Updated reading list & a website acting funny

Hey everyone, out there on the InterWebs, I got through my issue of Ale Street News and am halfway through the first of the Beer Advocates. Too bad I picked up the latest Ale Street News and Mid-Atlantic Brewing News last night... :)

Tomorrow, I aim to go to my local super market and buy 5 gallons of pasteurized apple cider to make a hard apple cider. I want to see if the yeast that I have is still viable (the expiration date is coming up, fast). I'll pitch the yeast and let it run.

Anyway, I remember 8012 years ago stumbling upon The U.S. Beer Drinking Team's website. Not to glorify binge drinking, but it catered itself to being a MySpace or Facebook of the beer world. Meet up with folks in the real, physical world at a bar or whatever. I registered and looked at their posts, and what they had. It was simple, but hey, not like I have done anything better. It seems that over the past few weeks they updated the website, completely, and now you have to re-register. I just find that to be a real thorn in my side. They could have kept the old profiles and not make everyone re-reg. Geez. They also used to have a nice screensaver which you could download for free. I have it on my machine, it scrolls through very artistic photos of beer. I'm going to see if they still have it on the site to download.

Good lord, look at the reading list I have to catch up on...

I have been so busy at work that I haven't had any time to take a break, even just a five minute one, to catch up on any of my beer reading. Here's my back log:

• Ale Street News: 10-11 2007
  
• Beer Advocate: October 2007
  
• Mid-Atlantic Brewing News: October/November 2007
  
• Zymurgy: November/December 2007
  
• Beer: November/December 2007
  
• Great Lakes Brewing News: Best if read by Oct/Nov 2007
  
• Brew Your Own: December 2007
  
• Beers of the World: December 2007
  
• Draft: November/December 2007
  
• Beer Advocate: November 2007
  
• Brew Your Own Magazine: January/February 2008
  
• All About Beer: January 2008
  

Phew...quite the list. And me, being "Mister Anal-retentive", I have to read every single word in any book or any magazine that I lay my hands on. I even use the carpet bombs as bookmarks.

I'll let you know if I can ever catch up.

Flying Dog closing down the Denver brewery - moving to Maryland

I just caught wind of this through ProBrewer.com's forum.

Flying Dog is closing down the Denver brewery to move all production to Frederick, Maryland (right down the street from us). If you don't know the story behind that, Flying Dog bought the revamped Frederick Brewing Company in early 2006, and now produces 70% of their beer from that brewery (which is a statistic I did not know).

The really, really nice thing that the company is doing for the Denver's production employees is there will be no layoffs - the company is offering them positions at the Frederick brewery, including relocation packages. I'll tell you what, given the real estate prices around here, now, that's going to be quite a pinch in the old Flying Dog wallet...

Check out the Flying Dog homepage and this message from Flying Dog President and CEO, Eric Warner.

Nick


Eric, send me some oaked Gonzo for Christmas, please.