Here’s a fun little food exercise. Andrew at Very Good Taste, an English food blog, posted a list of one hundred things every omnivore should eat or drink, asking bloggers across the world to post the list, annotating it with the items they’ve had and crossing out the ones they’d never, ever try. There’s an even an FAQ about the list, which answers some basic questions about how it came about. So without further ado, here’s the list:

The Very Good Taste Ominvore’s 100

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I did a lot better than I expected I would, with 63 already tried, not counting any that I’m not entirely sure what the are. Case in point, I originally left off epoisses. My friend and colleague, Stephen Beaumont, however, reminded me that he actually brought us some of that cheese when my wife Sarah was pregnant with Alice. You can read his own account of the list on his On the House blog.

How many have you tried?

After a little over twenty-four hours at home, I left early this morning for Denver, where I’m judging again at the Great American Beer Festival. Orientation was earlier this evening and we begin at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I got a pretty good group of styles this year, and some real gems. It should be a fun time. Stay tuned for more as GABF week unfolds.

I heard from a colleague today that the long-rumored sale of Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro is a done deal. Apparently the Martin Brothers, who own Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley have acquired it. Since Rodger Davis, Drake’s former brewer, recently was hired by Triple Rock, this makes perfect sense and will also give Triple Rock a production facility. Perhaps we’ll soon see Monkey Head Arboreal Ale in a six-pack?

 
UPDATE: Bill Brand has the full story in today’s paper, entitled San Leandro craft brewery sold to Triple Rock.
 

On Friday afternoon I arrived in North Carolina from London for the World Beer Festival put on by All About Beer magazine. Daniel Bradford and Julie Johnson Bradford had invited me to their event back in April and I was keen to see what North Carolina looked like these days and what changes I’d recognize, having moved to California from Durham twenty-five years ago. I was also giving a presentation and tasting on IPAs during the second session, in the evening. There were a few other writers in town for the same reason, such as Lew Bryson and Rick Lyke. After a brewer’s reception, I retired early, as I had only an hour and half’s worth of sleep the night before and was only able to manage a few catnaps on the plane over the pond. I felt like crap and by all accounts looked even worse. Happily, I woke up the following morning feeling much better. After enjoying visits to two area barbecue places with Lew Bryson (yes, we ate two meals), we headed over to the new Durham Bulls ballpark, where this year’s World Beer Festival was being held.

The World Beer Festival at the new Durham Bulls ballpark.

For many more photos from this year’s World Beer Festival in Durham, visit the photo gallery.
 

After an overnight flight, we arrived at Heathrow Airport shortly before 8:00 a.m. None of us had slept on the plane very much, so we were dead tired, but knew the best way to acclimate was to stay awake. So we made our way to St. Pancras Station, where we would later be taking the train to Burton-on-Trent, dropped our bags, and had caffeine fed into our veins intravenously at little cafe in the station.

We needed to make our way to the Lamb in Lamb’s Conduit Road, where I had arranged to meet a colleague, Martyn Cornell, who writes online at the Zythophile. Having plenty of time we wandered about London, eventually finding our way to the Lamb. We spent a fun and satisfying three or so hours talking about our favorite subject while enjoying some great beer and the best fries … er, chips of the trip, visiting three pubs in the process. Martyn has a more lucid account of time together in a post entitled Why the man from Firestone was deservedly tired.
 

Me and fellow beer writer Martyn Cornell, sharing a pint at the Perseverance.

For more photos from our early arrival in London, visit the photo gallery.
 

This being our 20th monthly Session a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, it’s a wonder I can remember when we started. Ray Merkler and Melissa Ward can though, and they’re the hosts of this month’s Session. They run The Bathtub Brewery and have chosen this month’s topic, or at least that’s my memory. The way they put it is:

Is there a beer that reminds you of a specific memory?

If you’re thinking, “Huh?” then you might want to craft your response along the lines of “Whenever I drink [insert brew here] it reminds me of that day …” Or perhaps it’s the reverse. Oooooh.

For me, music tends to spark more vivid memories, though beer and music are often inextricably linked. If, for example, I hear Paul McCartney’s Listen What the Man Said, I can actually smell the pork sandwiches I ate every day the summer I was fourteen, which I spent working in my stepfather’s car repair shop. In fact, I was just telling this same story to Lew Bryson just a hour ago, and now I can’t get that damned song out of my head.

As for beer, it’s unfortunately a bit more cloudy. Genesee Cream Ale — Genny to everyone, since we were on an intimate basis with her — revives vague and general memories of high school parties, autumn leaves piled high on the street, football games and loose women. It was one of our beers of choice, when we could manage to get it, and the one more of the girls seemed to like — a fact we recognized as a plus.

I can, however, tell you the circumstances under which I tried a certain beer for the first time, but that’s not particularly revealing. There’s no romance to those memories, just the cold hard facts of where and when. It’s pure data, not the sensory impressions and reminisces that I think should properly inspire a good memory.

But if that data also includes the people I was drinking it with then that’s a whole different ballgame. This is where beer’s status as social lubricant really shines. Once that piece of the puzzle fits into place, then the dominoes (sorry to mix my metaphors and cliches) of those memories begin to fall. Because I think in the end, beer is — like most things in life — all about the people you share it with. The beer is merely the catalyst for the memory, who said or did what and to whom, what made you laugh, and how that experience grew friendships or relationships is why you want to remember that time at all.

Sure, there are memories best left forgotten, but as long as you learn from a bad experience, they’re still valuable. And it really is true that most things, while not funny in that moment, become hilarious with the passage of time. I have a friend who broke both her wrists falling off a curb. Tragic then, comedy fodder today. How she managed it is still something of a mystery.

But okay, put a gun to my head. I guess my favorite memory comes whenever I have a beer from the Tied House, with locations in San Jose and Mountain View, California. The San Jose location was a stone’s throw from where I was working downtown in the early 1990s. I’d met a woman working on the same floor as me, and asked to go for a drink after work. Thinking I would like to ask her out on a proper date, I first ordered her a taster in the brewpub’s back garden area and tried her on craft beer, something foreign to her at the time. Her reaction was very positive and she was receptive and open to the experience as I had hoped, and I asked her out on the spot. Two years later, we held our wedding reception on the very same spot, running up the largest bar tab I’ve ever paid. And twelve years later still, she still loves craft beer nearly as much as I do. Tasting any of the beers from the Tied House fills me at once with all of the wonder that the simple decision to know Sarah better has brought to my life, to say nothing of Porter and Alice, the two wonderful children we’ve had together. Now that’s a powerful memory for me and magic in a glass of beer.

Perhaps you already saw this over at Beer Therapy, but Firestone Walker Brewing’s award-winning brewmaster, Matt Brynildson, was recently invited to brew at Marston’s Brewery in the United Kingdom. Brewers selected from Japan, Australia and Denmark will join Brynildson to bring their talents and recipes to the U.K. for the JD Wetherspoon International Beer Festival.

What you probably didn’t know is that I’m joining Matt on his trip to Marston’s. We leave this afternoon and will arrive in London Monday morning way freaking early. Assuming I can find a WiFi signal, look for posts from across the pond later this week.

Matt at the Boonville Beer Festival with Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment.

The National Beer Wholesalers Association (a.k.a. the NBWA) held their annual convention in San Francisco from September 14-17. The NBWA is a trade organization for beer wholesalers and distributors. After Prohibition, the three-tier system was created and has been an integral part of the beer industry ever since. I don’t normally attend the convention, but since it was in my back yard, I decided I couldn’t miss it this year. I’m glad I went. There were a lot of people there I knew and there was a lot of buzz in the air over some big things happening in the industry.

Some NBWA luminaries at the NBWA welcome reception. From left, Jamie Jurado (with Gambrinus), Lucy Saunders (the Beer Cook), Charlie Papazian (President of the Brewers Association), Kim Jordan (from New Belgium Brewing) and Tom Dalldorf (from the Celebrator Beer News).

For more photos from the first day of this year’s NBWA Convention in San Francisco, visit the photo gallery.
 

If you’re planning on being at the Great American Beer Festival this year, particularly at the Thursday or Friday night sessions — and think you know beer trivia? — then have I got a game for you. The beery punster, Tom Dalldorf, he of the Celebrator Beer News, will be hosting a beer trivia game show — Win Beer Stein’s Money — at GABF this year. If you’ll be there, you can sign up now to be a contestant online.

Two weekends ago, the San Francisco Brewers Guild held their annual beer festival on board the Jeremiah O’Brien, a World War II era Liberty Ship anchored at Fisherman’s Wharf. I missed Saturday but stopped by on Sunday to enjoy some beer brewed in San Francisco.

The beer flag was flying, aboard …

The Liberty Ship Jeremiah O’Brien.

For more photos from this year’s Brews By the Bay Festival, visit the photo gallery.