Sustainable Beer Haiku

Captain Hops over at Beer Haiku Daily posted this little ditty today in honor of next months beer-blogging Session on organic beer:

toasting mother earth
pure sustainable brewing
now and tomorrow

I gotta say, I love the fact that this guy writes a haiku on beer every day. Okay, well, some days he publishes haiku from his readers, but still. Thanks for the poetical inspiration Cap’n!

Beer Activist at Shirlington Library, Busboys & Poets

WHAT: Book reading, discussion, and organic beer tasting.

WHEN: Sunday, December 2, 2007, 3-5pm

WHERE: From 3-4pm, I’ll be speaking at the Shirlington, VA public library, 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206 (the environmentally-designed Shirlington Library is worth a visit in its own right – they are currently applying to the US Green Building Council to have the facility recognized as a LEED certified green building); then from 4-5, we’ll move across the street to Shirlington’s new radical cafe/bookstore Busboys and Poets for a book signing and organic beer reception.

WHY: Learn how to Drink Beer and Save the World!

COST: Absolutely free.

MORE DETAILS: See the events listings on the Busboys and Poets website here.

Need another reason to come out for this? The Capitol City Brewing Co. has a brewpub right across the street in Shirlington. Their “Fuel” coffee stout is just the buzz you need on a chilly Sunday afternoon!

“We Do Not Digress Enough in Our Lives” Michael Jackson, the Beer Hunter

My first proper beer tasting was an evening with Michael Jackson at the Brickskeller about ten years ago. Michael Jackson, for those unfamiliar, is essentially the father of modern beer appreciation.

Jackson approached the evening as if everyone in the room was sitting ’round a fireplace drinking great beer and telling tales of adventure. Michael was, of course, the best story teller in the room, so we were all transfixed by his words (as well as by his eyebrows, which were rather robust). His plotline was never the most obviously direct route. Instead, he roamed down side roads until suddenly appearing at a surprise destination — always some place that illustrated a sublime point about appreciating the good life with beer.

Not all the side roads lead to destinations though. Some were merely entertaining explorations meant to be appreciated in their own right. He was proud of these digressions and acknowledged them as such. His general disposition projected an attitude that was as if he always found himself needing to say: “Please relax. Can’t you see we are drinking beer and telling stories here?”

My favorite quote from him, which I even cite in my book, is: “We do not digress enough in our lives.”

The last time I saw him was about a year or so ago. I had lucked into a free invitation-only private tasting with Michael in the back room of the basement at the Brickskeller. That night he digressed more than usual and occasionally lost the plot altogether. Later that night I learned that he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Today’s edition of the U.K.-based Morning Advertiser reports that Michael Jackson died in his home. You can read the fruits of his thirty year beer writing career at his website and you can find his many books at bookstores everywhere. I highly suggest reading his last column, which was scheduled to be published in the next edition of All About Beer magazine. It is both hilarious and eerily preminiscent.

Tonight, my beer drinking and digressions will be in memory of Michael Jackson.

The Joy of Drinking

Today’s Washington Post has an interview with Barbara Holland, author of The Joy of Drinking. She ‘s a fabulous old tart.

Her books include (among others):

• Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences

• They Went Whistling – Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades

• Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals, & Malarkey from George W. to George W.

At the end of the Post interview (during which they polished off a bottle of wine), she sang this ditty to the interviewer:

I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg,
And every time she cackled, she would lay a wooden egg.
She was the best little hen that we had on the farm,
And another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm.

Sounds like my kind of dame.

Real ale and poetry make a bad day better.

I got in an argument with my girlfriend. Someone tried to steal my scooter. My pipes froze. It’s been a trying day.

So wasn’t I happy when I came home and read a comment on my blog from Captain Hops over at Beer Haiku Daily. He says my blog inspired him to write this beer haiku:

Drink beer. Save the world.
A mighty fine sentiment.
I’ll start with the beer.

Thanks Captain Hops! Your comment, and the first glass of real ale that I just hand-pumped from my first kegged batch of real ale in years, made my day a lot better.