The Polls
Brews Cruise!
The stage has been set. This weekend a bunch of us will be trekking up to Ashville, NC to partake in the “Brews Cruise.” I’m not exactly sure what all this entails, but I do know that it involves 3 brewery tours and samples at each brewery. I also know that the Brews Cruise staff does all the driving. Not that that will be important.
Monday Night Belikin
This is a sad Monday evening as I’m not at home in Atlanta for Monday Night Brewing. Yes, the long monday evenings spent washing out buckets, sanitizing bottles, and enjoying good company as we crank out a new batch are quite fun. But don’t feel too sorry for me. I’m not on a business trip to frigid Toronto (that’s next week) but am enjoying the sunny beaches of Belize for a few days. As I write this I’m sitting on the beach drinking the local beer Belikin. I think the founder really liked Heinekin and thought that if you combine the two words you get “Belikin” (I realize I spelled Heinekin wrong…but it works better for proving my point). Anyhow, I doubt anybody else in the world is clamoring to import Belikin, it’s no beer that’s worth writing home about (although I am doing exactly that) but it is at least good to go through an entire trip without seeing Miller, Bud, or Coors logos or products anywhere and it tops all three of those hands down in my opinion. It’s good to see a company like Belikin which has a pretty basic bottle with not a lot of branding. In fact they use the same bottle for both of their beers – the regular and the stout. You only discover which once you’re drinking because the bartender knows which box to pull from. In the end big brand marketing has not reached the far off beaches of Ambergis Caye Belize it’s really all about the beer…and that’s a good thing.
Regression analysis a la Bud Light
This weekend I went out for a nice Mexican dinner with roommate. To clarify, he’s not physically my ROOMmate, but he does have a room in the same house. Also the dinner wasn’t “nice” per se, but “cheap.”
Not only did Scott see a Dos Equis poster on the wall and pronounce it “Dos Eeekis,” but he also ordered (and drank) a half pitcher of Bud Light. I thought I had weaned him off of that swill, but he regressed. Scott, how will I ever beer-train you? Do I need to resort to a rolled up newspaper to the snout?
Bitter Old Maid, Bitterer Old Jonathan
Ok here’s the deal. We have to bottle tomorrow, so we needed a label. Bitter Old Maid is not the final name, but I think it’s the best we’ve got so far. I think something a bit more masculine is in order.
The label here is a quick-fixer. Kind of a finger in the proverbial dam. Though the color is actually supposed to be more navy and less teal. I think we might want to get away from the “bitter” word. I think it’s too constricting, and we can always just slap it on the bottom, as in “Major Nosewater’s Bitter.”
On another (related) note, we are also still lacking a final name for our delicious oatmeal stout. Simon came up with Lumberjack Stout. I like it. Whatever happened to the American lumberjack? We still eat pancakes, don’t we?
A good email
Imagine getting this email at work:
“Guys,
Just got word that I’m getting about 16 kegs…most likely for free from Mary Stuart’s uncle! I’ll have them in about 2 weeks….I say we go to 20 gal batches….Peter, find us a bigger pot.
If any of you guys (peter) make it up to the brew store tomorrow please ask my questions from below.
Have a good night.
Joel”
Yes. That’s right. SIXTEEN KEGS. We should make one MEGA-BATCH.
We bitter name this thing
So now we need some consensus around a name for our bitter so we can crank a label out. Here are the forerunners:
Grandpappy
The Colonel’s Bitter/Lt. Bitter/etc.
Malty Dick
Bitter Old Maid
Anyone care to weigh in? Please do so via the survey on the right side of the page.