SoB Stalwartâ„¢ Eric, as well as some other fine folks, sent me this bunch of links to cool beer stuff:

Do you, like myself, suffer from “setter-downer syndrome”? You know, you unthingkingly set something important, like your beer, down at some random location and spend the next ten minutes frantically trying to find it? Never fear, the Beer Pager is here. You’ll never swig out of a bottle that has been used as an ashtray again!

Do you find your nice clean pint glasses insufficient to squeeeze every iota of enjoyment from your beer-drinking experience? The kind folks at the Boston Beer Company (brewers of the Sam Adams beers) have you covered. They’ve engineered the ultimate beer glass, jam-packed with features designed to maximize your quaffing pleasure!

Do you love beer so much you want to move beyond simply drinking it? Well Men’s Health magazine is ahead of you. They’ve compiled a list of 32 Things You Can Do With Beer other than pour it down your gullet. Stop snoring, trick your miserly landlord, or catch mice with your favorite beverage! Thanks to Eric’s lovely wife Wendy for this one.

Do you enjoy some blues with your beer? Well, the Flying Dog Brewery in Denver Colorado is running a contest to send one lucky winner to the Telluride Blues and Brews Festival on September 14 -16, 2007. Entering is easy, just fill out this online form by May 13st! And for beer and blues any time, take a listen to my beercast homies at Big Foamy Head.

And you homebrewers out there, are you having trouble coming up with a snappy name for your latest creation? To your rescue comes the Random Beer Name Generator. I think SoB’s next beer will be Ruby Groundhog Day Rauchbier. Or maybe Big Bird’s Salty Red Porpoise Koelsch. Or possibly Shitszu-Mojo Maerzen. I could do this all day….
Thanks to Wesley for this one.

If you enjoyed the little teaser in Show 27 about pairing food with your beer, then you might want to explore this link. It’s basically an advertisement for the book Beer & Food: An American History by Bob Skilnik. I haven’t read the book, but I gotta say, it looks right up my alley. Has anybody out there read it and if so can you give any feedback?

Today I lost a friend and colleague in podcasting. My first experience with podcasting was sharing a microphone with Joe Murphy. If you haven’t already, please check out the Joe Murphy Memorial Fund website, and see what you can do about helping out with final expenses and with funding research into leiomyosarcoma, the cancer that took him from the master of the snarky zinger to a memory in four short months.

He didn’t like beer, but somehow that never bothered me. I think I’ll go have a root beer now…

Turns out folks like their beer.

Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator – The best home videos are here

If you’re blessed with an eclectic beer distributor in the Western United States, look for these. Otherwise, go out and find the best beer you can possibly find in a can.

Mudshark Dry Heat Hefeweizen [alternatives: Pyramid Hefeweizen, Shiner Hefeweizen]

and

Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues Brewing Co. [alternatives: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Three Floyd's Alpha King, any west-coast IPA]

If you haven’t divined the theme yet, think about the shelves lining the walls of your dad’s basement den.

Click “Play” below and thrill as fellow beercaster Father Spoon from Should I Drink That? chugs a bottle of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA (as featured on SoB Show 7). Father, thy name is metal!

…but he writes a splatterific monster story!

 Ebook: Download (2066)

There’s been a recent spate of links folks have sent me, to wit:

Thanks to Eric, I know about a gizmo that’ll chill a beer can in seconds. Now, if only more craft breweries would get with the canning thing (like Oskar Blues in Colorado and the Mudshark Brewery in balmy Lake Havasu, AZ), we’d be in business!

Are you throwing a kegger, but not sure how much beer to buy? Never fear, the Kegulator is here! Just input vital stats like how many folks are coming and how hammered they’re going to get, and it’ll spit out exactly the quantity of beer you’ll need. No more returning half-empty kegs (or pounding too many beers the next day in order to save face) for you!

And on a more serious note, Virginia McLean, one of the original folks who inspired what ultimately became Pete’s Wicked Ale, has been stricken with a form of bone cancer. Pete and his old skool pals have reunited to create Reunion Imperial Brown Ale to raise money and awareness. Check out the link and see what you think (and look for audio from fellow beercaster Rick from Pacific Brew News). Of course, the Farpoint Media family has also been touched by the spector of cancer, so if you’re in a donating mood, swing by Michael and Evo’s Wingin’ It! website and help out Joe Murphy, a.k.a. Randy Inuendo, a.k.a. Mason Rocket. It’s a good karma thing to do…

One reason for the next show’s delay was my experience at the 7th Annual Arizona Strong Beer Festival. We’re talking dozens of breweries from all over the US, plus a few international folks, all pouring the good stuff. You really had to search to find a beer clocking in under 7 % ABV, and there were some big ol’ doozies represented: Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot Barleywine, Dogfish Head’s Chateau Jiahu, Oskar Blues’ Gordon (in a can!), and many, many (blurry) others…

Here are a few pics:

Count the people hoisting a glass.

Who says there’s an East Coast/West Coast thing in beerland?

Some favored accessories of the day.

Delightfully drunk festival-goers. Listen for them on an upcoming episode!