Travel by the Pint: the Blog

With the eminent launch of Season 3 of Travel by the Pint, we’ll be closing this blog and moving to another, here: travelbythepint/beerblog. We’ll leave this old blog up for a while in case anyone has links to it but all future posts will be made on the new blog. Please redirect your bookmarks.

In addition to the new blog, an entirely redesigned website is on the way. We’ve totally rebuilt the site to better house the video clips and we’ve added an expanded episode guide to make finding episodes easier than ever. The travelbythepint.com address will remain the same so only the blog link is changing. Since the videos will be part of the site now, expect the blog to become more of a beer news resource. We’ll post links to news stories and other sites of interest to our fellow beer lovers. Check it out and feel free to leave us a comment.

See you at the new place!

The May/June 2010 issue of Brew Your Own magazine (byo.com) includes a recipe from Joe Short of Short’s Brewing Company in Bellaire, Michigan. You may remember that Travel by the Pint featured Joe in Season 1, Episodes 3 and 4. The recipe is for The Magician Ale, described on the Short’s website as “A lustrous dark red London ale”.

Is nothing sacred? Due to large numbers of people being injured by pint glasses, the British government is looking at plastic or possibly a plastic-coated option to prevent shattering, says the BBC. Lowering the Bar has more information along with some fun statistics of other things that seem to injure a lot of Brits. For instance, citing The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, “Almost 1000 cases [of injury] are recorded under the category ‘Cardigan sweater’.”

I’ll wear a plastic cardigan if I can keep my glass pint.

An Atlanta brewery teamed up with a rainwater recovery company to brew green — er, let’s go with “environmentally friendly” beer. Read about it here.

Some interesting beer packaging designs from The Dieline:

- Broken Bones (concept)
- Lucky Bucket (see number 7)
- Osjecko Pivo

And it looks like our old friends at Grizzly Peak in Ann Arbor, Michigan — Season 1, Episodes 13 & 14 — are getting into bottling (from LovelyPackage):

- Northern United Brewing (Grizzly Peak and North Peak)

North Peak, located in Traverse City, Michigan, will be featured in a pair of Travel by the Pint episodes later this season.

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture has a great gallery of photos from Oktoberfest in Munich which began on September 19th.

We spotlighted Jolly Pumpkin in Season 1, episodes seven and eight. Since then, owner Ron Jeffries has opened Jolly Pumpkin Old Mission on the other side of Michigan in Traverse City. Ron has applied the same artisanship of his cask-aged ales, to the food at Old Mission, hiring a Chef Paul Olson to elevate comfort foods to a new level. Menu items include pancetta pie pizza made with local ingredients and hand-stretched dough, and house-smoked ribs.

In addition to serving Jolly Pumpkin’s line of artisan ales, Old Mission’s taps also include Traverse City favorite North Peak (to be featured later in Season 1), and local wines.

Congratulations Ron!

Jolly Pumpkin Old Mission is located behind Bowers Harbor Inn at 13512 Peninsula Drive, on the Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who, when hearing of the White House Beer Summit, wondered first “what beer will they have?” Today we have an answer, although I’m not sure the ink is dry on this one. According to the Wall Street Journal, Red Stripe and Blue Moon will be served to Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley, respectively, and it’s Bud Light for the President.

Oh, Mr. President…

I’m not sure what I would recommend he have, but I like the idea mentioned in the story of serving Equality Ale made by the Capitol City Brewing Company in DC (although I’ve never tried it). Any suggestions out there? Leave a comment.

Update: Was Red Stripe unavailable? CNN reports that Professor Gates ended up with a Samuel Adams Light while surprise guest VP Biden enjoyed a Buckler “near beer”. I’m beginning to think that they all should have gone with a Presidential IPA from our old friends at Diamond Bear Brewing.

More beer news — this time from the CBC website, “Off-beat beer producers fight for survival”.

Earlier this week, the BBC reported that UK pubs are closing at the rate of 52 per week.