Thanksgiving!

THANKSGIVING!!!!

Man, I've been so busy writing stories about, like, pairing beer with turkey that I haven't even remembered to forget to update the blog.


I was just reading a description of a brewery's winter warmer and realized I kind of hate those beers along with pumpkin spice beers. Christmas/holiday/winter beers are all super dark, have, like, cinnamon and cherries and Belgian candi sugar and orange peel and are super boozy and busy and dark. TOO MUCH.

Me, I like the classics. My go to holiday beer for probably 15 years now has been Sierra Nevada's Celebration fresh hop IPA which is still one of the best American IPAs ever, in my opinion. And they've been brewing this beer since 1981! They were brewing fresh hop IPAs before that was even a THING.

(Do I go off on this every year? I feel like I've ranted this rant before.)

(Upon some quick research, it appears I have not done so on this blog, so at least I'm not repeating myself here.)

At any rate! I have been writing up a storm and also been travelling a bunch. Went to the UK (the west of England) and Ireland, drank lots of delicious local craft beer, drove to Birmingham to do some research for a piece I'm doing for Beer Advocate, as well as checking out Parish Brewing's Grand Reserve Day.

I loved Birmingham, and the breweries there were so friendly and had some great beers. It was my first Parish Grand Reserve Day and I really enjoyed it! Andrew Godley and his staff ran a really well organized event. I tried some great special beers as well, and caught up with old beer friends and met new ones!

It's been a lot of fun, but now I'm trying to do all the writing I need to get done between all the traveling. I'm pretty brain fried (as this post might indicate) but I wanted to make sure I wasn't neglecting my blog. A hot mess is better than no mess at all, right? No?

Anyway, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday! Eat and drink well.