No, it isn't a remembrance of the slowest-selling Sun King keg we ever poured at the Public House, which may explain the brewery never repeating it.
Personally, I liked Sun King Norwegian Blue, an eau de Pine Sol variety of Pale Ale. Seriously. I actually did.
Rather, this is the tale of an Indianapolis beer blog and Monty Python's famous parrot sketch, so first, something you may not have known about the departed Norwegian Blue bird in the British comedy troupe's greatest hits repertoire.
Norwegian Blue parrot really DID exist - but now they are all 'stiff, bereft of life and ex-parrots', by Andrew Levy (Daily Mail)
... Adding to the absurdity was the fact that parrots - being tropical birds - don't come from Scandinavia.
Or do they? For now, in a development putting the sketch in a completely different light, it turns out that the Norwegian Blue did exist.
Dr David Waterhouse, a fossil expert and Python fan, has found that parrots not only lived in Scandinavia 55million years ago, but probably evolved there before spreading into the southern hemisphere.
No, the central point of this digression is Hoosier Beer Geek's self-obituary earlier this week.
The Norwegian Blue at Hoosier Beer Geek
... We sought to improve the craft beer community. You can argue what impact we had, but the community is better now than when we started in 2006. But it outgrew Hoosier Beer Geek by leaps and bounds. There are numerous other voices and organizations that are better able to connect with the mainstream audience. Hoosier Beer Geek has become stubborn in its old age, unwilling to compromise its integrity. And we no longer have the endurance to remain dependable and enthusiastic in the community.
I'm starting to think that 2015 will be remembered as a "changing of the guard" sort of year. Has my buyout check arrived yet?
Straight up: HBG was richly entertaining and did a lot of good for beer in and around Indianapolis. When working as event coordinators for the Brewers of Indiana Guild, HBG did a lot of good for the rest of us, too.
"Craft" beer has exploded to such a degree that no individual entity, professional or amateur, can claim comprehensive authority. Though not with hostility, better beer has become somewhat Balkanized, and my guess is that it will take as many years to understand this process of profusion as it did to arrive at it.
Meanwhile, farewell HBG.
You mattered, and not everyone can say that.
No comments:
Post a Comment