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From the HopPress: A Change of Seasons

VTHopHead — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:11:34 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, August 28th.

All of the typical signs are evident that summer is coming to an end and that fall is almost upon us; school began in most local districts this last week, the Champlain Valley Fair starts its 10-day run today and the summer green of the Vermont hillsides are slowly showing a hint of that blaze of color that will be dominant in a month or so.

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From the HopPress: A Beer Industry Checkup

VTHopHead — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:09:22 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, August 14th.

It has been a while since I took a more than cursory glance at the beer industry as a whole. What with the economy raising cane in most parts of the world for the last 24 months or so, I was a little afraid of what I might find. Even with some signs of a weak economic recovery beginning here in the US and a few other parts of the world, there are many significant business and personal tragedies left over from the economic devastation that reigned for the better part of 2009 and into most of 2010. For many, the last couple of years have left them financially scarred… a moderate to severe reduction in the value of their retirement nest egg and their real estate investments. The fortunate ones have something of value left to still call their own; the less fortunate are left to try to restructure and restore their personal, business and economic lives.

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From the HopPress: Harpoon BBQ Championships of New England

VTHopHead — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:14:15 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 31st.

Each July for the last 10 years some of New England’s best barbequers and grillers have descended upon tiny Windsor, VT for the New England Championships of BBQ, which is hosted on the grounds of the Harpoon Brewery. This New England Barbecue Society supervised event is attended by thousands of hungry BBQ fans all hoping to get a taste of some of the best BBQ this side of Kansas City and, of course, to sample some of Harpoon’s great beers.

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From the HopPress: The Vermont Brewers Festival

VTHopHead — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:14:38 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 24th.

Last weekend was the 18^th annual Vermont Brewer’s Festival (VBF) in Burlington, Vermont. I had not taken this event in for a couple of years, so I was really looking forward to visiting with some of the new breweries that were to be there this year and to see if they had made any changes in the event to improve upon the experience of the festival attendees from years past.

Organized by the 21-member breweries of the Vermont Brewers Association, the VBF is held every year on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington’s Waterfront Park. It is a truly beautiful setting to hold such an event and last Saturday’s hot and sunny weather made it seem that much better. The proximity of the lake and a steady,cooling breeze coming off of the water made the day seem pleasant, in spite of the fact that the temperature reached 90F that afternoon.

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From the HopPress: The Taste of Beer

VTHopHead — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:26:31 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 17th.

Extra! Extra! Not everyone likes beer! While that is hardly news to any of us and sounds exceedingly silly to the average craft beer aficionado, it is clearly the case for many non-beer drinkers and the majority referenced dislike is the “taste” of the beer. I have even found that the so called “macro” beer drinkers don’t really like the stronger (more flavorful) taste of craft beers. Why do you think that is (says me)? It is not, at all, unusual for me to be a more than occasional “inner thinker” and for the last week or so, following a lengthy conversation with a decidedly non-beer drinker concerning my favorite brewed beverage, I have been thinking, quite intensely, about why I like beer. I thought that it might be interesting to other people to learn more about the phenomenon of “taste”, why I choose to drink beer (I like the taste) and some of the factors that might enter into the decision tree in determining whether a person likes beer or even a particular beer… or not

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From the HopPress: Outside the Beer – Bottles

VTHopHead — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:09:48 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 10th.

For years my father maintained a eclectic collection of beer bottles and other beer-related paraphernalia. He worked at the Sterling brewery in Evansville, IN during college and this set the stage for a near lifetime of collecting bottles and other odd “beer stuff” that struck his fancy. Pieces of this collection of his were sometimes visible around the house at various times throughout my life; its quantity and location carefully negotiated with my mother I’m sure. All of it now sits in boxes in their basement waiting for its next destination (likely my son). I guess that I was fortunate to discover Ratebeer early enough in my serious craft beer drinking days and simply avoided the need to maintain any kind of a physical beer collection… I have plenty of “stuff” already (my wife agrees). I have to admit though, some of the more interesting pieces of his collection were the various types of beer bottles. While it might be interesting in a future article to look, historically, at beer bottles, today I will examine the state of the beer bottle in the current marketplace. Beer bottles over the years have taken many forms and shapes, but today, while there is still some variation by brewer and by region, most bottles today fall into just a few major/broad types and sizes.

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From the HopPress: Celebrating Independence Day

VTHopHead — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:40:13 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, July 3rd.

Its hard to believe that we are half way through the summer already. The 4^th of July is generally the height of the summer weather we have here during Vermont’s short summer. Before long the nights will begin to cool down and we will start back into our long winter weather cycle. The weather so far this summer has been hit or miss… sometimes pleasantly sunny, but also a lot of rain. We even had a chance of frost for a couple of nights just a few weeks ago. This weekend, however, the “weather gods” have seen fit to provide us with perfect weather for the long holiday weekend… temperatures in the 80s to near 90F, a small chance of rain and plenty of sunshine… love it…

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From the HopPress: ACBF 2010 – My Final Thoughts

VTHopHead — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 20:49:06 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, June 26th.

Thanks to the benevolence of the folks at Beer Advocate, I was fortunate to be able to attend all three sessions of this year’s American Craft Beer Fest held at the Seaport World Trade center in Boston. This is, in my opinion, a perfect setting for this event. This large conference center sits right on Boston’s waterfront with easy access to mass transit with plenty of hotels and restaurants nearby. The weather last weekend was also perfect; sunny and warm.

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From the HopPress: ACBF 2010 – First Impressions

VTHopHead — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:26:58 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, June 19th.

I was one of about 3,000 people that attended the first session of the American Craft Beer Fest (ACBF) in Boston last night. This annual event, the East Coast’s largest beer festival, is being held at the Seaport World Trade Center. Today there will be two additional sessions and each of these session is likely to draw around 5,000 craft beer seekers.

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From the HopPress: Reflections on 1000 Beers

VTHopHead — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:20:17 +0000

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, June 12th.

I recently reached one of those “important” milestones with my Ratebeer beer collection… my 1,000^th beer rating. While I am sure that there are some Ratebeerians that would laugh at such a paltry number of ratings (the “top dog”, rating-wise, on Ratebeer is rapidly approaching 17,000 ratings!), for me the actual process of collecting these ratings is much more important than the number of ratings. Am I thrilled that I attained this milestone… absolutely, but the story and the experience of collecting that rating will always mean much more to me than the fact that it was my 1,000^th. I have written before about how serious I am about collecting “experiences” along the way, rather than just simply beers.

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