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Beer Review: Bell’s Two Hearted Ale

June 27, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Through the morning winking between white oaks, through the steam rising up from my dark roast, through the headached fog of a bad night’s sleep, I can see my garden. From my office window all one hundred odd square feet lay bare; Maryland dirt formed into six long rows, surrounded by a Hadrian’s wall of recycled concrete pavers, barely ankle high, just enough to keep peace with the armies of grass on the other side. Gangly sweet peas cling desperately to bamboo teepees while across the road, their broccoli and Brussels sprouts neighbors can’t seem to rid their houses of pests. Tomato tenements block the light to the carrot slums below, and two stately Willamette hops scrape the sky, regal, austere.

A tell-tale banjo-pluck of an incoming email reminds me that now is not the time for dirt on hands. Now is the time for documentation and duties, for corporate and coworkers, for processes and paychecks. The job bought and keeps the land, but the land craves all my attention. On days when summer lets off the throttle and drops the heat into second gear, it becomes very difficult not to trade the sickly glow of blue monitors for the healthy glow of yellow sun.

I planted this year subconsciously, passively. Seeds were purchased; pots were filled; soil was fertilized; sprouts were watered. Not until I plucked the first pod from my peas, or saw the first hop cone popping from bine, did I realize that growing was my mind’s natural reaction to losing; green life a spiritual replacement for gray death. My obsession with creating a garden from seed, from creating life where there was just a handful of potential before, wasn’t random or strange, but grief manifest.

My heart is broken, ne’er to be repaired. The faults and cracks have finally cleaved the thing in two, left it beating two conflicting rhythms; one rasorial and flighty, the other responsible and grounded. Having two hearts presents a professional conundrum, because a sundered heart is a free heart, a heart suddenly opened wide to all the realities from which we often hide, a heart that by experiencing the worst, has nothing left to fear. A broken heart is to be envied if we’re being honest, as its owner awakes from the walking dream to a world where all possibilities and eventualities are real, both good and bad. A broken heart is liberation through pain, an audit on your life with red hot poker, an emancipating agreement signed with emotional and spiritual blood.

As I sit at my desk, trying my best to carefully sort technical from superfluous and turn jargon into justification, the mewing of a catbird and the wind rearranging the leaves of the trees pulls my mind away. The new half of my heart beats wildly, impulsively, telling me to go spend my time how I want to spend it, not how my brain tells me I should spend it, logically. More often than not, before the pragmatic tie-wearing half of my psychomachia can even show up to field an argument, I’m off running, or weeding, or watering, or just lying on my back, eyes closed, relishing all that extra Vitamin D production.

Even though it’s broken, this new heart is much kinder than my old heart. At least half thumps with jeux de vie, shedding apprehension about pursuing what I love, telling me with each cardiac cascade that I’m alive and as a result, should probably do my best to live. In the sea of red blood cells swims a spirit born again, a spirit who considers my brewing equipment more important than my government issue laptop, the fledgling fruit on my tomato plants more important than that ever looming deadline.

So nightly I scrub the dirt and toil from under my fingernails, rinse the sweat from my face and hair, plop down on the couch tired but satisfied. I pour myself into life outside of the nine-to-five like a beer into a glass, taking on a new shape where I had long been confined, roaring to a bubbly head with enthusiasm, settling to relax and and enjoy the creamy complexity of a Friday night heavily hopped with good stories and good friends. My heart is broken, split in two, and contrary to all long-held belief, to all established understanding of the matter, it may be the single best thing that ever happened to me.

“For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken. It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.” ― D.H. Lawrence

So you want to be a Beer Writer? – Part 2 – What are you reading?

March 20, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

If you’ve traipsed down the shadowy alley of writing advice, you’ve almost certainly come across the, “to be a better writer, you have to write!” obviousisms, which are usually followed by the trumpeting accompaniment of, “but you have to read, too!” I’m not here to deny either of those pieces of advice. To be a better writer, you definitely do need to write, and possibly more than you’re writing now. To be a better writer you do need to read good writing, preferably more on the side of good books and essays and stories, and less on the side of Buzzfeed and TMZ and DailyMail.

What you read is just as (if not more) important as what you write. It gives you examples of excellent storytelling and wordplay. It offers perspective from another, educated angle. It shows you what it takes to write something marketable, that people will actually want to read.

One of the best aspects of being a beer writer is that you’re not really a beer writer. I mean you’re not only a beer writer. Our bubbly beau topically involves culture, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, economics, and all manner of other abstract intangibles like love and passion and modern facial hair styles. Beer is pretty close to an ideal nonfiction subject; the simple topics can be broken down into ever more complex and curious ideas almost infinitely, like a Russian Doll whose last, tiny form is located precisely wherever your imagination happened to run out of energy.

There’s a draw back to having so malleable a topic: to be successful you’ll need to know about more than just beer. Depending on what you want to write, maybe a lot more. If you so choose to don the hallowed robes of beer writing, you’re going to have become a science writer, too. And a memoirist. And a social pundit. And a journalist. And a critic. And an essayist. And maybe a bunch of other things I’m forgetting.

You’ve got to be a writer first and a beer lover second. The best way to do that is to round-out your bookshelf (or Kindle, if that’s what you crazy kids are into).

When I started my masters program, sitting in class with a bunch of other bright-eyed, crazy-minded writers all talking about their day-jobs and future writing prospects, it struck me that I was woefully under-read. My peers were throwing out author names and essay titles that I couldn’t even pretend like I’d heard of. I knew from the very first session of my very first class that I needed to start reading more. The only problem was, given the massive spread of options on Amazon and the daunting sprawl of stacks at the local library, I had no idea where to start.

If you’re like I was then, I’m here to help. I’ve created a list that includes my favorite books about beer, but also lots not about beer to serve as examples of great nonfiction. This list is by no means exhaustive, it’s just the writing I’ve connected to the deepest, and learned the most from.

(I also encourage you to throw out your favorites in the comments if you don’t see them here)

Science/Brewing Beer Books

Principles of Brewing Science – George Fix
For the Love of Hops – Stan Heironymous
Yeast – The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation – Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff
Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers – John Palmer
How to Brew – John Palmer

Beer Culture, Styles, and Tasting

The Brewmaster’s Table – Garrett Oliver
The Oxford Companion to Beer – Garrett Oliver
Beer Tasting Tool Kit – Jeff Alworth
The World Atlas of Beer – Tim Webb
Beer, Food, and Flavor: A Guide to Tasting, Pairing, and the Culture of Craft Beer – Schuyler Schultz
The Audacity of Hops – Tom Acitelli

Science/Food Nonfiction

Ominvore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan
Oranges – John McPhee
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
Stiff – Mary Roach
The Soul of a New Machine – Tracey Kidder

Other Nonfiction

Up in the Old Hotel – Joseph Mitchell
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
The Hero With a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell
The Golden Bough – James Frazer
Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
The Perfect Storm – Sebastian Junger

Memoir

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolff
Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller
Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
The Pharmacist’s Mate – Amy Fusselman

Essays/Journalism

Strawberries Under Ice – David Quammen
The Search for Marvin Gardens – John McPhee
Frank Sinatra has a Cold – Gay Talese
Dark Horse – Lisa Couturier

I didn't mention magazines because I'm still dipping my toes into that pool. You can't really go wrong with The Atlantic, Smithsonian, NatGeo, or the New Yorker though.

I didn’t mention magazines because I’m still dipping my toes into that pool and can’t speak with much authority. You can’t really go wrong with The Atlantic, Smithsonian, NatGeo, or the New Yorker though.

The Session 84 – Round-Up (Part 2)

February 19, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

(Same note as yesterday: If I missed anyone, it was not intentional, I just didn’t see your link on Twitter or in the comments of the announcement. If you don’t see yourself here, send me a link and I’ll add you.)

I broke my round-up in half, right down the perforated line on the edge of the blog, partly because of length, but partly because a full third of the entries seemed to follow the same motif. In a style I like to call “beer memoir” (memboir? Bemoir?), lots of intrepid writers dug down into their memory banks to lift out their favorite beer-splashed stories.

I enjoy this nonfiction format because it gives me more context about why beer is important to a person, their family, and their history. It fizzes in all those otherwise fuzzy details about their identity as human beings, not just as drinkers, and lets me connect to them on a personal level that is missing in a generic review. A beer memoir is a microcosm of what I think all beer writing should be, the heart of why beer matters, so bravo to all of you took exit 6B for Memoirtown.

I’ll start with our next Session host, Doug Smiley, who showed us through a touching homage to his home and family, that beer isn’t always about the fanciest ingredients. It’s more about who you share it with, and the memories you build around it. His Iron City is my Boddingtons; a single beer, that despite objectively better options, somehow sends out taste buds longing. I think we all have one of those, a generally “meh” beer made better by that adjunct we often overlook: nostalgia.

Ryan Mould wrote similarly, regaling us with tales of Maine, and summers, and cats named after brewing essentials. It’s very awesome to see where a beer enthusiast got his start, and in Ryan’s story we are taken on a quick literary tour of where he first learned what wort was, which I assume, cascaded into a life-long love affair. I feel like I know Ryan a tiny bit better now, and would love to pick his brain about the Shipyard brews he downed in those lost Atlantic days.

There are some stories that are so well written, so spot-on, that they stir up all the dust in the room spontaneously, and make my eyes water (which is totally different than crying). Derrick Peterman (or as I’d like to call him, Brew Dad of the year, 2014) gave us an incredibly insightful and thoughtful comparison of his infected batch of otherwise amazing homebrew, and his autistic son, Brandon. The comparison was no only apt, but so well articulated that I can’t help but want to read more of Derrick’s work. This was the only homebrew related post in the Session, and I think his metaphor could go even further, if applied to all the tribulations we face and try to brew our way through. He closes with a quote surely spawned from the purest corners of a compassionate heart: “If you’ve ever brewed a flawed beer and still loved it anyway, I think you’ll understand.”

Natasha (aka Tasha) captured the very essence of memoir, possibly infused with blackberry and spiked with raspberry, if we’ll allow such delicious abstractions. Her darting reminiscence and wishes for the future, all intertwined around BCBS Bramble Rye, left me with tart tastes on the tongue of my mind. I seriously felt like I could taste the bursting fruit of this blog post. I also find it interesting that BCBS Bramble Rye is now retired. A perfect conclusion to three perfect days that can never be recreated, except in Tasha’s memory.

A lot of us complain about seasonal creep in beer, all those pumpkin beer hitting the shelves in August, all those light, refreshing spring beers popping up while a lot of us are still cowering under the snowy hug of grumpy-ass winter. But Keith Mathais said “damn the man!” (partly due to no other options) and embraced the seasonal creep by drinking Christmas beer on Halloween. I think he touched on a deeper idea that we should just enjoy the beer for what is is when it is, but also about how our holidays, based on how and who we spend them with, are in his perfect word, “congruent.”

Vincent Speranza gave us what feels and read like a drunken night out in SoHo, circa 2000, longing for tacos, drinking beer from buckets. This flash back is similar to a lot of my own; lots of speculation about what actually happened, who I challenged to a foot race or a fight, just how exactly I wound up where, and the ever present, seething, burning desire to find something good to eat. If Vincent’s goal was to capture a 14 year-old blur on the page, mission accomplished, and I love him for it.

The next post could have easily been included with yesterday’s miscellaneous section, but Bill Kostkas was the only person (aside from Alan at Growler Fills) to raise his hand and say, “no, sir, you are silly. I am a beer reviewer and to not review a beer is insufferable nonsense!” But after stating that, also played along, and gave us a third party memoir, from the infamous (and famous?) Clifford Calvin. All I can say is, Cheers!

The Beer Nut (whose real name I could not find for the life of me) took us arid, deep into the lagery depths of The Grand Hotel Tazi, in Marrakesh, Morocco. This was one of the only posts to go international without already being international (if that makes sense) and Nut’s vivid capture of Morocco’s beer scene stood in perfect juxtaposition to the vivdlessness of the beer itself. If the pictures betray anything, all beer in Marrakesh, regardless of brand, looks exactly the same. Nut get +1000 bonus points here for claiming the Session was “under my aegis.” Swoon.

In the post that I think most explicitly aligned with the sentiment I was going for, Jon Jefferson pointed out that “Our emotions tied to memory are our strongest” and that “you can claim you are analytically tasting and all that but the reality is, our flavor and emotional memories are the guiding principles that we use when judging anything.” These two quotes sum up this Session for me: we’re nothing without our memories and experiences, and each and every one fuels what we see, taste, smell, hear, and touch. Objectivity does not exist when even a smidgen of subjectivity slips in, and I think Jon gets that. I’d be happy to try my hand at brewing Orangeboom, if Jon was interested, and a recipe could be unearthed.

To round-out this round-up, James’s post just, excuse my lapse in proper diction, fucking nails it. This is the kind of thing I want to read every day, that echoes the beauty of Good Beer Hunting’s recent treatise on Hill Farmstead Brewing. I get so much about Australia, James himself, and the myriad minutiae that bring him to write. It’s the kind of engaging word-smithery that I long for, and hope others will emulate going forward.

I’m so thankful to everyone who played along with my crazyness, and hope they pulled something from the detritus of an otherwise incoherent Session. Write on, sweet friends. Drink, and write on.

“Our job is to open a door, and on the other side is a better life.”

The Session 84 – Round-Up (Part 1)

February 18, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

(My round-up will be in two parts, due to length)

Listening to Garrett Oliver talk about many beer bloggers and journalists “missing the story behind beer” this weekend at the University of Kentuck Craft Writing Symposium makes me especially glad that I got such a great (and varied!) turn out for my turn hosting The Session. I was worried that the topic might be a little too avant garde, a little too Dogfish and not enough Sierra Nevada. I was worried it might annoy some people, or turn them off with it’s open endedness and unabashed rule breaking. But I got 31* responses ranging from silent movies to poems to stream of conciousness word art, and each and every post tickled the creative corners of my brain with feathery delight.

*(If I missed anyone, it was not intentional, I just didn’t see your link on Twitter or in the comments of the announcement. If you don’t see your self here, send me a link and I’ll add you. You may also be in part 2, coming tomorrow.)

With this Session, I wasn’t just trying to be silly. My goal was to get you thinking in a different way, a perpendicular way, perhaps even in a way that opened the door to something beyond the contents of the glass. Beer seems magical when you sink down into the scientific beauty of fermentation, but again, to paraphrase Mr. Oliver – “Beer isn’t chemicals; beer is people.” And people are stories. And poems. And films and songs and photos. The beer is only the surface of an ocean of lives lived in, with, on, around, and because of brewing.

I’ll start with those who used my second favorite medium next to words: photographs. Stan Hieronymus – partly responsible for starting this whole Session thing – presented 5 pictures, not necessarily beer related, with a beer name and a brief caption. The simplicity of his post let my brain wander and create stories for each, sort of sensory deperevation through images, I suppose. My favorite was the picture of the old, worn stone stairs. I imagined some drunk monk slipping down these after hitting the trippel a bit too hard.

Bryan D. Roth also chose the path most-photoed, getting cheeky (possibly even illegal in some states) with his “reviews.” It’s good to know I’m not the only one whose cat harasses them when they’re trying to peacefully sleep in the bathtub after some BCBS. Also, good to know Bryan has cornered the market on beer, potato chip, and pajama pairings.

John Abernathy wasn’t far behind with his excellent snowy #beertography of 10 Barrel Brewing’s “Wino” (that, as an aside, I think he should enter into an @beertography contest on Twitter) or as it’s now known, for anyone looking for it, “16 Barrels.”

Following closely were the moving photos, mesmerizing machinations that seemed as if thousands and thousands of still images had somehow been spliced together by some modern sorcery. David Bascombe’s 20’s era silent movie (slash mime) throw-back of him tasting a lambic had me laughing out loud in my cubicle, especially with that dastardly grin at the end (I take it he loves lambic). Boak and Bailey (Jessica and Ray, respectively) cobbled together a montage that felt like a perfect nod to art-deco, fruit, and keyboard synth music/drum machines. Oh, and yummy beer. I take it they quite liked Thornbridge Chiron (It’s a party!), and it was particularly citrusy. I will admit I was slightly disappointed they didn’t opt for the creative flower arrangement beer review. Maybe next time.

Deep down, I hoped one of our musically inclined brethren would cover a song for us, but several people went the audio route, either way. Looke of Likey Moose (yes, I read your about page) compiled an eclectic beery playlist (to review Potton Brewery’s Shambles) that opened with one of my favorite songs of all time: Beer by Reel Big Fish. The rest of the list was pretty stellar too. I mean it featured The Cure and Elbow, so it was clearly very awesome.

Simon Tucker did something I really hoped someone would, and reviewed a not-beer in the style of a beer. His beer-like review of The Fall’s album “Grotesque (After The Gramme)” was equally hilarious and poignant. Being an American neo-punk kid (Op Ivy and Tiger Army all day), I went and listened to this whole album, and I think Simon’s review of it was spot on (and it sounds like he has great headphones that really make the kazoo shine).

I had intentionally opened this Session up to all writers, hoping to coax a few non-beer people into our weird world, and apparently it worked! Cameron D. Garriepy penned a vivid piece of flash fiction that captured how intimate sharing a pint can be. Her story definitely made me want to get my hands on a bottle of Spinnaker from Rising Tide (and read more of her work).

Following suite, in less fictional ways, were our poets. Dan at Community Beer Works wove an i mpressive A-B-A scheme short poem that had me wondering where and why they were alone that night. I guess there’s no reason to keep up the fight. Thomas Cizauskas gave us a operatic ode (but he didn’t sing it), confessing his true love for cask ale, ah, sweet mystery of life it be. To round out the poets, I’ll include Sean Inman’s complex and fascinating stream of consciousness (not really poetry, but poetic none the less) that was either channeling my madness, his, or some combination thereof. Lance agonizing gashes under necktie in time as sentenced, indeed, my friend (since writing this, Sean commented, and I figured out his nonsense wasn’t nonsense at all, it was a brilliant first-letter = blog post concoction. Well played sir, well played).

In the only attempt at the literally dramatic, Glen Humphries gave us a short scene from a play that could have been ripped from the daily stage-direction of any beer geek’s life. Especially that part about conversations where hops are never brought up. Those still exist?

And now for what I can only label “miscellaneous;” those brilliant smatters of beer-fueled wisdom and tap-tuned wanderlust that I can only lump together because of their eccentricity. Fellow NAGBW winner Alan McCormick had me going for a bit as he blatantly insulted me for all the internet to see, until I realized his n on-review was a delicate, clever jab at Stone, and their well-known (and reviled?) Arrogant Bastard. Fellow DC denizen Jacob Berg waxed scientific about Lactobacillus, entertaining and educating us about Westbrook’s Gose and yeast in one fell, sour swoop.

Alan McLeod, author of much internet-renown, was either actually confused, or feigned confused by the topic, and gave us a short blurb from his book “The Unbearable Nonsense of Craft Beer” that in a meta-sort of way fulfilled the requirements of this Session. It’s deceptively on-point, and I thank him for his humor. Dave Ellis offered a two-pronged post, the prior half about his dislike for generic reviews (which in general, I share), and the latter half a theoretical situation of drinking Mornington Peninsula Imperial Stout on the side of a massive mountain as a way to capture the awe-inspiring flavor (all in the voice of John O’Hurley).

Liam at Drunken Speculation went all graeca antiqua on us, and while Aristophanes is my classical jam, his apt chosen passage about the taming of Bucephalus from Plutar ch’s Life of Alexander was surprisingly relevant to Dogfish Head 90 minute. If you studied the classics. And have no problem connecting modern beer to ancient texts. Can we expect a drunken translation of Parallel Lives from Liam in the future?

Pivní Filosof got all deep and recursive on me, delving into the paradoxes of fate, and the delicious dual-identity crisis that is Black IPA. Without knowing, I think we tapped into each other’s Jungian collective unconscious, as his entry is thematically, deliciously, tangential to my own.

Paul Crickard’s interpretation of the topic was among my favorite, and his romantic, thoughtful nod to either his partner or his long time favorite, or both, hid deliciously behind the head of literary ambiguity. Jeremy Short’s heartfelt defense of Coors Extra Gold really cut through a lot of the craft beer bravado, and I think can be introduced nicely with the choice quote, “Beer is a social drink and Extra Gold comes in 30 packs.”

Rounding out the miscellaneous post was #beerchat friend Tom Bedell, who quite literally tried to drink the new flavor (abomination?) from Jelly Belly. His pictures went very much appreciated, and that last one of Tom slugging down a “glass” of Jelly Bean Beer made this ole’ softie smirk. I too long for the IPA, or perhaps hop flavored Jelly Belly.

Bravo to one and all. You exceeded whatever random expectations I had, by a long, long shot.

More to come tomorrow, with more excellent writing, in what I can only call “beer memoir!”

“Brewing is hard. Writing is really, really, really hard.” -Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery

In Defense of the Alternative Beer Review

May 13, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

If you’ve been around for some of my Beer Fiction Fridays it’s not exactly breaking news worthy of auto-tune treatment that I don’t write traditional beer reviews. Sure, I’ve written quite a few nonfiction, more review-ish reviews, but even those tend to fall more on the side of narrative story than they do classic, “here’s what I think and why,” no-frills review.

An article from Focus on the Beer had me doing a Ctrl+F on my soul this weekend, delving deep in my psyche and emotional past for the reasons I write beer reviews at all. I think the obvious reasons are because I like beer and because I like to write. The rest just seems inconsequential, the unimportant details that seem to work themselves out without much extra thought.

But I’ve never been the type to actually read reviews of food and drink with an air of seriousness, never acted like the opinion of the critic or reviewer or dude in his basement somehow matters. I do often find my browser landing on Beer Advocate because, hey, checking out what the collective hive-mind thinks can be fun and a hands-on lesson in collective sociology. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never consciously recalled any of those reviews in the liquor store, saying to myself, “beerstud1991 only gave it a 2.63, no way I’m buying that junk.“ I can say with confidence that I’ve never let a beer’s “score” influence whether I’m going to purchase it or not.

Why?

Because taste is subjective. More so, I’d argue, than any other sense. We can pretty much agree (short of color interpretation) that we all see the same things. Aside from the thickness of different ear drums slightly adjusting incoming MHz, we all hear the same things. We can also agree that week-old cat litter smells bad and a freshly baked apple pie smells good. We can even agree that 300 thread count sheets are soft, 60 grit sand paper is rough, and a baby’s butt is the unequivocal standard unit of smoothness against which all other smoothness should be measured.

But taste has few standards; it is permeable, water soluble, in constant flux. Some people out there legitimately don’t like cupcakes. Others legitimately do like tripe. Every late-to-work scalding coffee burn, every jalapeno charged capsaicin rush, every chewing-too-fast-bit-the-side-of-your-tongue is part of the formula that always equals how you go about tasting, no matter what variables are added or changed. Your tongue, like a gross pink snake, sheds its skin and taste buds often, reacting to all kinds of things you put in your mouth, making it so you can’t even trust your own opinions over the course of your life.

And because taste is flawed, the classic beer review is flawed. Just because you liked a sextuple dry-hopped Imperial IPA, doesn’t mean everyone else will. Just because your palette isn’t as open to bitters and coffee malts, doesn’t mean that a coffee stout is bad. Reviews will always be biased and tainted by the reviewer’s in-born, unavoidable subjectivity and thus can’t logically be universally valid. There is no basis against which the goodness of a beer can be measured (although the BJCP is certainly trying to establish one) and as a result, what another person thinks about a beer will remain forever nebulous, floating in a foamy, lacey, off-white head of doubt.

I sound like I’m about to give up on the beer review. Far from it. Actually the opposite. The beer review is still a great thing, still has a place in our writing and beer worlds, but maybe not in the traditional Appearance+Smell+Taste+Mouthfeel form.

When you drink a beer, you’re doing a lot more than just putting some water, malt, hops, and alcohol into your body. You’re doing a lot more than just tasting a drink and reporting your findings. You’re becoming part of an ancient tradition that dates back ~10,000 years. You’re joining a enthusiastic community of like-minded brewers, maltsters, yeast-biologists, and hop-farmers who toil away to bring life to a beverage, a drink that has shaped and supported mankind’s rise to greatness like a pint glass supports an ale. You’re raising a glass to salute the infinite muse of alcohol, and sharing good times with your family and friends. Beer is more than the sum of its ingredients, it’s a glorious gateway, a cultural connection.

When you write a review, you’re telling the story of how you made that connection. You’re filling your reader’s head with the same warm, spinning buzz that filled yours, via a story or anecdote or worded snapshot of life. You’re not just telling them about the beer, you’re taking them with you on the experience you had drinking the beer. Write your reviews to show us the truth that was hard-brewed into the beer, the connection to that timeless tradition that inspired you to take bottle-opener to cap in the first place.

Don’t be so caught up in what people expect from a review. If you want to write about the hop characteristics because that’s just your thing, go for it. If you want to write about a memory that this beer brought surging back to the front of your brain, by all means. If you’re like me, and you want to write a story based on the taste and appearance of the beer, don’t let anyone stop you.

Drink what calls to you. Write what the beer inspires you to write.

“How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

Writing Contest – Liquid Literature – Winners!

May 12, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

After a week of reading and voting, clicking and tallying, the results are in!

Congratulations to Baltimore Bistro and Beer for running away with the voting with his piece on pale ale and writing self discovery! A second congrats goes out through the interwobs to JC, who I chose as my personal favorite for his clever and clean ars poetica.

I will send my edits of the stories to each winner sometime this week. In the meantime, they can send the second piece they’d like me to review to literatureandlibation@gmail.com. I’ll review anything – fiction, nonfiction, poetry – as long as it’s not like 50,000 words.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and made this first contest a success. I was honored to play host to your words and thought every individual piece was equal parts well done and well crafted.

An even bigger thanks to everyone who read and voted; I hope you enjoyed what you read, because I’ll be doing this again soon!

Writing Contest – Liquid Literature – Vote for your Favorite!

May 5, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I would like to thank all of the wonderful people who took time out of their busy writing schedules of typing words and drinking coffee and swearing at the screen to write for this contest. Every entry has a unique perspective on the provided topics from literal to figurative, fiction to nonfiction, so there should be a little bit of something for every reader.

Voting will be open through next Sunday, May 12, 11:59 PM EST. You only get one vote, so don’t accidentally click on the wrong story. No pressure.

Here are the stories, presented in the order they were received. They are all under 1000 words and there is some really delightful writing in each, so I encourage you to read them all before voting:

Hitting the Big Time – Melanie Lynn Griffin
A confession from a bar stool – JC
The Pale Ale Induced Brutal Hangover – Philip McCollum
Pale Ale – Baltimore Bistros and Beer
On the Count of Three – RememberMemories
“Dubliners” by James Joyce – Melody Wilson

I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did. Good luck to all!

Writing Contest: Liquid Literature

April 26, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I am pleased to announce the first official Literature and Libation writing contest!

The rules are simple: write a piece of flash fiction or a short essay – no shorter than 300 words, no longer than 1000 words – post it on your own blog or site, and link to it in the comments below.

To round out this week’s theme – Writing and Drinking – choose one of the following and base your piece on it either directly, metaphorically, or thematically. Include the number in the title of your piece:

Pale ale
James Joyce
Bar stools
A brutal hangover
Sangria

Submit your story by 11:59 PM, next Friday, May 3rd. I’ll create a public poll on Saturday May 4th so that everyone can vote for their favorite story. In addition to the voting, I will also choose my favorite from the bunch. Voting will end on Saturday, May 11.

Once all the votes have been counted, all the words read, all the stories digested and reviewed, I’ll post the winners on this here blog. The two winning writers will receive my feedback on the submitted story and an editorial review of another shortish piece (either fiction or nonfiction) like a book chapter or a longer story/essay.

I look forward to reading the entries!

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.”
― Benjamin Franklin

Drinking Lessons

April 25, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

In keeping with this week’s theme, I want to share this beautifully written and thoughtful essay (by Elizabeth Marro) about bourbon, her son, and the distillation of their relationship. Enjoy!

Elizabeth Marro

The distiller and I are sitting across from each other in the swelter of a Denver June afternoon, three tiny unlabeled bottles of bourbon lined up before us. He pours from one into a scratched goblet that will serve as a snifter, lifts it to his nose, and then offers it to me like a teacher holding out a piece of chalk.

My turn.

Our classroom is the backyard of the rented house that he shares with his girlfriend, his Bassett hound, a cat, and a roommate to help pay the rent while he gets his business off the ground. He is showing me how to taste the spirit in which he has invested thousands of hours and dollars that he has scraped to earn, borrow, or finance at vertiginous rates on credit cards. As with wine, there is the “nosing,” the swirling, the chewing, the spitting, but the step…

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Time Travel Thursday: Experience PRS 2011

September 13, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

This is a post I should have written almost exactly one year ago, but I got kind of distracted and wandered off into the land of Lego mini-figures and beer for a while.

But I’m back, and I’ve got photos for everyone! Since Experience PRS 2012 is happening this weekend, I thought it appropriate to look back on one of coolest events in my little life as of yet.

Last year, I was invited to an event that was basically tailor-made for someone like me; an Olivevent, if you will. My good friend and fellow musical enthusiast, Aldwyn, took me to Experience PRS; a guitar extravaganza hosted by Paul Reed Smith himself, at his factory in Stevensville, MD, that has music, beer, food, luthiers, and people with an odd fascination with types of wood all in one place.

Sound advice.

A little background: Paul Reed Smith (and by extension his company) builds amazing guitars. They are gorgeous and intricate, and if I knew how to play the guitar much better than I do, and had the disposable income, I would buy one with very little reservation (I’m eagerly waiting for them to have some commercially available mandolins). He’s also just a nice guy who has employed a lot of local people in his factory, and is so passionate about his work that it puts other manufacturers to shame. He’s like the Steve Jobs of the Guitar world, but much less pretentious and much more animated.

I met Aldwyn at his house and he offered to us across the Chesapeake to the bay-facing guitar birthplace. The weather wasn’t being very friendly, so we stopped and got an umbrella for me, who, being the kind of person I am, had forgotten his at home.

The drive wasn’t bad, and the rain held off as we stood in line to get our badges. Aldwyn is a long time fan of PRS guitars and owns quite a few of them, so he managed to get us in as “signature” guests. We got an extra bag of loot which I use as a gym bag to this day.

The event itself was setup just outside the factory; several large white tents covered food carts, beer carts, and guitar-related carts. The biggest tent in the center covered a huge stage, with about 300 seats in front of it. When we arrived, a group of musicians were on stage testing out the new acoustic PRS SE Angelus.

Yea, that’s Ricky Skaggs with the microphone, no big deal.

Note: Paul Reed Smith likes to give away guitars. By my count, he gave away 13 guitars at Experience PRS 2011. Four in a raffle, one to a long-time supporter, and a bunch others to people who answered company history questions correctly or won other events. I kept praying that my number would be called in the raffle. The guitars are so beautiful that I didn’t even care that I couldn’t play one to save my life.

For a PRS, I would learn.

It was a good thing those tents were there, because Monsoon season had set itself against the East coast, starting that day. It started raining, hard, and didn’t stop the entire time we were there. I grimaced for the poor technicians who were manning the sound booth and running cords (editor’s note: typed “chords” the firs time around) to the stage; it looks like a watery-electrical mess waiting to happen.

But despite the rain, the whole thing went quite smoothly. Announcers had to yell over the deafening roar of rain pounding the tent’s roof, but other than that, the weather was hardly noticeable. We sat and listened to some excellent guitarists for a while, waiting for the factory to open up so the day could really begin.

Walking into that factory was like passing into the fields of Elysium. The entire place was packed wall-to-wall with guitars; more than I could count, in myriad designs, colors, specifications, and sizes.

Please excuse the photo quality; my camera died RIGHT as I started taking pictures, so I used my old camera phone to take all the rest.

I really wanted this one to follow me home.

The entire workshop area was open to guests. I got to see every device and tool that goes into creating a perfect guitar, but also how much work and attention goes into each. PRS hold themselves to a very high standard, so each piece of tone wood is carefully selected and sanded/shaped by hand.

A luthier’s work is never done.

I wandered around with eyes glued to wood, admiring the quality of the cuts and the organization of the factory itself. Each station flowed naturally to the next, with order and logic that would satisfy even the most OCD addled brain. We moved from wood selection to sanding to carving to staining to clear coating to electrical to packing and shipping. To say it was glorious would be a unfair understatement.

One day, all of these will be guitar necks. I know, awesome.

Matched tiger maple. Want.

As awesome as the factory is/was, that wasn’t even the highlight of my trip. I knew Ricky Skaggs was there, and I was hell bent on meeting a man whose music I had listened to and admired for years. We wandered the huge area looking for him, asking Aldwyn’s friend if they’d “seen Ricky”, hoping to cross his path, shake his hand, and maybe have him sign the mandolin pick guard that I may or may not have intentionally brought just to have him sign.

We didn’t find him immediately, so we opted to use our “signature” privileges to meet Paul instead. The event staff had setup a time where we could meet him and get a picture, so we dutifully stood in line, umbrellas overhead, waiting for our chance to meet the brains and innovation behind the luster of the perfectly finished guitars.

I also had Paul sign my pick guard because it was all I had to be signed.

Despite being rushed and having to dodge the rain, Paul was an amazingly nice guy. He took the time to talk to me, and told me he’d love to make mandolins, but needs to get his acoustic guitar line launched first. He marveled over the pick guard I had him sign, noticing the tiny flecks of pearl in it as he held it up to the light. You could see his love for instrument aesthetics as he scrutinized this random piece of fiberglass and wood. I dared not tell him it was from a lowly Epiphone MM-50. He didn’t need to know that.

Aldywn and I wandered around the venue for a while, drinking Fordham Copperhead, continuing our Skaggs search. We always seemed to just miss him whenever we got to an area. The day was winding on, and I was losing hope. We walked away from the mechanical side of the factory, making our way into the “Private Stock” area, where wood and parts were kept for all of the made-to-order guitars.

Just as we passed Paul’s office (which has 7 or 8 guitars hanging on the wall above his desk) we turned a corner, and saw Ricky sitting on a couch by himself, jamming on a rosewood version of the new Angelus Acoustic. Apparently he was about to eat lunch, and was waiting for Paul and the rest of the crew to appear with some food.

I’ve never been called shy. I walked straight in and said hi, and expressed my admiration for his music and talents. When he shook my hand, I couldn’t believe how absolutely massive his hands were. How those things dance around the tiny fret board of a mandolin like they do, I’ll never know.

Starstruck. Skaggstruck. Shady Grove.

Ricky was awesome. He said he was glad to see another mandolin player in this “mess of guitarists” and signed my pick guard with a flourish. We sat with him for a good twenty minutes talking about acoustic anything and everything, until Paul’s entourage showed up and kicked us out, very politely. They were eating some super sloppy pulled-pork sandwiches, for anyone who cares.

The rest of the day was rainy, but awesome. We chatted with several vendors who were all subtly trying to sell guitars, and I’m amazed that Aldwyn didn’t buy one, based on how wide his eyes got every time he put one over his knee.

I’d love to go back again. Maybe after I’ve figured out how to play more than 6-7 chords and feel less like journalist and more like a guitarist.

A special thanks to Aldwyn, without who, I could never have gone, never taken these photos, never met Skaggs, never written this post, and never had these awesome memories.

Aldwyn, being cool.

Bonus picture! How sexy is this?

Macassar ebony, if I’m not mistaken.

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