Brian Yaeger's Blog, page 8

Beer dinners past and future

Beer is making me fat.
That's not exactly stop-the-presses news. But it's been something that's been on my mind, and gut, lately. It seems the more beer dinners I go to (most recently this kick-ass Dogfish Head dinner at Hopmonk. Left: Half Pint w/ chef Billy Reid; Right: Half Pint with Dogfish rep Bryant Goulding. Each shown actual height!) and the ones in the near-future as part of SF Beer Week 2010, the more out of shape I get. It's a trend I hope to reverse, which is why Half Pint and I...

Half Pint @ Trinity, Colorado Springs

Brief intro: I'm usually the one beer blogging from the road, but Half Pint 's work has her going to points throughout  K-radio territory . As such, she came up with the rather smashing idea of guest blogging when she's the one continuing the beer odyssey and I'm anchored at home. I like when couples do this . She's currently in Colo. Springs--a city I've never visited--and her last trip took her to Madison, which made me quite jealous, but doubt I could get her to blog retroactively. So without...

America the Beertiful

After 5 weeks, 12 states, 21 new breweries, and 7,500 miles, I'm happy to be back home on my bar stool (literally, Half Pint found a great bar stool made of wood, brass, and green leather from a hotel's liquidation sale). I always seem to return from these beer odysseys a little more patriotic and a little pudgier, and really, aren't they related? Perhaps not surprising is that the beer itself isn't the most cherished aspect. Don't get me wrong. Beer is good stuff, and I'll get to a few highl...

Greeting from New Albany, Ind.

I'm sitting in the New Albanian Brewing Co. Pizzeria listening to a 6-feet tall staffer with a thunderous, infectious laugh whose in a tear listening to an actor who gets roles as jockeys, maybe four-and-a-half feet tall, with a bushy mustache and Newsie cap spinning yarns. Two women just walked in and zeroed in on him; he's obviously somewhat of a local celebrity. He's discussing a new movie about Secretariat co-staring John Malkovich and Diane Lane. My sampler tray includes Hoptimus Prime D...

Midwest odyssey

Greetings from the Orf home in So. County, St. Louis. This is the home of my fellow beer-loving, beer-traveling, beer-brewing buddy Orf who aims to make the leap from am. to pro brewer down in Austin. Imagine my glee at sharing some pints with Papa Orf last night at both the Schlafly Bottleworks brewery (I had the dry-hopped APA) followed by Growlers Pub (I had Bell's Two-Hearted IPA, and yes, you're jealous).

So where'd I leave off? Oh yeah, Kansas. Sad that Free State Brewing owner Chuck was...

Beer Odyssey II: Homebrewers edition

Greetings from Free State Brewing Co., a brewpub in Lawrence, KS, home to KU but also a Christian bookstore whose Politics section ONLY has GOP-friendly books about how faithful GWB is and what a schmuck the Rev. Jesse Jackson is.
I've been on the road for a week and a half, so apologies for this being the first blog post. As you'll see, I've been preoccupied.

Sept 19, Sat.

Drive 570 miles from SF straight to Vegas, well, Henderson. Stay with an old friend whom I met when I was 17, Arla...

Session #31: Summer Beers

This month, Peter (& Sammy) at Better Beer Blog ask us beer bloggers to blog-tificate on Summer Beer; not necessarily beers with images of sunshiny beaches or picking peaches on Gramma's farm, but the ones that quenched our collective thirst this summer. And I had a helluva vacation this summer that, for the first time in a long time, was in no way a beer-cation.<!--StartFragment-->

The first beer I had in Puerto Rico wasn't anything to blog home about, but I didn't come for the beer. Half Pint and I went to...

Beer buddies, Pt I

If I haven't blogged about my ex-beer-iences in beyond yesterday's "Session," it's because I've been awash in great beer, or, more importantly, great beer experiences. Pt. I of IV starts with the Sunday before last.
I guess more accurately it starts with finishing my first triathlon down in Santa Barbara.  To get the full story on how I got into running, which led to the idea to go from marathoner to triathlete, click here. I completed (though not competed) it with Half Pint, Papa Yaeger...

Music from the Beer Lands!?

In my open letter to the record execs at Putumayo World Music, I take these beverage-and-music lovers to task for compiling music from the Wine, Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate lands, but neglecting the vast Beer lands! Who's afraid of a little oom pa pa?

Collaboration Fermentation: Sierra Fishhead

Hopping on the collaborative beers brewwagon, I've started a series on my Examiner blog about such beers. I contemplated calling it Brewing in Tandem, but in the end, Collaboration Fermentation won out. First one up for scrutiny is one that's not even out yet, nor in the mash tanks. The grand poobah Ken Grossman at Sierra Nevada (1980) and the grand wizard Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head (1995), together, in the same bottle? Usually I discuss brewers as pouring their blood, sweat, tears, and souls