Beertravelin’

What’s in an Analogy?

January 14th, 2007 by The Beertraveler

“Hops are to Beer, what Grapes are to Wine.”

I’ve been hearing this more frequently on a televised commercial for Samuel Adams beer, spoken by it’s founder, Jim Koch. This has been bothering me. A lot.

I did pretty well on my SAT’s back in high school. (Better on the math part than the verbal though…) Am I the only one that disagrees with this quote? He goes on to say that they are the soul of the beer. A bit subjective if you ask me. I guess if you think grapes are the soul of wine, and hops are the soul of beer, then the analogy holds true. But if you use this argument, then you can make any analogy work to your own needs.

Grapes are the basis of wine. It’s where wine gets it’s fermentable sugars. On the beer side, this would be the grains. Be it, barley, wheat, or another grain, beer gets most of its fermentable sugars from them. Hops have an extremely important us in beer. Balancing out the sweetness of the malt with bitterness, helping to preserve beer, adding additional character… Hops are certainly important, but I disagree that they serve the same purpose as grapes do to wine.

Beer

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Los Straitjackets and Big Sandy at Cafe 9

January 14th, 2007 by The Beertraveler

Cafe 9 - New Haven, CT June 10, ‘07

Always great to see Los Straitjackets. Having Big Sandy sing with them was a great plus. They were touring to support their newest album, “.”

Brought a couple of Straitjacket virgins to the show, and they loved it. (Although I had to get over one of them drinking a PBR.) Cafe 9 is a pretty cool place to see a show. Very small, and it can get quite crowded, but it makes for an “up close and personal” kind of situation with the performers.

Cafe 9 doesn’t have a wide selection of beers, but they do keep things interesting with some micros and local selections. Of course they have the defacto punk rock beer, PBR, but they also have Schaefer on draft. (Now brewed by Pabst.) Not that having Schaefer on draft is a good thing that you should be seeking out, but it’s certainly a rare and unique thing. I opted for the Long Trail Ale on draft.

Entertainment

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Beer

January 11th, 2007 by The Beertraveler

Reason to start this blog:

To embark on yet another diversionary endeavor to distract me from my responsibilities.

Actually, just another reason for me to drink more beer…

Beer

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Keep your F*%kin’ fruit to yourself!

January 3rd, 2007 by The Beertraveler

The following is a letter I sent to the editor of Draft magazine concerning a little article they had in their recent May/June issue. The article was called, “10 Innovations in Beer.” The 8th “innovation” was by Keith Villa, the creator of Blue Moon for Coors, when he thought it would be a good idea to encourage bartenders to include a slice of orange with every Blue Moon served. Yeah… Right… Hopefully, this will get published in the next issue:

Finally, I can put a face to the person that has ruined so many of the beers served to me in bars during the summer time. Keith Villa (Draft May/June 2007 p.78) thinks it’s a good idea to encourage bartenders to put a slice of fruit into people’s beer. I disagree. How about encouraging bartenders to ASK patrons if they would like to have a fruit slice in their beer? I would even settle for them to make a SUGGESTION for the addition. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to send back a beer because a piece of fruit was arbitrarily forced onto the rim of my glass, or even worse, floating in my beer. It’s gotten to the point now that when I order a wheat/wit beer, I automatically say “No fruit please.” I shouldn’t have to say that! At least give people the chance to taste the beer as is before deciding for themselves if it needs a foreign object to make it taste better. I, as you might have guessed, don’t want to drink a beer where a fruit slice is needed. I’d rather just drink a better beer.

Well, I think I was pretty mild overall. I don’t think they would have printed what I really wanted to say…

Beer

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What’s in an Analogy?

“Hops are to Beer, what Grapes are to Wine.”

Los Straitjackets and Big Sandy at Cafe 9

Beer

Keep your F*%kin’ fruit to yourself!