Who among us has not fantasized about a life of world travel, meeting new people in exotic locales, living life as a writer while getting into adventures? Well, Ed Valenta is trying to live the dream.
The 32-year-old former Harpoon Brewery employee recently left his job and is now on a year-long voyage that will take him across the country and halfway around the world, visiting every brewery possible and, ultimately, working in one.
Valenta is blogging about his adventures on The Beer Less Traveled. He headed west on Feb. 8 in a 1994 Honda Accord with 242,000 miles on it. Scheduled stops include breweries in Colorado, California and Oregon, where he has friends and family. (When I spoke with him, he was on his way to Eddyline Restaurant and Brewery in Buena Vista, Colo., for lunch.) His eventual destination is New Zealand.
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Assuming A-B sincerely wants to have a craft beer portfolio, it would be wise to allow Goose Island to keep producing beers like Matilda.
A former colleague and reporter in Tennessee emailed me with a question recently that, frankly, sounded difficult to believe. Subject line: “Trucking wort.”
Last summer, as I began experimenting with mead, I read a post on Vthombrewguru.com that I’ve been thinking about since.
The following is the Feb. 6 response from Cory O’Neel about Granite City’s unique brewing operation:
Hello Chris,
I’d be happy to address your questions. We at Granite City are excited to be
expanding into the Tennessee market. Any time we move into new markets, these
questions come up. We have a unique brewing process and it is often misunderstood.
I am the “Brewmaster” (technically ‘Director of Brewery Operations’) for all the
Granite City Food & Brewery locations. When we open in Franklin Tennessee, we will have 27 locations in twelve states. We are an ‘Upscale-Casual’ …
Name: St. Bernardus Abt 12
Brewery:Brouwerij St. Bernardus NV
Style: Belgian Dark Strong Ale
ABV: 10
Final Grade: A
Score: 46
Some beers remind me of just how limited my vocabulary is.
All I could come up with for St. Bernardus Abt 12 were fairly prosaic terms: “chocolate” “raisin” and “caramel.” I fear I was unfair. This beer had so much more going on.
Produced by a secular brewery in West Flanders, St. Bernardus Abt 12 nevertheless shares the complexity of flavor and aroma of some of the finest Trappist beers. Michael Jackson has described it as “like a warming coconut brandy.” I didn’t detect the coconut, but there’s a lot I didn’t detect.
This was a Christmas gift and I haven’t seen the beer sold at any of my local stores. However, I can’t wait to try this again, exploring it as a learning experience and indulging it for sheer pleasure.
The gold leafing, big alcohol (12 %), tiny bottle (8.48 fl. oz.) and relatively high price ($4.55) suggested the Scaldis was something special.
