Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET

Eight years ago today, Liquid Diet (then “Liquid Diet Online”) went live on this website, two days before its “official” launch as a blog.

For a touch of nostalgia and a look at how far we’ve come (or regressed, you decide), here’s a link to the archive of the first ten days worth of postings. Look at some of the names and events and realize how much has changed, how much has not. I do miss me some Biere d’Art, I have to admit. Who knew I first tasted it in my old hometown? And, despite all that has come and gone since, that Lambic Dinner at Monk’s was, and remains, an historic occasion that time cannot dim or replace.

LDO moved over to Wordpress (though still resident on the jackcurtin.com site) and shortened its name in January 2008. From that day to this, there have been 1620-plus posts put up here and, given that annual rate of considierably more than 800 posts annually, with time out for the month I pretty much skipped around the time of my brother’s death and for other stretches where posting was minimal if not completely stopped, I think it safe to say we are approaching, if we have not already reached and surpassed, 7,000 or more posts by Yours Truly (not counting lord knows how many more on all my other sites, current or moribund).

Given how I do rattle on, we are surely talking more than a million words. Hell, we could be approaching 1.5 million.

And not a penny earned for any of it.

Samuel Johnson would sneer at my blockheadedness.

Still, that’s one helluva lot of online babble, innit? I ought to get some credit for volume.

Tags: Nostalgia, Website // Add Comment »

You know, it strikes me that these folks are about to pass Hartranft-Maida in the churning-out-a-new-bar-every-few-months game. That’s impressive, but in this celebrity-focused world the former will surely maintain the top spot in public adoration once my movie script, Three Bars & a Baby, gets green-lighted. All we’re waiting for is Johnny Depp to agree to shave his head to play one of the leads (no, not the baby) and the money will come rolling in.

If you call yourself  a fan of Tröegs beers and a dog lover and you have not yet hauled your sorry ass over to Wayne to participate in this event, I really have to doubt your sincerity. And if you’re not one or both of those things, what are you doing here anyhow?

In the latest issue of Malt Advocate, fine Canadian gentleman Stephen Beaumont speaks the truth that has to have them squirming at Brewers Association headquarters in Denver: Boston Beer Company will cease to be a “craft” brewer this year because it has had the temerity to be so successful that it will pass the arbitrary BA limit of 2 million barrels produced. The nerve! As Stephen notes, the end result of this will be that the end-of-year figures for crafts, after a decade of steady increases, will likely be down around 15%. It will be fascinating to see how this is dealt with.

Staying with the Dead Tree Press, an article by H. Lee Murphy in the current issue of Market Watch , looks at how the immense creativity of and the multiple styles produced by craft brewers is creating a real issue in the world of wholesalers and retailers—too many brands.  Many are cutting down on carrying every variation of Bud or Miller which exists in terms of packaging, which is a good and sane thing, but that’s a mere bucketful of water being removed from a  major flood. As an example, Murphy notes that Dogfish Head has 71 styles listed on its website and is, quite logically, trying to get more of then stocked on retail shelves (they’re even big enough and important enough now to push for eye-level position in retail coolers. The number is misleading, of course, since a majority of those listed styles are not packaged and many available only at the Rehoboth brewpub, but the basic issue is a real one. Major craft brewers are pushing to get more and more of their beers on the shelves and the vocal good beer communities are demanding that they be there. But just how many SKUs can beer stores maintain and handle?

Here’s something that seems to have generally slipped under the radar, or at least my radar. Japan’s All Nippon Airways started serving draft beer on domestic flights last July 20. They worked with Hoshizaki Electric to develop a beer dispenser made especially for in-flight use. Now, if somebody can come up with an acceptable means and reason to serve beer to the folks in line at airport security gates, flying might actually be an appealing way to travel again instead of a depressing chore.

Tags: Beer Industry, Beer Styles, Breweries, Brewers, Commentary, Retailers & Wholesalers // 13 Comments »

Yes, I exaggerated just a tad when I suggested last night that the story I just posted at the Beer Yard site was “untold,” but, really, not all that much.

Unless I’ve missed it (and you can be sure I will informed right here and real soon if I have), there has been very little written about the Tap & Table in Emmaus and The Bookstore Speakeasy in Bethlehem in the brewspapers or on the beer blogs. Beyond that, I’m even more of the belief that no one has put the whole story of this burgeoning “chain” together in a single post or article prior to this (I’ll be doing this more extensively in one of the brewspapers for October).  Also,  the Bahnhof news is just that, news to most of you, I’d assume.

The Bookstore in particular, says Matt Scheller, one of the partners in the company, seems to have escaped the notice of you beer folks: “a lot of the beer culture doesn’t even know we exist and I think we offer something unique with the cocktails and the beer in one place.” Our old friend Mr. Bryson was actually there on August 21 following his very successful bourbon event at Allentown Brew Works. In the good old days, we might have been graced with an informative blog post giving details and his opinion, maybe even a few photos, but we seem to have lost him to teh Facebook and its hit-and-run culture. I find that sad.

Tags: Cafes, Restaurants, Taverns, News // 7 Comments »

From CNN this morning:

(CNN) — First there was the discovery of dozens of bottles of 200-year-old champagne, but now salvage divers have recovered what they believe to be the world’s oldest beer, taking advertisers’ notion of ‘drinkability’ to another level.

Though the effort to lift the reserve of champagne had just ended, researchers uncovered a small collection of bottled beer on Wednesday from the same shipwreck south of the autonomous Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea.

“At the moment, we believe that these are by far the world’s oldest bottles of beer,” Rainer Juslin, permanent secretary of the island’s ministry of education, science and culture, told CNN on Friday via telephone from Mariehamn, the capital of the Aland Islands.

“It seems that we have not only salvaged the oldest champagne in the world, but also the oldest still drinkable beer. The culture in the beer is still living.”

Juslin said officials had talked to a local brewer about whether the new-found beer might be able to yield its recipe after experts decipher the brew’s ingredients.

The newest find came as divers unearthed bottles separate from the earlier champagne find. While lifting a few to the surface, one exploded from pressure. A dark fluid seeped from the broken bottle, which they realized was beer.

All the cargo on the ship — including the beer and champagne — is believed to have been transported sometime between 1800 and 1830, according to Juslin. He said the wreck was about 50 meters deep (roughly 164 feet) in between the Aland island chain and Finland.

The cargo was aboard a ship believed to be heading from Copenhagen, Denmark, to St Petersburg, Russia. It could have possibly been sent by France’s King Louis XVI to the Russian Imperial Court.

Thanks to tipster Kenney in the Comments on this post for the head’s up.

Tags: Beer History, Good Old Days, News // Add Comment »

So I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself because two big interviews fell apart today, plus I have to send in a column to Celebrator Beer News tomorrow and I still don’t have it all down right (the beginning is brilliant, though, if I do say so myself), when the phone rings around 8 o’clock and…

I now have on tape one of the great untold beer stories in the region.

Look for the basics in a news posting tomorrow at the Beer Yard site.

Tags: Brewspapers, Cafes, Restaurants, Taverns, News // Add Comment »

No, I’m not talking about the world-class selection of beers, I’m talking about the chalkboard itself.

That’s the board above the bar at Teresa’s Next Door as of around 4:40 this afternoon, as clean and neat and readable an example as I’ve ever seen, done by staffer Carissa Just with something called a “chalk pen,” a concept entirely new to me. I find it astonishingly near-perfect.

I stopped in at TND after a heads-up call from fine human being Matt Guyer while I was on the train back from Philadelphia alerting me that Dogfish Head Bitches Brew had just been tapped.

There’s been a lot of talk about this one, created in honor of the 40th anniversary of the original release of Bitches Brew, Miles Davis’ 1970 paradigm-shifting landmark fusion breakthrough. It is a big a bold dark beer which is three-quarters imperial stout and one quarter honey beer made with gesho root, an African shrub from Ethiopia which is used in a similar fashion to hops. I found it a nicely balanced and drinkable brew, perhaps a bit sweet on its own, but one I could imagine enjoying over a plate of fruit and cheese.

I’d been downtown to meet up with a new friend, the Rev. Kirk Berlenbach whom many of you have likely met and know as “Father Kirk.” We met for the first time at Nodding Head during Philly Beer Week and have been trying to get together ever since, finally pulling it off today right back where it all started.

We enjoyed a good conversation over two pints of Bil Payer Ale on cask (for me) and one of those and a glass of George’s Fault for him. We were joined for a stretch by main man Curt Decker and brewer Gordon Grubb. The later brought out a bottle of their Saison, an leftover from those packaged to send off to the Great American Beer Festival. Actually, as Decker explained, not really a left-over: “We always do some extra bottles to keep and open the week of GABF so we can taste what they are likely tasting at the judges’ tables in Denver.”

All in all, a good beery day, as good a one as I’ve had of late.

Tags: Beer Is Good, Brewers, Brewpubs, Cafes, Restaurants, Taverns, GABF // 2 Comments »

Photo courtesy of Harpoon Eastern PA sale rep Sean Hamel, taken last year at Ernie’s Tin Bar in Petaluma, CA.

Tags: Cafes, Restaurants, Taverns, Fun Stuff // Add Comment »

Time to wipe away the tears of frustration about the website issues and get back to work. I am looking for a good story or stories about beer and food pairings, chefs or restaurants who specialize in same or anything unusual (this would be even better) that would fit into the general Food & Beer topic.

Help a brother out…

Tags: Beer and Food // 4 Comments »

I got somewhat philosophical over here just now. Probably not a good idea, but something that should not be hidden from the main audience, so…

Tags: Personal // Add Comment »

The attempt to migrate Liquid Diet to a different site and upgrade to a more current version of WordPress, which was finally made in the early hours of this morning, working for about six hours and then crashed, so all that “Big Change Coming” stuff was a mere chimera. Pretend it never happened.

We’re back home where we started from. A different WordPress migration and upgrade might still be possible and that’s what we’re looking at now. It will be a week or two until and if….

Are we having fun yet?

Tags: Website // Add Comment »