Beer ID

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a good lesson to learn, and one that most of us learn early in life. However, in the ever-expanding universe that is the beer market, it can be difficult for some brands to stick out amongst the many competitors and behemoth marketing budgets. So, here’s a cool little post about beer branding from our New York-area amigos over in Hoboken, NJ: Digital Tchotchke.

Brew York State of Mind

It’s with a heavy heart that I leave the Great State of Texas. Dallas has been good to me these past months. However, tomorrow I’m Eastbound and down, ready for all the crappy weather the great Northeast has to offer. I won’t be riding solo, I’ll have my dad with me, but posts may be scarce over the next few days.

Poppa Beer

A 16′ truck and beer are not to be mixed. Though this truck will be carrying a good deal of brew home for me. In order to ease my transition home, I have:

• Shiner: three (3) cases @ 24 bottles/case
• St. Arnold Elissa: three (3) sixers
• Ranger IPA: one (1) case @ 24 bottles/case + one sixer (for good luck)
• Southern Star Pine Belt IPA: one (1) four-pack @ 16oz/can
• Harpoon Leviathan: one (1) four-pack (minus one from last night’s review)
• Avery Collaboration: two (2) bombers @ 22oz/bottle
• Widmer Black IPA: three (3) sixers
• Miscellaneous: Thirty-three (33) bottles @ 12oz/bottle, three (3) bottles at 22oz/bottle

I don’t care to do the math, but it makes me happy to know that I‘ll be transporting (possibly illegally) a lot of beer across many States. Now, some beer porn:

Thankfully, my truck is Franzia-free

Febrewary 2010

Dear Brew York City fans and followers,

Though I recently thanked those of you who became Facebook fans of BYC, this is another note of gratitude to all of you for supporting this Brew Quest. Not only did January 2010 see a record high for monthly views of this zymurgic niche of the Web, but February 2010 nearly doubled that. And we all know that nobody likes February, being that it is marked by a truncated schedule, crappy weather, and the pretend “holiday” Valentine’s day.

Maybe because beer is liquified celebration, people turn to this site and sites like it in some desperate attempt to usher joy into the otherwise bleak days of winter. If so, I hope it helped. Thanks again and, though your friendly neighborhood Brew Yorker will be traveling a great deal in the month of March, posts will hopefully continue to abound for your reading and drinking pleasure. Though I am currently mourning USA hockey’s bitter loss, I wish you all a Happy March; we’re just three short weeks away from Spring.

Cheers!

A truckload of thanks

Beer, B-Ball, and Bar Mitzvahs

Bee and his lovely wife, Mrs. Bee, are coming to town today. Despite the inclement weather, they should be able to land. DFW is doing all it can to land planes so that no one has to miss the NBA All-Star game make the Super Bowl look like a Bar Mitzvah. You know, one of my friends had his bar mitzvah at MSG and Greg Anthony and Derek Harper showed up, which made his bar mitzvah look like a basketball game. And Derek Harper used to play for Dallas. So, everything has come full circle.

Sorry for the tangent.

I went to Central Market to buy some of the finest meats and cheeses (and beer) from across the land. I love place like Central Market and the Whole Foods Beer Room because they make a point to have a wide selection of both international and regional brews. Here’s a shot of their main fridge:

Aisle drink to that

I picked up some Shiner Bock, because everyone should try it and it’s always good to have it around the house for those times when you want something smoove.

As is my tendency in the face of overwhelming beer selection, I got a lot more than was probably necessary but selected a few brews that are exciting:

St. Arnold Texas Wheat: one (1) six-pack, since Mrs. Bee loves hefeweizen and St. Arnold is batting 1.000.

Sierra Nevada Glissade: one (1) six-pack,because Sierra can do no wrong.

Brooklyn-Schneider Hopfen-Weizen: two (2) bottles, because the only thing better than a good beer is two good beers.

And now, some beer porn.

Grown-up building blocks.

I got an A in Shiner 101.

With Bee here this weekend, I’m not sure how much I’ll be writing. It won’t be for lack of beer sampling, I’m sure. It may be due to too much beer sampling.

Baohaus NYC

Eddie Huang, owner and chef at the hot new LES restaurant Baohaus, is serving up a special menu for Chinese New Year dinner. Baohaus likes to say they’re “fresh off the boat” and, while Eddie is no neophyte – especially when it comes to the culinary arts – Baohaus is definitely fresh. That’s West Coast royalty ‘fresh’, not throw-a-drink-in-your-face ‘fresh’.

Eddie asked me to offer up some examples of possible beer pairings to accompany his Year of the Tiger prix fixe menu. Next to actually drinking beer, there are few things I like better than talking about beer so I was happy to oblige. Check out Eddie’s blog, the Pop Chef, for the menu and a look at some of my suggestions.

Stop by Baohaus this weekend for a combination Chinese Brew Year/Valentine’s Day celebration. Baohaus is BYOB, so pick out some of your favorites and head to the Lower East Side for some unique dishes and great beer. For a lager, I might suggest Tiger.

Super Bowl XLIV Beer Commercial Poll

Beer Summit

The man is a genius. OK, despite the fact that this Beer Summit is an attempt to remove his foot from his mouth with a bottle opener, President Obama has opened the door to what could be the end of wars. Imagine Kennedy had had Khruschev over for a Baltika taste test?

Don’t you think it’s time that the White House had it’s own brewery?

Boogie Chillen, NYC, and Lego

This post from early in the month shows some uniquely New York situations and landmarks through the magic of Lego. The subtle John-Madden-meets-Dmitri-Martin text makes all the difference.

Take a look, it’s beer- (and Blues-) related.

Wonders of Coincidence

Despite my claims of being somewhat of a Luddite (see my utter lack of blogging savvy as example), I will start this story on a technological bent.  I was texting Bee earlier today when I remembered something about the predictive text/t9/Word function on phones. They always give you the most common options. I like when the phone doesn’t know what word you’re talking about and gives you other options. Like when you try to type “shit” and it gives you “shiv.” Now, either it thinks I’m am going to spell “shiver” or someone at LG spent some time in General Population.

The reason I bring this up on my beer blog is because “pint” and “shot” are actually the same sequence, 7468. So, when trying to meet up with Bee for a pint, I almost met him out for a shot. Which would have had the same consequence, I guess. It’s like an electronic boilermaker, I like it. I also like that 7468 also spells “riot,” which is often the result of too many carbombs or Bear Fights.

On a non-beer-related (and therefore nearly unmentionable) note, “kiss” and “lips” are both 5477 and “game” and “hand” (as in having a great hand in a game of poker) are both 4263. Yeah, I admit that last one isn’t that interesting, but it’s more interesting than the fact that “in” and “go” are always f’ed up, as are “me” and “of”.  My brother has asked me if I can “in note the bar for of” about a thousand times.