Month: October 2011

The Oxford Companion To Beer Wiki Still Grows

3014I haven’t mentioned it since May, but the wiki grows. It’s alive. This observation in the section on the letter “C” is my favorite correction in the OCB wiki so far:

“cask” this entry states that “After filing, a plastic or wooden stopper called a shive is driven into the large bunghole on the belly, and a smaller one called a keystone is driven into the tap hole.” In fact the keystone is driven into the tap hole before filling as the cask would leak otherwise.

Brilliant!! Ed Wray picked out that one. Don’t know how I missed it. Ed’s been doing a wonderful job working away at correcting, amending and adding to the thousands of pages of entries. This, I understand, is Ed. He’s only up to D so far. Many have given up before that. Be strong, Ed. Martyn has been adding to the wiki today, too. W, P and S so far. And did you know the OCB has no entry for the worlds greatest selling beer? You do now.

Good work. 202 or 18.36% of the book’s entries have now been corrected. Is the burst of entries because it is the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend? Me, I am eating cold mac + cheese and watching Canadian three-down football myself. Because I am thankful for cold mac + cheese and Canadian three-down football. And Ed and Martyn.

Your 1816 Albany Ale Update From My Home Town

 

kingstonasb1816kWe have not found more Albany ale information for a while but this is your moment of zen. Just consider what it means. There is no Erie Canal. There are rapids on the St. Lawrence all the way to Montreal. There are about 4,000 people in this town. The War of 1812 ended one shipping season before… unless it was brought by sleigh. Oh, and “Do.” does not mean dozen. It means “ditto” so those are barrels. Amazing. From the Kingston Gazette on April 27th 1816.

Friday Bullets For The Last Election For A While

Apparently the lesson of yesterday’s election is that Ontarians are sick of elections. Well under 50% voted. I just about nailed the seat count, however, so that is something. It’s status quo for Canada this week. The real story is there is no Tory surge just a fed-upped-ness with the whole thing. Wonder why. Bracing for recession, too.

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Update de les chiens chaudes … is it steam-ays? Whatever it is, it is a movement pure righteousness!
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Speaking of Ontario, did you know the state supplier of booze airbrushed beer labels?
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Withe the Rays and the Yanks making early exits, we can confirm the AL East is not the hotbed of champions we thought it was.
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Yet Morton still leads and the Leafs won. Mad.
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The war in Afghanistan began 10 years ago today.
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I love the way that Palin took the powerful leadership stance of bailing on a fantatically weak bid to be anything other than a self-promoter.

That is it. The week that was. Sunny weekend coming. Shed, I hear you calling…

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Oh – Heck – It’s Election Day In Ontario…

Ontario politics are sorta like that. People don’t notice that they are, with all the downloading of 30 years, the most important elections in the life of the nation. Because Ontario is that nice nerdy B+ kid who helps and never gets dates. Gives away the lunch money and gets threatened by smaller rude boys on the way home. Here’s is my guess at the outcome this election day.

Popular Vote:

40% – Grits
34% – Tory
18% – Dippers
2% – Greens
the rest% – the rest

Seats:

52 – Grits
38 – Tory
17 – Dippers

Not a brave guess or even one that makes sense. But I am sticking by it. Hope I remember to vote. Special good luck wishes to Vic Gupta with whom I worked in a bar in 1992 as well as the NDP here in town whose riding association is led by a fine vintage base ballista.