This is a beer that I've been buying recently when crossing the border into Canada: the Alexander Keith's IPA. I'm often attracted to beers I can't find in the states. And Keith's was sold in a case of cans, like Molson's and Labatt's, for the comparatively cheap case price. Often times, the smaller breweries' offerings are sold in 12-packs and ( Read more... )

I wrote a post this morning about hot dogs and baseball. The Yahoo! fantasy baseball league I've been playing in for four years now (this will be my fifth season) is holding its draft on Sunday. But I composed the post on my iTouch and sent it via mobile post and I don't see it now. Anyway, I mentioned in that post that I had bought a package of ( Read more... )

• Yesterday, I went back and read some of the poems that I wrote in November 2009 on my 30 Poems in 30 Days blog. I enjoyed going back and reading them and marveled at how my attempts to write a poem every day seemed to crystallize into bursts of lasting insight. So this morning, I quickly dashed off another. I'm not sure I'll go back to the one-a- ( Read more... )

(My new favorite goalkeeper)
or, A Tale of Two Sams
(Adams, as in the Boston Lager, vs. Smith, as in the Oatmeal Stout)
or, A Point Is a Point Is a Point...

Yesterday, I went to my friend Hef's house to watch the USA v. England on his TV. I wore my USA jersey (circa 1994, I think) and came bearing beers from the opposing countries. I thought the ( Read more... )

I think I have a new beer crush. On my trips to Ryan & Casey's, I've discovered that if I walk on past the glass cabinets of $8/six pack microbrew beers, over to where the domestics are, I can pick up a six pack of Naragansett tall boys in a can for $6.39. Not only is it down in the $6 range (Ryan & Casey's includes the 5 cent bottle deposit in ( Read more... )

Two weeks ago, I was in St. Louis for a friend's wedding. Getting married was one of my old high school crew. He lives over on the Illinois side of the river. We converged from disparate points around the country: Colorado, Massachusetts and Florida. I arrived on a Thursday afternoon and was picked up at the airport. The van load of us, five in all ( Read more... )

Today, I learned that Budweiser has a monopoly on beer sales at the stadiums of the World Cup. Only, the Germans don't like Budweiser much (if you click the link, click "gallery"). Which I understand. I'm not a big fan of Budweiser, either. But my brother, pkhentz, lives less than a mile away from the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis. We're descended ( Read more... )

This week, my contribution to the paper was a little blurb about American beer called "Support Your Local Brewery." I had originally thought of something more expansive, talking about beer as identity, why it is that Pabts Blue Ribbon has become the hipster's slumming beer of choice, "lawnmower beer," lagers v. ales, what Thomas Jefferson brewed on ( Read more... )

Okay, here we go. What does a 1970s Swedish pop group have to do with Canadian beer? Probably nothing, unless it has something to do with Napolean. I can say they're both rumbling around in my head. On our way back from the Great White North, L. and I stopped at the Duty Free in Fort Erie and I bought some Waterloo Dark beer from the Brick Brewery ( Read more... )

Well, Molson's is merging with Coors, apparently. The Globe and Mail had this interesting story in reaction to the merger talk. Over the weekend, the guys at Sparrow's wedding bought a 12-pack of Coors to drink. I decided not to spoil the mood by pointing out that the Coors family has been a major financial supporter of conservative groups like The ( Read more... )