The Thirsty Hopster

This is somewhat of a cop-out post since it’s not really a write of any beer experience of mine, but I’ve had these links piling up that are worth sharing, so share them I will! 

First is All About Beer Magazine’s list of “125 Places to Have a Beer Before you Die.”  I thought I’d have been to a fair number of these already since I incorporate beers into all of the trips I’ve taken in the last few years, and I’ve been to a fair number of beer-y destinations.  Then I took a look at the list and realized I had only been to seven of them! Seven!?!

What have I been doing with my life?  Clearly not enough beer tourism.  Or even local drinking.  Somehow, the Publick House evaded me when I was in Boston and somehow in my two years here in San Francisco I haven’t managed to make it to Anchor. Of all the Bay Area breweries to miss out on!  Though in this case I know the reason why I haven’t made it: Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm hours that leave no time for me to come post-work.  Can’t they cut the working (wo)man a break?  And haven’t they ever heard of happy hour?  Last I checked, it started at 5pm. 

Unfortunately, those two are only the beginning of the regrets list, as I notice places from nearby Seattle and Portland to far-off Amsterdam and (not-quite-as-far-off) Philadelphia that I never made it to while I was in town. 

At least there are a few bright spots as some of the places are destinations I have plans to go visit this year.  Here is my list of my next the three beer places from the AAB Magazine list I’ll be visiting:

1. Great American Beer Festival (Denver, CO - October, 2008):Little Hopster thinks this would be an excellent way to celebrate her birthday and I have to say, I couldn’t agree more!
2. Beer Club Popeye (Tokyo, Japan - July, 2008): Considering that I’m headed to Tokyo this summer, may never make it back there in my lifetime, and that this place came recommended by the Celebrator’s Japan correspondent, I think it’s safe to say that this will be a can’t miss stop on our Tokyo itinerary.
3. Anchor Brewing Tasting Room (San Francisco, CA - June, 2008?): I ought to just take a Friday off work one time and finally do this! It’s getting ludicrous that I haven’t yet.  

Check out the full list (below) and let us know how many you’ve been to and if you have any recommendations from the list or other favorites that didn’t make it on the list.   

(Places I’ve visited are in bold and my next three places to visit are in italics.) 

The Growler List: 125 Places to Have a Beer Before You Die

1. Great American Beer Festival, Denver, CO
2. Grand Place, Brussels, Belgium
3. U Fleku, Prague, Czech Republic
4. Great British Beer Festival, Earls Court, London, England
5. Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany
6. Augustiner Keller, Munich, Germany
7. Abbaye de Notre-Dame d’Orval, Orval, Belgium
8. The Gravity Bar, Guinness St. James Gate Brewery, Dublin, Ireland
9. Monk’s Café, Philadelphia, PA
10. The Great Canadian Beer Festival, Vancouver, BC
11. Hofbrauhaus, Munich, Germany
12. The Brickskeller, Washington, DC
13. Rick’s Café, Negril, Jamaica
14. The Market Porter, Stoney Street, London, England
15. Cat’s Eye Pub, Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD
16. Seats on top of the Green Monster in Fenway Park, Boston, MA
17. Mondial de la Bière, Montreal, Quebec
18. Horizon’s Café, CN Tower, Toronto, Ontario
19. Clubhouse box seats at the Saratoga Race Course, Saratoga Springs, NY
20. Beer Club Popeye, Tokyo, Japan
21. The Publick House, Brookline, MA
22. Infield at Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL
23. Henry’s 12th Street Tavern, Portland, OR
24. The Hopleaf, Chicago, IL
25. World Beer Festival, Durham/Raleigh, NC
26. French Quarter during Mardi Gras, New Orleans, LA
27. Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy
28. Zum Uerige, Dusseldorf, Germany
29. Toronado, San Francisco, CA
30. The Olde Mitre Tavern, Ely Court, Hatton Garden, London, England
31. Turn 4 Suites at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN
32. Rogue Brewery, Newport, OR
33. The Wynkoop Brewery, Denver, CO
34. Spuyten Duyvil, Brooklyn, NY
35. Great Lakes Brewing, Cleveland, OH
36. McMenamins Kennedy School Hotel, Portland, OR
37. Atelier am Dom, Cologne, Germany
38. Anchor Brewing Tasting Room, San Francisco, CA
39.The Flying Saucer, NC, SC, TN, AR and TX
40. Arend’s Nest, Amsterdam, Holland
41. Blues Bar, Stone Town, Zanzibar
42. SandLot Brewery, Coors Field, Denver, CO
43. Clark Street Ale House, Chicago, IL
44. Tailgating at a Southeastern Conference Football Game
45. Selin’s Grove Brewing, Selinsgrove, PA
46. The Great Lost Bear, Portland, ME
47. The Map Room, Chicago, IL
48. The Blue Tusk, Syracuse, NY
49. Woolwich Arms, Guelph, ON
50. Beach Bar at the Atlantis Hotel, Paradise Island, Bahamas
51. The White Horse Pub, Parsons Green, London, England
52. Redbones Restaurant, Somerville, MA
53. Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, Sydney, Australia
54. Falling Rock Tap House, Denver, CO
55. Sleeping Lady Brewery/Snow Goose Restaurant, Anchorage, AK
56. In de Wildeman, Amsterdam, Holland
57. Andechs Monastery, Andechs, Germany
58. Charlie’s Bar, Copenhagen, Denmark
59. PINT Bokbierfestival, Amsterdam, Holland
60. Sierra Nevada Brewing, Chico, CA
61. Kr?ma, Ceske Krumlov, Czech Republic
62. Sapporo Beer Garden, Higashi-ku, Japan
63. Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, MI
64. Sail and Anchor Brewpub, Fremantle, Australia
65. F.X. Matt Brewery Tasting Room, Utica, NY
66. Delerium Café, Brussels, Belgium
67. Birreria l’Orso Eletricco, Rome, Italy
68. Gösser Bierklinik, Vienna, Austria
69. Bariloche Ski Resort, Rio Negro, Argentina
70. d.b.a., New York, NY
71. Brewer’s Art, Baltimore, MD
72. Au General Lafayette, Paris, France
73. Schlenkerla Brewery Tavern, Bamberg, Germany
74. De Hopduvel, Antwerp, Belgium
75. Mr. Sancho’s Beach, Cozumel, Mexico
76. City Tavern, Philadelphia, PA
77. Die Weisse, Salzburg, Austria
78. Halve Maan Brewery, Bruges, Belgium
79. Tinkoff, Moscow, Russia
80. Le Bier Circus, Brussels, Belgium
81. TY Harbor Brewery, Tokyo, Japan
82. Irseer Klosterbrauerei, Irsee, Germany
83. Stockholm Beer & Whiskey Festival, Stockholm, Sweden
84. Goose Island Brewing, Chicago, IL
85. Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
86. Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY
87. Deschutes Brewery & Publick House, Bend, OR
88. Baumgartner’s Cheese Store & Tavern, Monroe, WI
89. Icebergs Bar, Sydney, Australia
90. Cantillon Brewery and Gueuze Museum, Belgium
91. Dogfish Head Ale House, Rehoboth Beach, DE
92. Belgo Central, London, England
93. Bruxellensis Festival of Characterful Beers, Brussels, Belgium
94. Felix in The Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong
95. Brasserie Federal, Bahnhof Zurich, Switzerland
96. Heineken Brewery, Amsterdam, Holland
97. Clark’s Ale House, Syracuse, NY
98. The Shakespeare, Aukland, New Zealand
99. Mahar’s, Albany, NY
100. Steamworks Brewing, Vancouver, BC
101. Cooter Brown’s, New Orleans, LA
102. McSorley’s Ale House, New York, NY
103. Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Grill & Brewery, Key West, FL
104. Rose & Crown Pub, Epcot Center, Orlando, FL
105. The Church Brew Works, Pittsburgh, PA
106. Brick Store Pub, Decatur, GA
107. Sunset Grille & Tap, Boston, MA
108. The Ghost Bar at the Palms Hotel, Las Vegas, NV
109. Norwich Inn/Jasper Murdock’s Brewery, Norwich, VT
110. The Gingerman, Austin, TX
111. Library Ale House, Santa Monica, CA
112. t’Bruges Biertja, Bruges, Belgium
113. beerbistro, Toronto, Canada
114. The Dubliner, Washington, DC
115. John Barleycorn, Chicago, IL
116. Anchor Bar, Buffalo, NY
117. Gritty McDuff’s, Portland, ME
118. Top of the Hill Brewery & Restaurant, Chapel Hill, NC
119. The Bell, Aldworth, Berkshire, England
120. The Golf Tavern, Edinburgh, Scotland
121. Old Ebbitt Grill, Washington, DC
122. 5 Seasons Brewing, Atlanta, GA
123. Tim Schafer’s at Lake Norman, Sherrills Ford, NC
124. Stumbling Monk, Seattle. WA
125. The Happy Gnome, St. Paul, MN

Second up on the miscellaneous links list is BottleTrek.  Allie tipped me off to this site, which offers a beer of the month club and individual beers available for purchase (provided you order 6+ bottles).  Obviously, shipping costs can get expensive, so this is a site I’d probably use sparingly, only to pick up items I can’t find locally at Healthy Spirits or City Beer Store. 

They have a large selection (500+ beers) of domestic and imported beers.  Unfortunately, other facets of the site still need a little work.  While they have a perfectly respectable search function, their browsing function is minimal, meaning that if you don’t have a specific beer in mind that it’s hard to shop by category to find something to order.  It would be awesome if they added a series of filters so you could specify the style, geography, bottle size, maximal price, brewery, or any combination of the above and it would spit out a list of beers matching those criteria. 

This also seems like a perfect item to link into BeerAdvocate or RateBeer.  BottleTrek has no ratings, so there’s no context for how good a beer might be, whereas the two ratings sites have no “buy this beer now” functionality.  You’d have to flip back and forth between the sites. I smell a collaboration opportunity…

I wanted to see if there were other sites with better functionality and I found this pagefrom BeerAdvocate, listing online beer retailers.  And, unless you’re looking for Belgians, BottleTrek does seem to be the best.  Three other listings, Liquid Solutions, Beer Liquors, and Vintage Cellarall seemed to have even worse online interfaces than BottleTrek.  A very cursory search suggests the prices are the same or very similar across sites, and of the three Beer Liquors didn’t even recognize the search term ‘Deschutes’, Liquid Solutions had the standard Deschutes beer, and BottleTrek had the standards plus Hop Trip (a recent discovery of mine that I very much enjoyed).  For Belgians, I’d recommend BeerMania, which even had Westvleteren, just watch out for the shipping-from-Europe costs.  

Last random link for you all is Pint Price, which can tell you the average price of a pint in various countries.  I’m not sure when/if I’d ever use this seriously.  I mean, I’m buying a pint no matter what wherever I go, and much as I love beer, I’m not going to choose or a void a certain destination on the basis of the price of their beer.  Now the quality of their beer is a whole other story…

That’s all!

The blogs and newstreams are buzzing with yesterday’s announcement that Magic Hat will buy Pyramid. 

I’m not going to post the full press release here, and oddly enough it is not posted on the Pyramid site yet, even under the ‘Investor Info’ or ‘Company News: hot off the presses!” sections.  Hmmm…If this isn’t investor info or news hot off the presses, what is?

This means linking to Magic Hat’s regrettable website (see link above, it won’t even let me link to the press release itself, just go to ‘about us’, ‘in the press’, and ‘press releases’ once there).  Much as I like their beer and their kooky creepy aesthetic, their website annoys me like none other.  If I were in charge, first order of business in their now bi-coastal company would be hiring a new web-designer.

For those unfamiliar with these brands, this is a big deal for the craft beer world, considering that Pyramid is the 5^th largest American craft brewery, a Northwest brewery whose signature is wheat beers.  Magic Hat is the 12^th largest craft brewery in the country, with a decidedly experimental streak.  Why then, you ask, is Magic Hat buying Pyramid and not the other way around? Well, Pyramid has been losing money for the last five years and Magic Hat has been growing. 

It’s also worth noting that Martin Kelly, the CEO of Magic Hat, used to be the CEO of Pyramid.  So, he clearly understands the company and what he’s buying. 

So, enough with the facts, the real question is what does this mean? The short answer: I don’t know yet. 

Availability: No news yet on which beers will be available in which geographies, but the rumor, or at least the proposed deal rationale, is both beers on both coasts.  Yay!  If so, I get my Magic Hat back and now people will know what my favorite t-shirt is all about. 

Recipes:Will they change them?  I’d guess not, but they might add to them.  How cool would it be to see the Magic Hat twist on wheat beers?  Imagine if every box of 12 Pyramid beers came with three beers from a mystery batch!  Huckleberry vanilla weizen?  Honey wit beer? Nutmeg dunkel weiss?  They might not all be great, but it would be awesome to try them. 

My gut reaction: I was anxious at first, but believe it will work out positively for beer drinkers.  I was anxious because Pyramid has always struck me as a very safe, corporate beer company and I wondered what would happen to Magic Hat’s creativity and flair.  It might not be fair to paint this impression since Magic Hat’s Martin Kelly used to work at Coca-Cola and Miller and the whole concept of growth by acquisition smacks of corporatism.  But hey, times are tough, ingredient prices are up, the market’s crowded, I can see why people are starting to feel like it is an eat or be eaten world out there right now.  Given that it is Magic Hat doing the buying, and I’ve always liked what they’ve done with their beers, I’m choosing to hope for the best: (A) Magic Hat gets distributed on the west coast and (B) Magic Hat lends a little pizazz to Pyramid’s brews.

Normally I’d bemoan the fact that this new site has no coverage of SF, but BeerMenus already has so much hype going for it that I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they make it out here.

It’s a Google Maps mash-up that allows you to search within NYC for:

• A listing of bars that carry a particular beer
• A list of beers currently being carried by a particular bar
• A list of bars in a particular neighborhood
• A list of upcoming beer events

I was a bit skeptical about this new tool at first because wouldn’t it just be better as an application within the BeerAdvocate site?  Then it could be linked in to their established network, and all of their ratings.  The best example of the redundancy this creates is the Beer Events portion of the Beer Menus site, which is completely redundant to BeerAdvocate’s beer calendar, which has the added functionality of allowing you to RSVP to an event to let your BeerAdvocate friends know you’re coming.

However, I was quickly won over by a few features:

• The mapping functionality is key.  While BeerAdvocate lets you narrow your search by zip code or city, etc., there is no map mash-up, which means that when I’m traveling and want to find a good beer bar I can look up likely candidates on Beer Advocate but have to switch back and forth between their site and Google Maps to figure out which will be easiest for me to get to.
• They have price information.  I’m not sure you can get this information anywhere else, including at many of bars home pages.  While I’m sure a lot of bar owners (especially those in higher end places who charge extra to cover their fixed costs of high-rent locations and a snazzily designed sites) are cringing, this is obviously a great benefit to consumers.  Now we’re armed with information about what beers cost at different places and can decide for ourselves whether a higher priced bar is worth the premium.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this also helps out the brewers and/or distributors.  If they can see what retailers are charging and that the market might bear a higher price than they expected, they might be able to charge a little bit more themselves.  So, all around bad news for bar owners, I guess, unless all this extra information in the hands of consumers means more patrons.
• I prefer the Beer Menus style and layout to Beer Advocate.  This may change as BeerMenus grows and necessarily becomes more complex, but right now it has a very clean user-friendly layout.  BeerAdvocate seems a more cluttered to me, probably due to the side bars, ads, and black background for all but the center pane. 

So, I’ll definitely still use BeerAdvocate for its massive database of beer reviews and probably for beer events as well.  I don’t think Beer Menu’s maps offers much of an advantage over BA’s beer calendar. 

However, this might spell the beginning of the end of BA’s Beer Fly and Beer Menus for me.  I’ll use both for now since each provides something the other doesn’t (BA has reviews, BM has maps, prices, and lists of beers on tap now).  But, if either one can integrate the features of the other, I’ll commit to that one.