Hey everyone, in case you didn’t know it, I moved to Colorado in August. About 3 weeks ago I created a blog that’s all about craft beer in the Pikes Peak Region, especially Colorado Springs, which is just south of Denver, Colorado. The blog is called Focus on the Beer, and the tag line is “Free Thinking and Beer Drinking.” I’ve been quite busy with that blog, and am posting about 7 posts a week. I’ll be posting more about my Glasgow Beer Experience soon back here at Beer and Sci-Fi soon too. I’ll keep this blog up, but I’ve always wanted this blog to be more about the social nature of drinking, about how I see beer drinking as a type of small scale utopian activity (hence the sci-fi). The Focus on the Beer blog is allowing me to put some effort into understanding the beer scene in this new location in a way that just couldn’t work for this blog. I hope you’ll check it out, and check out the links for the twitter page and facebook page links as well.

Allan Wright, the head organizer for the Beer Blogger’s Conference interviewed me about the new blog. I’m going to post a little bit from that interview here, but you really should check out the Beer Blogger’s Conference Website to see the whole thing:

I really like the new angle on local beer at Focus on the Beer and am curious – did this come out of an idea from the conference?

In a way it did come out of the conference. I’ve been struggling for about a year now with my older blog beerandscifi, trying to rethink my goals with it. When I moved to Colorado 3 months ago I could see that the area needed something that was a little more like Brewpublic. I’m friends with Angelo but after spending 3 days with him I was inspired, and then after being at the conference I was also really inspired. I’ve made 6 blog posts in one week on both blogs, I finally got the energy and “balls” to just start the thing, and I have ideas streaming into my head every day. The conference was a huge inspiration for me…

What do you do for a living and why are you currently in Colorado Springs?

I moved to Colorado Springs for a teaching job at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. I’m teaching entry level art classes, as well as a few other classes like “Art and Social Practice” where I concentrate on how contemporary artists think about community and engage the public, or how artists use food and drink as their artwork…

To read the whole interview, visit the Beer Blogger’s Conference website.

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Calum Craigie is currently the president of the Scottish Craft Brewers. He wrote an article for Brewer’s Contact, a journal made by the Craft Brewing Association in the UK. If you are in the UK, or plan to go to Scotland any time, you should check these guys out. I’m posting the article below but in summary, it is a review of my art/beer project that I mentioned in my last post, and he speaks to the success of the event and how it should influence the way the Scottish Craft Brewers operate. I believe that Calum has really captured the purpose and meaning behind why I do what I do, and so I will let him do the talking now. So, big thanks to Calum for coming to this project with an open mind and for putting a lot of thought into what I was trying to do. My responses and thoughts will be documented in a round-about way throughout these Glasgow Beer Experience postings. Here is Calum Craigie’s review:

(Calum Craigie checking his Hot Liquor Tank)

Visual Art is not something that I would usually associate with home brewed beer. I fully appreciate the craft that is involved in brewing a good beer. But…Art? I would need some convincing.

Throughout April the ambition to serve home brewed beer in a traditional pub environment was exactly what Eric Steen, artist and home brewer from the USA, had in mind. A series of “Pub School” events were held in Glasgow which included a brew night, brewing talks, readings and even a tour of a local brewery. The culmination was an event named The Market Gallery Pub on Friday 30th April which was Read the rest of this entry »

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Many of you know that I recently visited Scotland, but not many of you know that I was working, and that the purpose of the trip was to create a socially based art project that explores the craft beer culture in Glasgow. No joke! That’s what I did. So, I’m going to have multiple posts about my experiences and thoughts now that I’ve had a few months to digest all the information. In the coming weeks you’ll see posts about my experiences. Blog posts will start with the phrase “Glasgow Beer Experience.” I’m starting with my project, called Pub School, so those of you who were present for this project there is hopefully some new information in here for you, but you can look forward in the next couple weeks to more of: Thoughts on “Real Ale,” WEST Brewery, Williams Bros Brewing, Outside reviews of my project, and my forecast for the craft beer scene in Glasgow.

Where to start? To summarize, I was invited by the Market Gallery to create a project for the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. I created a series of events called “Pub School.” Each were types of participatory and experiential educational activities revolving around craft beer Read the rest of this entry »

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The video below is a response from Greg Koch to my previous post. In order to see the video, please first familiarize yourself with my original post where I express a specific concern over Stone’s desire to open a brewery in Europe. Then in order to watch the video you’ll need to use this passcode: gkresponds

11.08.10 // Slow Food, Europe & Stone from stonebrew on Vimeo.

passcode: gkresponds

First I’d like to thank Greg for taking the time to respond to my concern personally and for giving me permission to post the video. I’ll summarize the video a little here: Greg points out that many of the things we call traditional aren’t necessarily how we might think of them, many recipes that we think of as traditional have not bee around as long as we might imagine. He goes on to say about Stone, “We are not going over to usurp, of course not, we are going over to be a part of the collective craft brewing movement.” He mentions that Italian breweries, in their diverse and experimental beers are actually gaining their inspiration from places like Belgium as well as their own surroundings, and yet they aren’t necessarily considered traditional in Italy because that culture hasn’t really been developed as it has in places like Germany. Greg admits that because much of Stone’s flavor character comes from the bitterness in Pac NW style hops, these will need to be shipped to Europe, hops being fractional in weight comparison to most other ingredients in beer, lowering the carbon footprint than if they shipped bottles of beer over.

[To cut in for a minute though, a question arises in my mind at this point in the video as to whether this is even necessary. There is still a large footprint, albeit Read the rest of this entry »

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This weekend I had the great fortune of attending the first annual Beer Blogger’s Conference. I don’t plan to make a full review but would like to show a few photos and then talk a little bit about my thoughts on the presentation by Greg Koch of Stone Brewing Co. I’ll start with Stone.

Greg Koch of Stone Brewing Co.

I pulled this exciting photo from Greg Koch’s twitter page. He’s at the Beer Blogger’s Conference in Boulder, Colorado. Greg’s presentation to the beer bloggers was charismatic and full of energy. At times he challenged the bloggers to do some investigative journalism to dig up juicy stories of shadey deals that go down between breweries and places that serve beer. He strongly encouraged a more radical approach to blogging. He also brought out an unreleased beer, Lucky Bastard 13, and let the whole room take samples. I was enjoying his approach and his stories until he began talking about how Stone is looking for a place in Europe to open up a new Stone brewery. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Art & Beer event last month was a tremendous amount of fun. It’s the second time I’ve organized the event and I hope the museum continues to invite me to do it. If you’re unaware of it, Art & Beer is an event that highlights one of Portland’s most well-known crafts, beer, as a form of art. If you know me, you know that I believe craft beer is a form of art, and that beer is an agent for social change. Angelo from Brewpublic interviewed me about this project as well as how I think about beer as art. For this event I chose Hopworks Urban Brewery, Coalition Brewery, and Rock Bottom Brewery. Brewers received tours of the museum and selected artworks that inspired the creation of new beers. The beers were then served free to museum visitors. We went through 8 kegs in just over 4 hours. That was wild. Here’s a quick look at the artwork selected for this year’s beers.

N.C. Wyeth’s The Great Train Robbery inspired Coaltion’s beer. Their beer was a California Common, a style that got it’s name because people during the time depicted in this painting were moving West to California and would use a specific yeast that could ferment like a lager but in warmer temperature. The beer was fresh hopped with California hops and was called Liquid Sterling. Read the rest of this entry »

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Description:
Art & Beer (2010) is the second event of it’s kind, brought to you by Eric Steen and the Portland Art Museum. Art & Beer combines beer, one of Portland’s most well known crafts, with experiencing art. For one night only, you can sample three new beers from Coaltion Brewing, Hopworks Urban Brewery, and Rock Bottom Brewery at the Portland Art Museum. Each brewery received a tour of the museum’s collection, selected an artwork and will make a beer inspired by that artwork. The selected artwork and the beer style will remain a surprise until the night of the event. This beer sampling is part of a one night event called Shine A Light, an event that will host a number of performances, time-based art actions, music, and more. The entry fee for the event is $12 and will give you access to all the art and performances, the museums galleries, and unlimited sampling of the three new beers.

The Brewers:
Coalition Brewing: Bruce MacPhee and Elan Walksy
Hopworks Urban Brewery: Christian Ettinger and Ben Love
Rock Bottom Brewery: Van Havig

The Art:
Sorry! We’re not going to give away the surprise!

Details:
Portland Art Museum
October 15th, 6pm – Midnight (or until the beer runs out!)
$12 entry includes access to all the nights events, the art collections and unlimited beer samples

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Today I was shown these images of scenes from science fiction movies that were created out of recycled ink cartridges. They’re pretty amazing as both images and objects. The artist is Faith Pearson, who I can’t find much information about. See more images at the Ink and Media Blog.

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The Daily Pull had a great post about whether it is still “craft” it one brewer has someone else brew their beer. The post uses Goose Island from Chicago as a point of departure. Read that article first here. Here’s my response:

It’s a really good question. I’m not so quick to dismiss the craft aspect of it though. Let’s say I’m a homebrewer and a lot of people like my beer so I sell it illegally or give it away. One day someone else let me use their equipment and I made my beer on their equipment. People continue to be interested in it, so this person keeps letting me brew on their system. Read the rest of this entry »

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I bet you all didn’t know that I drew comics. Well, I do. And, I’ve been drawing them for 13 years. No joke.
Anyway, I wanted to offer you my latest drawings, which are an emotional reaction to the last episodes of LOST, one of the popular television shows this decade. I’m not in the least sorry to tell you that I did  not watch a single episode of this last season, but heard what happened 2nd hand. I’m glad I didn’t watch it, it sounded more confusing, cheesy, and boring than ever. I think that the whole time-travel season really threw me off, but I figured that J.J. Abrams was just practicing for Star Trek, which was an amazing movie. Also, I decided that anytime my roommates would watch LOST, I watch back-episodes of Dr. Who. Anywho, I hope that the time-travel is easy enough to follow and that you enjoy the comic as much as you enjoyed the series.

Our Life – Disappointed LOST Fans

June 2010

Click on the image for full-size.
Part 01:

Part 02:

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There is a nice post about Beer-Evangelism over at the New School Beer Blog. It is about Ben’s attempt to show some of Portland’s finest beer offerings to people who did not necessarily like or care to drink beer. My comments are a nice anecdote to the blog post, but I’ll also copy and past them below. I’m curious about beer-evangelism because I have found myself doing it. I grew up in a Christian household and evangelism was something that was seen as normal and good, but as I’ve grown older I’ve developed a distate for it. Now when I develop a strong interest in something I find myself still trying to “convert” the nonconverted, trying to get them to see something that I see that they don’t yet see. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it when it comes to beer, or when it comes to attempting to share your interests with others. I think that common-experience and shared interest is a huge part of why it’s done though. People want to feel connected to other people; it’s part of human nature to band together and find some kind of idyllic value in the groups we form. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hello readers, as you may have noticed I have been quite slow in posting to this blog lately. I am currently visiting Scotland, where I am creating a one-night pub for homebrewers and a series of beer-related events called Pub School. More information about that can be found over at glasgowbeerandpubproject.blogspot.com. So far, things are going quite well. I’m learning a lot about beer in the UK, as well as the climate and what I might call a nervous-readiness for a more vibrant pub scene. Now, don’t get me wrong, the pub scene here is boosting, but in terms of great-beer-pubs they are fewer and far between (in Scotland at least). I think there is plenty of room for some growth here, and I think some of the people I’ve been in touch with could be forerunners in this industry (I hate calling it an industry…rather, it would be work that they would love to do).

I have needed to slow down on my posting to beerandscifi because I have been rethinking the site. I’m not ready to talk much about it, but I am ready to tell you all that I’m going to just sit on it for a while until I figure it out. I think some good time out will help me a lot. Lately, I’ve had this constant nagging in the back of my head that I need to post something, but I don’t want to just blindly post things without a secure direction, so that’s what I’ll be figuring out. With that said I just might post something if I’m really inspired, but I don’t want you to expect anything from me for a while. Please check back to see if/when I’ve started up again.

For now, you are welcome to follow me on twitter.com/beerandscifi where I have been quite active. It’s much easier to post things to that page because they are of less consequence. If I post stuff you aren’t interested on the blog, you’ll stop reading…but you likely will find little weird things more appropriate on twitter.

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This is a preview of the labels I’m making for my Heather Ales. I made four 10 gallon batches of Heather Ale, using heather flowers, bog myrtle, and a little hops for their acidity (not flavoring). Each batch is slightly different.

I’m creating these for two different events: The Mythical State of Jefferson exhibition at Southern Oregon University’s Schneider Art Museum and the Open Engagement Conference in Portland Oregon (both are in May, 2010). The Jefferson show is about Northern California’s secession movement, democracy, and the idea that you can take political matters into your own hands. The Open Engagement Conference is focusing on the ins and outs of socially engaged art. I was mostly interested in the history of this beer. The ingredients were banned in 1707 by the Act of Union when Scotland was made part of Great Britain. The recipe was mostly lost until someone had it translated in 1986. The beer has helped usher in a huge interest in extinct or nearly extinct beer styles. It is also a great example of the diversity that geography brings to beer. This is part of the reason I see drinking quality craft beer to be a form of activism, and not just consumerism; by drinking craft beer you are saying no to mass produced, tasteless beer that relies on chauvinism to sell its products and instead you are turning to a drink that celebrates local business, geography, complex tastes, quality, and embraces a longstanding human tradition.

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I just read a review of the movie Beer Wars over at The Brew Dude. It’s the first review I’ve read that gives some criticism, albeit quite constructive-criticism. The Dude’s main complaint is that “more (smaller than Dogfish) craft brewers could have been included in the story to help with the realization that the community is so huge but so small & collaboratively driven at the same time.”

As an observer of the craft beer industry and a consumer of their wonderful products I have very much felt the collaborative nature of these businesses. It often seems like local brewers aren’t out to get each other and steal the market; they just want to make quality products and share them. This collaborative economy makes customers feel a part of the community and it grows interest so that no market stealing is necessary.

As far as the movie goes, everyone has given it a thumbs up, including the Brew Dude so don’t be deterred. It likely raises some important questions about the way industrial beer corporations do business and whether or not you, the consumer, want to support them. I also read this article, What Budweiser Can Teach You About Innovation, and I can’t tell if it’s a joke or not but it helps solidify my thoughts that the only innovative thing that’s happening in mega beer corporations is manipulative marketing.

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Today I saw an interesting post over at A Good Beer Blog. Taking a quote from Zythophile, he thought through it’s meaning and wrote a few nice paragraphs. Go check it out. Here’s the quote:

“It’s not said often enough in this argument: we drink because we enjoy it, and the overall happiness that brings to society, I would suggest, vastly outweighs any disbenefits.”

And in reply:
“…If we are thinking about good beer we should also take an interesting in increasing and sharing the benefits while reducing easily identifiable harm – including those harms short of full bore alcoholism. When I think about this blog writing and the thousand of you who I am told read my posts every day I sometime wonder if I have encouraged anyone into a habit that is harmful rather than convivial. I am not satisfied to think of the statistics…”

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