This blog has gone on hiatus, probably permanently, and primarily because these days my thoughts about beer are being posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential.
You'll still find them there in reverse chronological order via the helpful all-purpose tag, The Beer Beat, although I'm in the process of changing the column title to Beer with a Socialist. For the foreseeable future, I'll retain both labels for ease of searching.
At the end of each month I'll still collect the links right here.
Following are June (2018) ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some of these posts are more topical than others. On occasion, there'll be references to beer in posts using "The Beer Beat" as a label, though not a title. I hope this isn't overly confusing.
Thanks for reading, if belatedly.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: That time in 2003 when we rode bicycles to Schneider Weisse.
Anyway ... at Pints&union, we'll be carrying bottled Schneider Weisse and Aventinus, two world classic wheat ales. Back in 2003 at the Public House, we'd been carrying the Schneider brewery's line since it first became available via the B. United wholesale house, and naturally it was to B. United that I directed a pre-trip inquiry: might my friends and I get a tour of Schneider while cycling?
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Tom and Nick Moench collaborate on a sour beer -- and what I remember about a day with Tom in Orlando in 2006.
In 2006, when the annual family reunion took place in steamy summer Orlando, the estimable Tom Moench sacrificed an afternoon to save our lives, rescuing the Baylors from resort hotel ennui, and with it $6 half-pints of Guinness served in bizarre Belgian-style stemware at the hotel bar.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: These "new rules of pub etiquette" are a must-read.
In fact, these rules of etiquette should come across as common sense for anyone who has consumed drinks in public, anywhere at all. They're not really new, but then again, teachers teach the same topic over and over to incoming classes who are unaware of the importance. So it goes.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Cask ales are the indigenous, tasty, beery glories of the British Isles (article from 2009).
Pints & Union will be opening soon, and several readers have asked if we'll be pouring cask ale. The unfortunate answer is no, although there might be the occasional pin or firkin from somewhere hoisted atop the bar and dispensed by gravity.
In this column and the one following it on Saturday, it is my aim to provide some background about cask ale, which might help to explain why we won't be installing hand pumps at the start. In short, economies of scale are out of whack.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Three cheers for a British ale movement in the States.
Conditioning ale in the cask (real ale), then pouring it by use of a hand pump (beer engine), are quintessentially British ways of brewing, serving and enjoying ale, with the basic idea being to take a slightly unfinished and still living product and artfully prepare it to be served at the optimal time, with a gentle carbonation produced naturally.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: How a bicycle ride and Lenin's Tribune connects Bank Street Brewhouse with Our Lady of Perpetual Hops.
I'm hoping you can see how the OLPH sketch prompted these recollections. Just imagine the podium facing in the direction of New Albany's City County Building, not unlike a minaret. I'd have been the muezzin of sorts, and it would have been the finest bully pulpit ever.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Whether sheep stealer or highwayman, he was hanged just the same at Cannards Grave.
Bud Light drinkers used to feel this way when they wandered by mistake into the Public House. The illustration comes from a 1972 book called British Inn Signs.
Where five roads meet on the A37 near Shepton Mallet (Somerset) is a gruesome sign of a man hanging from a gibbet.
The back story takes on a number of versions, which are considered in this modern update.
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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Anchor Porter is delicious. Just don't expect a firm answer as to how it differs from Stout.
Anchor Porter is black and rich, firmly hopped (circa 40 IBUs) with plenty of malty underpinnings. I'm getting chocolate, espresso, toffee and a hint of licorice in my mouth, and I'm struck by a vestige of similarity with some Baltic-style Porters I've had in the past -- albeit at a gentler ABV.
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