The Hops are Mine

While it's not always appropriate to have a beer in hand, I now always will have hops on leg, courtesy of Miles over at Steady Tattoo.

Social Networking Confusion

I constantly struggle with finding the best way to stay on top of goings-on. I like to know what my friends are doing, I like to know what's going on around town, I like to know what various breweries and brewpubs are doing, and so on. I've got about 329874932874 tools available to do this...and that's the problem. For all the tools we have available to simplify this kind of stuff, it seems to have gotten more complicated. If I'm looking for information to post to MNBeer or for my own interest, do I check websites and homepages or wait for e-mail blasts or do I look to Facebook or MySpace or, or, or or do I check out Twitter or do I go to BeerAdvocate or, or, or maybe I should send out e-mails or maybe I should just visit these places or, or, or maybe I should pray or maybe I should slit my wrist. Aaaaiiieeee, I feel so insignificant!!!

Brewing, Growing...It's All Good

Today I was in Barley John’s neck of the woods and since that’s not something I can say very often I felt obliged to stop in, say hi and grab a growler. (It would have been a perfect day to grab a pint and enjoy their patio, too, however I resisted the temptation to do what I wanted to do and instead do what I knew I should do.)

As I walked in the door, the windows between the brewery and the vestibule were all full of condensation and since the awful heat and humidity of the weekend was behind us that could only mean one thing: brewing! Sure enough, even before my hand reached the inner door the wonderful, wet, grainy smell of brewing wafted to my nose. Heaven, pure heaven.

I probably wasn’t inside more than five minutes to get my growler filled (with Stockyard IPA) and pay. Reluctantly, I headed out with my jug 'o goodness but before I completely departed I took in the hop vines that are going to town as well as the garden. It’s a beautiful site to see so much green and growing on this strange, triangular patch of asphalt Barley John’s calls home.