Tag Archives: best beer

Hop Talk Podcast #7 – That’s not a wombat?

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In this episode we talk about

  • Homebrewers choose the best beers in America
  • Oregonians love Oregon beer
  • The Beer Bloggers Conference in Portland, Oregon, August 19-21, 2011
  • Pintley, a social beer recommendation engine
  • and, our contest!

Download it here: Hop Talk Podcast ep. 7

…or subscribe with iTunes

Show notes:

Beer News

Zymurgy, the magazine of the American Homebrewers Association, polled their subscribers, crunched the numbers and came up with a list of the fifty best beers in the U.S.

Beervana, Jeff Alworth’s blog, pointed us toward some information about Oregon beer. Not only are there a lot of breweries there, but they make a lot of beer, and a lot of it stays in-state. Lots and lots of numbers.

Speaking of Oregon, the Beer Bloggers Conference is coming around again in August. Golly, but we wish we could go. The agenda isn’t yet set, but some of the panels they’ve announced look really interesting.

Beer 2.0

We check out a new (to us) beer recommendation engine: Pintley. It’s a well-done site and after rating a few beers it offers up some good recommendations. There are also iPhone and Android apps, as well as a mobile-optimized website. You can friend us, too. HopTalkRon and HopTalkAl. (Perhaps soon HopTalkMatt as well.) Although we’re not quite sure what to make of the TechCrunch review.

Contest

Don’t forget we’re running a contest to win a free Headcase combination iPhone case and bottle opener.

What we drank:

Spot a discrepancy? Something missing? Let us know. contact@hop-talk.com

Follow us on Twitter: @hoptalk and @hoptalkron

Music credits:

Background music at bar during intro:
Artist: Gnappy
Song: Best Not FUnck Around

Main intro:
Artist: A Thousand Knives of Fire
Song: She’s Yours

Outro Music:
Artist: Aphasia
Song: Metal Tank

Transition Music:
Artist: Devil In A Woodpile
Song: Beer Ticket Rag

The best beer in the world is…

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Some weeks ago, the company that employs me for failed to (re-)win any of the contracts at the government entity where I do my work.

The company was surprised. I suppose my co-workers and I would also have been surprised if we weren’t so shell-shocked that suddenly our jobs were gone. Well, gone as of the end of the contract.

I put everything aside and started my job hunt. I hit the job boards, polished and re-polished my resume, called people I knew, and filled out an obscene number of online applications. With this economy, after all, one can’t leave anything to chance.

My hard work paid off. Last week I received two offers. It was a hard choice, but I took the one that’s best for my family.

When I got the first offer, I went out for a well-deserved beer* and buffalo wings with my friend and co-worker Chris, who’d recently gotten his own offer, to celebrate.

Man, that’s good. That may be the best beer I’ve ever had.

The best beer in the world is the one you celebrate with when you become gainfully (re-)employed.

* In this case, it happens to have been a Barley and Hops Schifferstadt Stout

The best beer in the world is…

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The Washington, D.C. region was hit with a record-setting snowfall* starting two days ago and ending around 4:00 PM yesterday. They’re not used to snow in these parts, much less two feet of it.

After six hours of digging to free my two cars, I finally got to sit down with a well-deserved beer**.

Man, that’s good. That may be the best beer I’ve ever had.

Oh, look. They’ve brought in the heavy equipment.

The best beer in the world is the one you have before the pain of your back-breaking labor lays you up for two days.

* It’s being referred to as “snowpocalypse” and “snowmageddon”
** In this case, it happens to have been a Flying Dog Raging Bitch

The best beer in the world is…

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Today was my first day at work after a week of vacation.

The alarm clock went off far too early. The train ride seemed longer than I remember. I had almost five hundred e-mail messages in my inbox. There were no less than three emergency code releases that needed to be performed last week in my absence, and there’s always paperwork.

Not to mention that there were a few changes that came out of User-Acceptance Testing for the application scheduled to be deployed tomorrow that needed to go in, but both the Development and Testing environments were unavailable for the entire morning. Then the train was delayed on the way home.

Typical, I guess, for the first day back from vacation.

When I got home I sat down in my comfy chair to enjoy a well-deserved beer*.

Oh man, that’s good. That may be the best beer I’ve ever had.

The best beer in the world is the one with which you reward yourself after a rough day on the job.

* In this case, it happens to have been a Flying Dog Old Scratch.

The best beer in the world is…

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After a long day at work and a tedious commute, I helped my wife paint our daughters’ rooms. Pink*.

She likes to paint. I really don’t.

It’s hot, sweaty work. Not to mention my joints don’t appreciate all the bending and kneeling and reaching.

After we were done (for the day, anyway), I sat down to enjoy a well-deserved beer**.

Man, that’s good. That may be the best beer I’ve ever had.

The best beer in the world is the one with which you reward yourself after a lot of hard work.

Update: It was so good, I wrote a haiku about it.

* “Zephyr” is the actual name of the color.
** In this case, it happens to have been a Brewer’s Alley India Pale Ale.