Beer Nation, a “web-based series exploring the craft beer revolution,” recently posted a great overview video of the Farm To Table side event that took place during the Great American Beer Festival for the second time this year. You can watch the video below or at the Beer Nation website.
Make A Beer Bottle Menorah
With Hannakuh beginning December 1, Shmaltz Brewing has created a fun DIY way to make your own Menorah, using beer bottles — preferably He’Brew bottles.
Art by Chris Blair.
Beer Bottle Xylophone
This would make an awesome gift, especially for the person who loves beer and music. Created by designer Sam Gensburg, his Southern Bells six-pack uses an ingenious design that can turn the empty bottles into a makeshift xylophone.
Says Inhabitat, “Of the things that you could do with beer bottles, this has got to be one of the most glorious. Designer Sam Gensburg has created this special packaging for beer bottles — in this example, the adorably-named “Southern Bells,” — that can be transformed into a tone-accurate xylophone. Once you’ve drunk all the beer, of course. Read on to discover more about this recycled polyphonic percussion set.”
“On the back of each bottle is a guide for musical key-making. You simply fill the bottle with water to the appropriate line, and it will produce that key when struck. With what, you ask? With special batons that come in the box– you make them with the corks from the bottle tops! The bottles can be arranged in a musical line by unfolding the six-pack. Two six-packs make a full octave.”
Sadly, there’s no information about where, or even if, this is available commercially for purchase. Searching only reveals it’s been featured a lot on DIY websites.
Recycled Brewers Malt Bags
This is interesting. A Japanese designer, Kouhei Okamoto, has created a line of laptop and other bags using recycled brewer’s malt. The bags were featured at the 2010 Good Design Expo.
For The Love Of Beer
I’ve known about this for a little while now, but it seemed like Thanksgiving was a good time to try to help spread the word about this project. For the Love of Beer is a film project by Alison Grayson to highlight, well I’ll let her tell you.
For the Love of Beer is a documentary devoted to the stories and the passion of the women at the forefront of the Pacific NW beer community. It’s not for feminism or equality … it’s for The Love of Beer.
Frankly, that’s something I’m very thankful for: women in beer. Beer had traditionally been a man’s world because beer was all the same, not terribly complex or diverse and didn’t add as much as it could to a food experience. Not to mention the big brewer’s advertising beginning in the Sixties became more focused on marketing to young males, alienating many women in the process. Craft beer changed all that and women have been a big part of that movement, especially in recent years. The fact that a growing number of women are brewing beer and enjoying beer is having a profound impact on craft beer and the direction it’s heading.
Have you ever met a brewer or beer geek who’s significant other didn’t like beer? They always tell the tale with a sigh of resignation. Life seems better when your partner shares your obsessions. I know I’ve told this story too many times, but before I even asked my wife of 15-years out on a date, I took her to a brewery and ordered a sampler for her. At that time she didn’t drink good beer, but because of her positive reaction to the experience, I asked her out on the spot and we’ve been happily drinking together for over fifteen years. In fact, we spent our honeymoon touring breweries in Oregon and Washington, which is the geographic subject of Grayson’s film.
You can see more of her film work at her Vimeo page for Grayson Productions. But watch the trailer of the beer documentary in progress below. The film first caught my eye because my friend and colleague Lisa Morrison is featured in the trailer and, presumably the finished film as well. That’s reason enough to support it, but then there’s also Tonya Cornett, the terrific brewer from Bend Brewing.
For the Love of Beer Trailer from Grayson Productions on Vimeo.
The Many Sides of Sam Calagione
In honor of the debut of Sam Calagione’s new Discovery Channel series, Brew Masters, Anat Baron (the director/writer/producer of Beer Wars) posted this short video of Sam and his Dogfish Head Craft Brewery that was originally shown at the “Alamo Draft House in April 2008 as part of the Dogfish Head Off-Centered Film Festival.” In the post, A Star Is Born, Anat reminisces about her first meeting Sam and working with him on her movie. Thanks for sharing, Anat.
The Many Sides of Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery from Beer Wars on Vimeo.
ManTables’ End Table Refrigerators
Earlier this year, I watched a stand-up comedy special by Jake Johannsen on Showtime, entitled I Love You. In one of his bits during the show Johannsen describes a dream — a man dream — for putting a mini fridge in his bedroom. Here’s the essence of it, omitting the added automatic coffee maker he wants to put on top of it.
I was going to buy a mini fridge, and that was going to be my bedside table. I thought I had a great idea. So at night I could be lying in bed with my wife, maybe watching a movie or reading a book, and have a nice cold beer out of the mini fridge, maybe two. That was my dream.
Long story short, the punchline is his wife said no, which was his example of compromise between married people. Trust me, it’s funnier in context. Well apparently somebody was listening and felt his pain. A new company, ManTables, has created a line of small refrigerators that resemble end tables so they won’t look out of place in a living room, rec room or … bedroom.
They ManTable refrigerators come in three colors: black, walnut and tobacco. Below in the walnut finish in a living room setting.
And here’s an open view. The website claims they can fit 45 beer cans. No word on how many bottles.
It seems to me they’d be perfect for a rec room or man cave that was some distance from the kitchen. The cost is $389.99, plus shipping, tax and handing charges.
Update On Beer Found In Baltic Shipwreck
Back in September of this year, you may recall, that Beer From Early 1800s Found In Baltic Shipwreck. Near the Åland Islands, they found champagne and beer bottles in a sunken cargo ship thet is believed to have been sailing from Denmark, most likely Copenhagen, sometime between 1800 and 1830, and possibly bound for St. Petersburg, Russia.
Motor Boats Monthly recently published an update on the fate of the bottles. They also note that “experts” — no word on who — opened some of the bottles and declared them to taste “absolutely fabulous.” I wish there was something a bit more than AbFab to go on, but that’s all that’s said. In addition, there’s this exciting news:
Bottles of beer found in the wreck are thought to be the world’s oldest drinkable ale, and could provide the recipe to allow it to be replicated. Finnish authorities have approved the idea and several breweries, including one managed by Christian Ekstroem, have expressed interest in brewing the beer for today’s drinkers to taste.
I hope that happens, it would be like tasting history.
E.J. Phair Now Open in Pittsburg’s Liberty Hotel
E.J. Phair of Concord, has opened its second location in Pittsburg. The new alehouse is in the historic Liberty Hotel in the downtown area at 200 East 3rd Street. Beginning this week, they’ll be airing a new television commercial on Comcast, which you can see below.
St. Luke’s Bottle Band
Believe it or not, since 1979, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Illinois has had a musical group, the St. Luke’s Bottle Band. According to their website, the band was “founded by Professor Paul Phillips. Over the past few years the St. Luke’s Bottle Band has been featured on National Public Radio, the NBC Nightly News, Wild Chicago and the Jenny Jones Show. The band has traveled to Atlanta Georgia to perform for the American Lutheran Church Musicians Conference, as well as Door County, Wisconsin, to present a concert at the Fish Creek Auditorium. The Bottle Band has appeared on An American Moment with James Earl Jones and twice on the Late Show with David Letterman.” (Thanks to Tom D. for sending me the link.) In addition to Scott Joplin’s Peacherine Rag below, there are a number of additional videos of the bottle band performing, including a rousing kazoo version of John Philip Sousa’s Washington Post March. The also have a Facebook page. Enjoy.