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)

Labels: BEER, BYOB, NOTICE

11 Comments:

think globally drink locally ;-)

By Tim, at Monday, May 07, 2007 11:14:00 PM
Ssshhhhh. That's very close to the Beertopia slogan and I wasn't going to blog about them for another 2 weeks :-)

By snekse, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 12:30:00 AM
Hello there, we haven't come across each other before I don't think. I'm a British Beer Blogger who participates in the session - check out
Stonch's Beer Blog.

I like your theme and think it'll be interesting - great idea.

My closest brewery is a very uninspiring brew pub (a rare beast in London) called Bunker, followed by a one I like even less called Mash. However, there are a couple of better small places, and of course Fullers, so I'll have no problem finding something.

Cheers!

By Stonch, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 8:52:00 AM
@stonch

Good luck in your quest. I actually had a Fullers in a nitro can for the first time last week. Not bad. Very different from what is normally found in the U.S.

By snekse, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 10:16:00 AM
Good theme for the next session. I've been promoting local beer on Long Island for some time now. Long Island has some excellent local brews, so June 1st should be fun. Since my Long Island beer podcast usually comes out on Friday, I'll probably do an audio contribution. Santé!

By Donavan, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 11:18:00 AM
Fullers - in a nitro can? Are you sure? If so, I'm pretty surprised - and horrified.

The man who invented the nitro-can widget should be taken out in the street and shot, having been made to dig the grave for the man who invented nitrokeg beers, who in turn had dug the grave for the man who ... you get the idea!

By Stonch, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 3:25:00 PM
@stonch RE: Fullers

You're right - my bad. It was the Tetley's English Ale.

By snekse, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 3:53:00 PM
I might also suggest that would-be Sessioners look up potential breweries on BeerFly. You might find something you haven't had before.

By Craig, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 5:27:00 PM
Wow, speak of the devil. I have no choice but to write a few more words on LA's very own Craftsman Brewing Co., who I wrote up yesterday.

By Hair of the Dog Dave, at Tuesday, May 08, 2007 8:46:00 PM
Too bad you are disqualifying homebrew bloggers (anything commercially made). Not many of us, but what's more local and a better way to blog your own beer than when the couch is a few feet from the brewery? :) I do like my local commercial breweries but I try to blog about homebrewing.

By jja, at Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:17:00 AM
@jja

The reason I excluded homebrews is because I think they deserve a Session all their own. However, I also believe that most people would have a difficult time finding access to a home brew which would result in limited participation. Not to mention the commercial local brews theme best fits the overall focus of this blog.

I might suggest that you try to find the brewery and/or product with smaller production runs (e.g. Boulder Beer Co.) or find a brewery that was started by homebrewers (e.g. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. or Rogue Ales).

Here's a list of the Top 50 Craft Brewers that might help churn the ideas.
http://www.beertown.org/craftbrewing/index.html

By snekse, at Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:47:00 AM