Speaking of Beer

Next time the show will revolve around Rouge’s Double Dead Guy Ale, so scrape up some for drinking along if you can find it. And if you happen to be a fan of horror fiction, especially of the podcasted variety, crack open/download your favorite novel or short story and get reading/listening.

The next episode doesn’t feature any specific beer, but does spotlight what, for me, has become a go-to beer outlet. If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably already guessed that I’m talking about Whole Foods Market, my own personal Beervana. Episode 57 is a Beer As Folk interview with one of the hard-working “team members” who has hooked be up with beer and interviews for the last couple of years now, and it’s an inspiring tale about how much influence one person can have in the cause of Great Beer. To drink along, scare up your favorite, special beer that you don’t mind paying just a little more than usual for. If you get it at Whole Foods, all the better.

OK, so it’s been a strange month. An episode turned into a trilogy? Slurping on video? Three shows in less than 30 days? Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on either, but what the hell. Isn’t that what this new media’s for anyway? And in that spirit, if you’d like to drink along with the last segment of Show 56: Liquid Christmas 2008–Vrolijk Kerstfeest!, you’ll want to scare up some Founder’s Breakfast Stout. Alternatively, Old Viscosity or Victory’s Storm King might get you in the same general ballpark.

Hey there you two faithful site-checkers, how’s it going? Isn’t life just simply…odd sometimes? Case in point: this podcast. Bad news: there’s been a drought of any activity around here for the last two months or so. Good news: the techno-finger’s been pulled from the dike, and a near diharretic torrent of content is heading your way. Buckle up and mark your calendars for the following bits of beery fun:

Hot on the heels of Show 54: International Hop Overthrow will come Show 55: SoB Gets the (Ballast) Point. To prep for that one, scare up something from the Ballast Point Brewing Company, perhaps their Big Eye IPA, or (considering the time of year), their Black Marlin Porter.

Next is Show 56: Liquid Christmas 2008: Vrolijk Kerstfeest!, in which we enjoy a little Dilerium Noel, as well as some Gouden Carolus Noel, two top-shelf Belgian holiday beers.

And somewhere in there will be the Beer Safari Holiday Beer Exchange Video Special (or whatever it’s called) to which I’ve contributed a short and theoretically humorous segment like I did last year.

And by a strange confluence of unrelated events, much of the above content features significant contributions by Friend of SoB Evo Terra. No, he’s not taking over the show, that’s just how the hop-smeared chips fell. I mean, the bastard’s got his own damn podcast, he doesn’t need mine. Anyway, strap in and enjoy my gift to y’all: actual honest-to-Ninkasi content! w00t!

The beers (yes, plural!) for the next show might be a little tough to scrape up, and one of them has no real viable alternative (don’t you just love beers like that?). Still, with some luck and perseverance, hopefully you’ll be drinking along. We’re talking:

Nøgne Ø India Pale Ale [alternatives: Stone IPA, Sierra Nevada Celebrationa Ale, Victory Hop Devil Ale]

and

Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse (Schneider version)[alternatives: sorry, dude...OK, maybe Aventinus Weizenbock, if you sprinke some fresh hops on top...]

The show will mark the return of a certain Friend of SoB, but I won’t say who it is, to maintain some semblance of suspense. Even though you probably guessed it already.

Next up is a Beer As Folk show in which we find out all about the Shmaltz Brewing Company, most familiar as the crafters of the He’Brew line of beers. They brew tons of great beers and any one of them would accompany the show in tremendous fashion. However, in honor of the coming autumn season, as well as for reasons that will be apparent upon hearing the interview, I’m going to recommend you try and scare up (so to speak) Freaktoberfest, from the Coney Island Lager line of Schmaltz beers.

L’Chaim!

Helloooo…Is this thing on? Just how do you work one of these “post” gizmos again? Yeah, sorry, things have gone a little fallow around here lately. I am, however, still recording and have lots of good sudsy content in the “tap line” (am I pushing this too far?). It’s just (sadly and by necessity) paced a little more on the “glacial” side. SoB’s still alive, promise. To prove my point, go out–I challenge you–and scrape together the following four beers:

AleSmith’s Decadence Anniversary Imperial Porter [alternative: Flying Dog's Gonzo Imperial Porter]
Deschutes’ The Abyss [completely viable and more realistic alternative: Deschutes' Black Butte XX]
Port’s Old Viscosity [alternative: Oskar Blues' Ten Fidy]

and

Victory Brewing Company’s Storm King Imperial Stout [alternative: Stone Imperial Russian Stout]

Show 52 will be big, black, and bloated (I’ll pass on making a joke…), just like they were in the good ol’ days.

Lets make this easy: find yourself some of Stone Brewing Co.’s Arrogant Bastard Ale. Or, if you brewed along with the Build-a-Beer Workshop and have some Monkey Bastard lying around, that will do as well. This will be a homebrew tasting show, but AB was definitely the target, so should accompany the proceedings nicely.

The herky-jerky release of episodes of late has probably raised questions in your mind, with the neologism “podfade” undoubtedly knocking around in there somewhere. Indeed, with fellow old-tymer Farpoint shows like Geek Fu Action Grip and most recently the “Happy Days” to my “Joanie Loves Chachi”, Wingin’ It 3D, ending their runs or changing into unrecognizable versions of their old selves, such speculation is completely justified. And, truth be told, more-or-less on the mark. It’s a sad old song hardly worth singing, but reality is a harsh mistress, and producing a show on my own time, on my own dime in the midst of RL is no easy feat.

That being said, I have gotten so much good stuff out of SoB, and treasure my experiences participating in this whole “new media” deal. The people I’ve met, both face-to-face and in more electronic ways, have uniformly been fantastic, and I count many of them among my closest friends. The opportunities the podcast has given me to speak with passionate brewers from all over the world, as well as the often unsung folks in the Beerniverse who support them, are more than I probably deserve, and I am very grateful indeed. And of course, the mind-blowingly good beer I’ve uncovered in my explorations has enriched my life, and hopefully enhanced yours as well.

So…I can’t really do the show, but don’t want to give it up. After a long (and I do mean long) stint on the horns of this dilemma, vacillating wildly between bagging the whole thing and sucking it up and grinding on, I’ve come up with a compromise that just might work. To wit: the old format is gone. Episodes will focus on a single segment: an interview, a homebrewing experience, side-by-side sampling of a couple of beers, etc. I’ll record as opportunity presents itself, and can thus make no promises as to release schedule. Just stay subscribed, and good stuff will come down the pike when it happens. I think in this way I can keep my passion burning sufficiently hot, keep the shows varied and interesting, and continue flying the flag for great beer. And it doesn’t mean that a “full blown” show is out of the realm of possibility, it’s just that when it does happen it’ll be something I want to do rather than something I have to do. I believe strongly that podcasting, and new media in general, is about keeping love alive and spontaneous, not grinding it up in a media machine. If I wanted that, I’d go into traditional broadcasting. And, just to be crystal clear, I don’t want that.

Whew! All that being said, the next episode will be an interview, but that doesn’t mean you can’t drink along. Scare up some

Gulden Draak [alternatives/additional beers: Piraat, Augustijn, Bruegel, Bornem Dubbel Bornem Tripel]

I think it will accompany the show quite well.

Please feel free to let me know what you think of all this. I do this for you guys. OK, and for the beer….

OK, this time around we take a break from the obscure, regional, barely-distributed beers and tackle instead a couple of large-to-mid-sized relatively far-flung (within US borders at least) beers, from yes, you guessed it, the West Coast. Whew! Hey, if every show was about beer everyone in the world could get, we’d always be drinking Budweiser. The beers are both from California’s Bear Republic Brewery, and they are:

Red Rocket Ale [alternatives: Lagunitas Censored, Fat Tire, anything containing the word "amber" or "red']

and

Racer 5 India Pale Ale [alternatives: Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Stone IPA, any number of IPA's characterized by the word "aggressive"]

Get yours in time for the next show and the new Wachowski Brothers movie.