in death as in life, he's keeping the faith. “God has been awfully good to me all of my life," he told an interviewer. "I have no qualms about dying.” (*1)
So -- here's to Bill Leinenkugel. I can only hope to live my life with as much kindness and optimism as he has.
Thanks and a tip o' the mug to my pal Jim Arndorfer at the "Brew" Blog for info about the interview and about news about the Leinie rollout.
*1. The interview is in Beer Business Daily, which is available only by subscription. Thanks to my dear friend Daniel Bradford, publisher of All About Beer magazine, for passing along the interview, and to BBD's owner, Harry Schuhmacher, for not minding that Daniel did so.
As anyone who reads this blog (all five of you) knows, I am a fan of Jay Brooks. I can always count on him to come up with The Other Side of The Story. And he has.
Check out his investigation into the "Jurassic Beer" tale, which I blithely bought into with nary a backward glance.
While you're at it, take a look at his (brief but cogent) report on Obama-and-Beer.
I'm telling you: The world needs Jay Brooks.
Just had another thought: What a great thing he's on the side Reason And All Things Good. Because, ya know, given a slight twist of genetics or fate or whatever, he he could have been -- horrors -- a modern-day version of Wayne Wheeler (my least favorite political operative ever; and really, for Wheeler, it was all about power).
Yikes! Doesn't bear thinking about.
I'm gonna go have a beer and toast to Jay, one of the Good Guys.
Thanks to Teresa Albert and the rest of the crew at Millstream Brewing for hosting yesterday's 4th Annual Iowa Festival of Beers. Yes, it's a small festival (don't worry, Oregon; it's not gonna topple you from the throne anytime soon), but fun.
The state only has a handful of breweries (even that's overstating the case), and most of the people pouring beer were from the many homebrewing clubs around the state. If I have my choice between something I can drink anytime and something from a homebrewer, the homebrewer wins every time. These people know how to make beer!
I was there because Teresa had invited me to sign copies of Ambitious Brew, so I spent most of my time standing next to a stack of books.
I was amazed at how many people came by to tell me they'd already read the book or read my blog (who knew???), and I thank them.
And, of course, I thank the people who snapped up every copy of the book Millstream had on sale.
I don't get out and about much (because the only way to write a book is to sit at a desk and not talk to anyone...), so this was a welcome break from my usual routine. The weather was perfect: hot, low humidity, and a steady breeze.
We drove home on backroads so we could enjoy the Iowa countryside in all its late summer glory. I ought to be used to it by now, having lived here my whole life, but the land still inspires and reassures me.
In short, a perfect day. Again, thanks to everyone who took time to say hello and ask about my work. I am grateful for your support, your kindness, and your encouragement.
Well, not exactly Jurassic, but close. There's a great article in today's Washington Post about beer made from a truly ancient yeast -- in the vicinity of 25-45 million years old.
The Post piece requires registration/sign-in, but I googled around and found some other reports. Here's one, and here's a report from Bill Brands, who had a chance to taste the beer.
Still more info here at the site of the company that's brewing up this Ancient Ale.