Monday, May 07, 2007

Local Brews Event

posted by snekse

Hops. Malt. Water. Yeast.

So simple, yet so complex.

As I mentioned in March, beer is coming to Gastronomic Fight Club. And in June it will be here in a big way. I'll be hosting Session #4: Local Brews.

Since I have this bizarre need to be different, I decided this month's Session theme would not focus on a particular style, region or time of year. Instead, I'd like to create a guide book of tasting notes to drinking local.

The idea here is to be as helpful as possible for visitors to your area. What is the beer/brewery/brewpub that you feel is quintessential to your city? What do the locals drink? What could a tourist drink that would make them feel like they've found something special; something that they're going to miss when they go home?

Here are the rules:

You can pick anything commercially made within 150 miles of your house, but try to pick the brewery or brewpub closest to your house (NOTE: the average American lives within 10 miles of a craft brewery).
You can select any beer or even a sampler if you want.
If you select a single beer, let us know why you choose this beer (e.g. favorite,seasonal,limited edition, best seller).
Preferably you'll shy away from beers with wide distribution outside your immediate area.

So if you'd like to join us, post your tasting notes on Friday, June 1st, 2007. After your post is up, shoot me an with the words "Session #4" in the subject line. Include your name, the name of your blog, the URL to your post, the name of the brewery or brew pub that made the beer(s) you drank, where the place is located, the name and style of the beer(s) you drank and lastly, a general description of the availability of the beer(s). If you don't have a blog, email me your notes and I'll include them in the round up.

To help find ideas close to you, try Google Maps. Here are the breweries and brew pubs in Omaha. Just change the zip code and you might be surprised at what comes up. Or let someone else do the work for you:
Beertown.org
Beer Mapping Project

Cheers!

RELATED LINKS:
Session #4: Local Brews Round-up (A Field Guide)
BEER REVIEW: Upstream Brewing Company (Omaha, NE)
BYOB: Dubbels
American Craft Beer Week (May 14-20, 2007)