Legal Beer

Here we go again, so lets start off with something fun.

Dj from Fermentarium informs us that cosmic creatures don’t want to be left out of the fun as scientists have found a cloud of ethyl alcohol one thousand times the size of our solar system. Unfortunately it’s 10,000 light years away so I have the feeling were going to be late to the party.

The good man Stonch points us to a wonderful sign that reminds us to mind our manners while on our cell phones in a very appropriately blunt manner. Check it out.

In some good news for my fine city of Minneapolis the Tour de Fat which is sponsored by New Belgium Brewing Company will be coming our way on July 18th  2009 for the first year. It should be a lovely bike ridden parade of happy folk in costume and of course beer will be available. Not only is this a non-profit event but further it will be benefiting MORC/MOCA as well as another to be named Minnesota organization. Go drink some beer for a good cause, not that I need an excuse to get on my bike and party.

Rick Sellers the Beer Director over at Draft Magazine has posted such a lovely write up of the 2009 Toronado Belgian Beer Dinner complete with ever so desirable pictures I can not help but link to it. Don’t dare look at this link if you are hungry. I can only hope to produce beer dinners of this quality some day.

Now for a mariad of posts from J over at The Brookston Beer Bulletin: First The Brewers Association just released their lists of top breweries in 2008 and  J was so kind as to annotate a comparison of breweries ranks from 2007 to 2008. Which I have pasted below. Interesting stuff.

1. Anheuser-Busch InBev; #1 last year, no surprises, apart from the name change
2. MillerCoors; ditto for #2, including a name change
3. Pabst Brewing; Moved up 1, thanks to Miller/Coors merger
4. Boston Beer Co.; Moved up 1, thanks to M/C, before that 2 years at #5
5. D. G. Yuengling and Son; Moved up 1, thanks to M/C
6. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Moved up 1, thanks to M/C
7. Craft Brewers Alliance; Widmer moved up 4 & Redhook 5 as a combined company
8. New Belgium Brewing; Same as last year
9. High Falls Brewing; Same as last year
10. Spoetzl Brewery; Same as last year
11. Pyramid Breweries; Up 2 spots, their 2nd two spot jump in a row
12. Deschutes Brewery; Up 4 from #16 last year
13. Iron City Brewing (fka Pittsburgh Brewing); Up 4 from #17 last year
14. Minhas Craft Brewery; Up 1 over last year
15. Matt Brewing; Down 1 spot, switched places with Minhas
16. Boulevard Brewing; Up 2 from #18 last year
17. Full Sail Brewing; Up 2 from #19 last year
18. Magic Hat Brewing; Up 4 from #22
19. Alaskan Brewing; Up 2 from #21 last year
20. Harpoon Brewery; Same as last year
21. Bell’s Brewery; Up 3 from #24 last year
22. Goose Island Beer; Up 3 from #25 last year
23. Kona Brewing; Shot up 14 from #37 last year, after dropping Down 14 the year before
24. Anchor Brewing; Down 1 from #23, 2nd year Down 1
25. August Schell Brewing; Up 1 from #26 last year
26. Shipyard Brewing; Up 1 from #27 last year
27. Summit Brewing; Up 1 from #28 last year
28. Stone Brewing; Up 5 from 33, after moving Up 4 last year & 11 the year before
29. Mendocino Brewing; Same as last year
30. Abita Brewing; Same as last year
31. Brooklyn Brewery; Up 1 from #32 last year
32. New Glarus Brewing; Up 4 from #36, after dropping 1 last year, but jumping 10 spots the year before
33. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Up 5 from #38, after being Up 4 the year before
34. Long Trail Brewing; Up 1 #35
35. Gordon Biersch Brewing; Down 4 from #31, from Down 6 the previous year
36. Rogue Ales; Down 2 from #34, canceling being Up 2 the year before
37. Great Lakes Brewing; Up 3 from #40
38. Lagunitas Brewing; Up 3 for 2nd year, this time from #41 last year
39. Firestone Walker Brewing; Same as last year
40. Sweetwater Brewing; Up 3 for second time, this time from #43 last year
41. Flying Dog Brewery; Up 1 from #42 last year
42. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Up 7 from #49 last year
43. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Up 2 from #45 last year
44. BridgePort Brewing; Same as last year
45. Odell Brewing; Up 3 from #48 last year
46. Victory Brewing; Up 4 from #50 last year
47. Straub Brewery; Same as last year, after dropping 4 the previous year
48. Cold Spring Brewery (fka Gluek Brewing); Down 2 from #46 last year
49. Mac and Jack’s Brewery; Redmond WA; Not in Top 50 last year
50. Big Sky Brewing; Missoula MT; Not in Top 50 last year

Next J writes about and links to an interesting article about prohibition and how doctors lobbied for the right to prescribe medicinal beer, the issue was more about doctors knowing best for their patients and less about beer in particular but it was still quite a hot topic. A good read that makes me wonder what it will take for doctors to think more about what substances actually help people.

I try to stay away from too much politics with this blog as it is mainly intended to be about beer but here we go anyways. J links to a creatively illustrated simple video that talks a little bit about the credit crisis. Though it is largely just talking about one factor it is an important thing for people to know more about as the mass  media doesn’t really help anyone. A clever short that is probably worth your time if for nothing other than humor.

Since were at it I see no reason not to continue going off topic so I have here a link from Techdirt about copyright. Simply the article talks about how people who take up litigious suits stating that copyright has been infringed should have to show that actual harm has been done because of the infringement. In our current state we have far too many stupid laws on the books, so many that our lawmakers tend not to read them, this is a problem. Copyright was created to protect inventors not to create a battering ram for corporations to stomp out competition, yet that is how it is most often used today. The Craft Beer industry has numerous examples of issues with copyright, some of which have been handled wonderfully (see Avery Brewing / Russian River Brewing’s Collaboration not Litigation Ale) and others that haven’t worked out as well for the small breweries involved (see the recent name change of Laughing Buddha). Sure we live in a big world and need some frame work of rules, but many of the ones we currently employee simply do not work and I for one say they should be laid off, or at least amended. Enough of politics, I need a beer.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Beer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.