Not necessarily in that order.
Cans.
Building on last year’s huge success, my pals who work up at Peace Coffee and Bedlam Theater in Minneapolis have organized the (second?) annual International Canned Beer Month. I celebrated by visiting the Red Derby, a new bar in my old Washington D.C. neighborhood of Columbia Heights that only serves canned beer. Woo hoo! I had a Sea Hag IPA from New England Brewing Co., and a Gordon Imperial IPA from
Oskar Blues, the granddaddy of craft beer canners. Pop the tab up there on their website to learn how to get in on the canned beer action.
Mead.
Saturday, August 2, was Mead Day, sponsored by the American Homebrewers Association. To celebrate, I harvested honey for the first time in my life. It came from my friend Jay’s beehive that is situated about three feet from my own hive. We had to return the honey extractor he borrowed from his neighbor so we’ll harvest the honey from my hive as soon as we can borrow the extractor again.
We did manage to brew up some homebrew and add a pound or so of our freshly-harvested honey. Can’t wait to taste that in a couple weeks.
Rocks.
Apparently I run in a crowd of people who like declaring International Days of this and International Months of that. My longtime friend and homebrewing and writing comrade Dave Bonta has turned up a rockin’ idea: International Rock-Flipping Day. On the first Sunday of September ye shall flip a rock, look underneath, and observe.
What does this have to do with beer? Well, I don’t know for sure but I can picture Dave sitting on his front porch drinking a homebrew and staring at his yard and thinking: “Hey, I know, I’ll flip that rock over and see what’s underneath. Yeah, everyone should do that. I’m gonna start an International Day. Well, first I’m gonna have another homebrew but then I’m gonna start an International Day.” And thus it began.
