Lew Bryson in Wichita

Yeah. The dinner Friday night was excellent; good pairings, good food: my only real complaint was that the sauerbraten gravy was too sweet, but I'm nit-picking; cheese course was excellent with Fin du Monde and Bully Porter. I talked about beer's crappy image in America, a version of my current Buzz

Saturday's fest was big and apparently successful. I heard some people complain that it was largely a distributor-fest (River City was the only brewer there), but there are legal problems that make brewers attending problematic...or so I was told. Besides, with all-you-can-drink Orval and Unibroue, I wasn't crying. I did an impromptu lager seminar that was well-attended (more people than seats): good beers, good questions, good reviews. I liked Wichita, far as that goes, and enjoyed an excellent burger and good beers at River City (although the bartender was completely unimpressive; broke off taking our lunch order to answer the phone as if "Anyone on the phone is more important than someone who's actually here spending money!!!!"), and a new bar, the Anchor Drinking Establishment, on E. Douglas: recommended. Good weekend, all round, sorry you didn't make it. Saw Jeff Stanley and Dan "Expletive Deleted" McConnell there, two other alt.beer/rec.food.drink.beer denizens.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

I was there, got to meet the big man himself. His session on lagers was a good one.

I didn't make it to the dinner, but he had rather positive things to say about it the next day. The Midwest Beer fest itself is only worthwhile, IMO, to beer newbies. There's nothing unusual or hard to find there, mainly bottle samples of beers that are all available at the better beer stores in Wichita. The only exception being some draft beers offered up by River City (their new Smoked Brown Porter was interesting). If you're like me and have had all those beers 3x over, the only reason to go was to meet Lew and just hang out drinking some familiar good beer.

The fest changed policies this year and limited everyone to 20 samples a piece (and they didn't advertise that fact, it was an unwelcome surprise as we got through the door). Fortunately they are generous with their pours, and it was pretty easy to get away with not giving up a ticket with each pour. In the end I probably managed 30 samples and still had

10 tickets left over.

I went to your web page and found it most interesting. I liked your articles on your beer travels, and wished more would write trip reports like yours. And since you are a self-proclamed nit-picker, I thought I would respectfully bring to your attention that the McMenamins Hammerhead ale is not a classic northwest india pale ale. It is just a classic northwest pale ale. Most pale ales out here could easily pass for IPA's in other parts of the country.

I am hoping that you go to Kentucky and Tennessee for the whiskey. I found very little good beer there.

Well, thanks. I always thought they were a bit self-indulgent, but I enjoy doing it, so I do. Glad you like 'em.

And since you are a self-proclamed nit-picker, I thought I would

Taken. What do you drink for pale ales? Kolsch?

Haven't done any beer-drinking in Tennessee at all. Kentucky...BBC is good, both beer and atmosphere, but I REALLY like to go across the river to the New Albanian BC, part of the Rich O's complex in New Albany, IN, about 15 minutes from Louisville.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

Lew, you been liquored up for a long time. What keeps you still tickin? Are you completely pickled? BTW, send me a copy of your latest book. I'll pay you later.

What I like, and what I consider to be a standard pale ale are 2 different things :)

I've always pretty much considered the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as the standard. For IPA's, probably something along the lines of the Bridgeport IPA. Now, there's something I drink when I'm back East called "Harpoon IPA", which I consider to be a good, clean beer, but not an IPA. McMenamin's Hammerhead, for example, has as much or more hop profile than the Harpoon, yet it's still considered a pale ale in the Northwest.

Lots of brewpubs/alehouses out here keep several overly-hopped IPAs on tap. I counted 7 at the Rose and Raindrop (local Portland pub) last time I was there. I don't see this kind of selection when I visit the Northeast.

Lew, how long has it been since you had a woman? Let's cut the crap here. You're just a drunk sudser. EOM

That's right, you don't see that kind of selection in the Northeast. Last time I was at the Rose and Raindrop, the selection was pretty much 8 hoppy ales, 5 porters, 5 ambers, 3 stouts, Deschutes Pilsner, and a cream ale from Hale's. The kind of selection you see in the Northeast is more like amber, porter, IPA, 4 Belgian styles, pilsner, German-style hefeweizen, 4 "real" imports, and some non-style beer from Heavyweight or Dogfish Head. That's real selection, IMO.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

Sure, that's probably the selection the beer enthusiasts in the NE want. But, if you want a hopheads paradise in the NE, it's nearly impossible to find.

What?? No Imperials??? ;^)

Best regards, Bill

While I agree with you pretty much 100 percent, and I much prefer the latter lineup than the former, this whole discussion (well, not this particular one right here, but this topic writ large) seems to have pretty much defended into Catholic/Protestant, religious/atheist, convervative/liberal, soda/pop types of intractable, unyielding debate. Both sides think they've got nirvana figured out, and the only objective is to tell the other side how wrong they are and shake their heads that they just can't understand.

Of course, the people who want all hops all the time are wrong and I don't get why they can't just understand. But you knew that already.

-Steve

The right answer is to live in the middle of the country. We have ales, we have lagers, we have hops, we have malt, we have distribution from both sides of the country, and we have airports (and the occasional train) to quickly take us to either side of the country of we feel like steppin' out.

Neener.

I LIKE aiming the Cosmic Ray Gun of Hops at my tongue some nights. It's just that I don't like it EVERY night. Does that make me a Protestant married to a Catholic? Or just a waffling flip-flopper?

Indeed.

-- Lew Bryson

Their clothes are weird, their music sucks and they drink malternatives. And now you tell me they probably don't think Sierra Nevada is cool? This is what the passage of years does to you: It makes everyone around you more stupid. -- Michael Stewart 6/24/02

Something like that.

Of course, that stance is exactly the point of favoring wide selection. It's not like it's difficult to find blisteringly hoppy beers out east. The problem out west is it's often seemingly all you can find. And for me, I don't care what the product is, I'll always favor choice over homgeneity, even if I like the homogenous stuff.

-Steve

Brilliant troll, Lew. Really. First off: the Rose & Raindrop != "The Northwest," any more than the Standard Tap == "The Northeast." One of my locals - it's 3/4 of a mile away, close enough in this neck of the woods - has a constantly-changing lineup. Last night, it included two locally-brewed pale lagers, a locally-brewed Schwarzbier, a porter, a stout, a Belgian-style triple flavored with raspberries, a fruit lambic, and sure, a couple of pale ales and an IPA or two, and a cask stout on gravity dispense at the bar. Looks like real selection to me, and you'd probably agree. So why the hell aren't ya here bending an elbow with me, slacker-boi?

Specialist beer bars featuring all-German & German-style or all-Belgian & Belgian-style taps are attracting good crowds, too, and sure, there are those places with lotsa pale ales, ambers, porters, and stouts on tap (bless 'em all), but it's not like that everywhere. This is a Good Thing. Like lucky beer-drinkers at better bars in Philly and NYC, we have a braoder range of selection than your and Blake's exchange might otherwise imply.

So while Blake is off-course in characterizing the Northeast as lacking in good bars, you're not quite on target in characterizing the Northwest as limited to "nuttin' but ales." We can all pick and choose our selections for comparison. I'd rather pick a good beer-drinkin' town, and I'm fine with that, whether that's Seattle or Philadelphia.

And now, off to a "Hoptoberfest" at the local, where I can slug down a few lupulins, 'cause, gosh-darn-it, that's just the Right Thing To Do.

Yeah, but the beers are so chalky. And it's hard to step out of the airplane at 30k feet, what with it being flyover territory and all.

Indeed. Maybe those CBS loosers can give us an excuse to go to Chicago in late winter of 2005.

Don, I didn't bring the R&R up...he did. And YOU are taking that as "The Northwest," not me: take a look at the post. Besides, the Tap doesn't do imports.

In short...yeah, I knew that, why didn't you?

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

Remember, Lew. . . this is the guy who thinks Monk's epitomizes "All That Is Beer."

It's getting hard to tell the Portland-dwelling old guys from the NoVa-dwelling grouches around here. Troll! I smell troll!

Hey, I can't help it if the folks at Monk's don't hate me, and fail to give me crappy beer. So very sorry it has to happen to ... others.

Funny, though; I don't remember seeing you in Bamberg last September. You could've had a Seidla of Zwergla - one troll to another.