Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET

That thing I posted about there being a lot more blogging this past week didn’t work out so well, did it? gonna stay slow for a while, I fear. But here are a couple of quick notes:

The article that never made it into the current Ale Street News but which, I was told, would be published online, is now published online. It’s about the (relatively) new definition of craft beer promulgated by the Brewers Association.

Fine human being Joe Sixpack has exciting news about what’s happening at Yards Brewing. You all remember Yards, right?

And, finally, a social note: I have it on very reliable authority this very afternoon that Mr. Baker and Ms. Zwerver will be moving into their new digs near Earth, Bread & Brewery before July is very old. I understand Richard Ruch will be sprucing up the apartment regularly, including delivering fresh flowers daily on his way  to picketing whoever it is who is holding up whatever licenses are needed to open the doors.

You know, Ron and Bill never got that sorta love.

Just sayin’….

America’s Most Beloved Beer Writer (© Liquid Diet - the Blog, 2008) and I stumbled across the Johnstown Brewing Company on June 8, 2003, during the trip to Pittsburgh wherein he scared me half to death and which I mention here now and again. And Again. I wrote about it here (scroll down to the June 10 Posting) two days later.

I just received an email telling me that they’ve closed.  It’s a shame, because they had a great location up on a hill overlooking the town, but I have to admit I’m not surprised.

Posting has been sort of minimalistic here the last few days but, because I took most of this weekend to do some catching up and the schedule for the week ahead in favorable, things will likely pick up in the week ahead.

Much of the past week was spent doing interviews with a lot of brewing folks, including–but not limited to– Jack Joyce, Gene Muller, Tommy Keegan, Dan Weirback, the new guys at River Horse and the even newer guys who are planning to open the western suburbs newest brewery. I took most of yesterday (blowing off both the Harrisburg Brewers Fest and the graduation party for Mrs. Whitney O’Reilly to get it done) and all of today until now to transcribe all that talk and, outside the beer realm, to correct over three years’ worth of broken links at The Dubya Chronicles, so that the archives there are all functioning again (having created seven-plus years of cartoon commentary, we want every single one available to the teeming masses).

I did manage to squeeze in a visit to Drafting Room Exton Thursday night to try the just-released 14th Anniversary Ale, brewed once again by Troegs (this year it’s a Big Hoppy Double IPA, which is just what we need these days, since we have, you know, so few) and a quick stop at Sly Fox Phoenixville Friday afternoon for a couple of pints of RT. 113 on cask on my way to dinner at my daughter’s place, but aside from that, and the usual penance at the Beer Yard, that was it.

I have a couple of photo shoots and interviews over the next two days, plus another Beer Yard stint on Tuesday, but after that, it’s writing a whole slew of columns and stories (along with lots of stuff for the Sly Fox website, which we will be revamping this summer, and a new edition of the Newsletter) through the end of the month, which should mean a lot more activity here.

The way it works is, whenever I’m deep into writing and need a break…I write. If I get temporarily stuck in a story, or just need to let it fester in my subconscious, I find it useful and generally productive to go out and walk around a bit and then come back and jump onto one of my websites to post something. The free form, no word limit, no editor to please approach that is at the heart of blogging tends to unclog the synapses.

In short, it’s highly likely I’ll be blabbing uncontrollably here by week’s end, including my argument that the first blogger ever was not this guy; he was in fact a beer blogger. And he was local.

But that’s a story for another day.

You knew this was coming, right? Can’t have nobody associated with that ole debbil liquid in the White House, where everybody and everything is always pure and pristine.  Heaven forbid.

Not to mention the fact that the GOP base includes a significant number of anti-alcohol sorts, for religious reasons.

…Larry Horwitz has started a blog. The head brewer guy at Iron Hill North Wales is now One of Us. I don’t recall when I’ve ever felt so proud. Maybe the day this guy started blogging–no, wait, that was just scary.

I have added Mr. Horwitz (Larry’s Blog) to our blogroll. He is on probabtion, of course.

Jay Brooks just ripped a new one for some fools I meant to get to myself. Since it’s not about beer, I gave him his props over here.

Well, it’s not really a “cookie,” is it? But a post is the best I can do without driving nearly 100 miles round trip and since I got one of those planned for New Jersey in the next few days in order to get the facts for my next “Atlantic Ale Trail” in Celebrator Beer News, I’m not about to take that trek.

Scoats was reading Homeboy Brews this morning and came up with a flagrant error. “You called Jeff Ware ‘Jim’ in the story,” he emailed me, or comments approximating that. And damned if I didn’t.

Here’s the thing. I went back and checked and the error goes all the way back to the original in Philadelphia Weekly in July 1995. That story has to be among the most-read of any beer piece I ever wrote, both in those pages and in its years and years online at www.jackcurtin.com. And this is the first time anybody has caught the error (it’s been fixed now, nearly 13 years too late).

My favorite crazed publican asked for a cookie as a reward after I informed him of his unique achievement. This is it.

Mr. Sixpack reports today that the inimitable Dawson Street Pub in Manayunk is gonna fix itself up this summer. So long as they don’t lose the ambiance, s’okay with me.

Dawson Street and owner Dave Wilby were at the epicenter of Philadelphia’s craft beer revolution in 1995, as I recorded in the closing section of this (my first) article on the subject and many other print publications (including this story about a Saturday night in July, just uploaded to the web the first time, and written and published somewhere near the end of the last century).

I christened Dawson Street the “World’s Greatest Bar” back in the day. That was another time and I was someone very different but I’ve never changed my mind. It was my first true “local.”

Good on you, Dave.

I don’t know if the word has leaked to the mainstream press as yet, but I’ve been told by an unimpeachable source that the Budweiser Clydesdales announced in a small press conference this morning that, despite the fact that their care and feeding is tied to the fortuntes of Cindy McCain, the Anheuser-Busch heiress wife of GOP presidential candidate John McCain, they were throwing their support behind Democrat Barack Obama.

“We believe that Sen. McCain would continue the policies of the current resident of the White House,” they neighed to reporters, “a man who might be seen as at least a portion of our equine anatomy but one who apparently doesn’t have the brains of a mule.”

The Obama Campaign was quick to embrace the endorsement. “Under my leadership, we will see a time when the oceans rise, poverty disappears and every horse wins the Kentucky Derby,” said the candidate at a huge rally in some little town somewhere. His opponent, on the other hand, appeared blissfully unaware of what was going on, also in a little town somewhere where nobody can out to see him.

The GOP Congressional leadership reacted immediately, charging that “it’s those damned Belgians already interfering with the natural course of events at the King of Beers. We’d contact their government if only they had one, but they don’t, so the only alternative left is to bomb them.” On the bright side, said House Minority Leader John Boehner, “we can do it in an energy-efficient manner, just whip over there on or way to or from bombing Iran and unload a few on ‘em.”

The White House reacted quickly to shoot down that idea, with press secretary Dana Perino saying that “the president has been informed and went back to his nap. No action is planned at this time.” Surprisingly, an Administration insider confirmed that “for once, she’s telling the truth. Which is a great relief to the staff, since we won’t have to spend hours explain what a Belgium is to the president.” However, he noted, “Dick Cheney has checked in yet and he pretty much favors bombing anybody and everyone.”

Breaking, more as the story develops….

Tom Baker, God love his courage, has jumped into this nonsense going on over at BeerAdvocate. I really appreciate that, ’cause I just can’t muster up the strength to get involved.

Remember when I put up this post about the incipient Pennsylvania smoking ban and included a link to a BA thread, referring to its “hilarious hilarity?” No such luck this time.

The comments in this one are just plain stupid.

P.S.- Kudos to Flying Fish for taking the topic public.