About A Good Beer Blog – Page 6

What Was My Best Beer Thing Of 2009?

It has been a good year both inside and outside that beery part of my life. It is hard to measure what that means in some ways as If I was reporting to higher authority, I can state that I have put good beer in the hands and glasses of more of the uninitiated than in earlier years. It is a good thing to do but I am not reporting to any higher authority, just noting for myself and those of you that care about what I have seen and enjoyed in 2009.

Best Beer Books. This has been a phenomenal year for books on beer. I name three of the best. Pete Brown’s Hops and Glory, supposedly an examination of the route IPA took in the early years of its travels from Britain to India, is actually a book about Pete. Ben McFarland’s World’s Best Beers has updated the bazillion beer review format and breathed new life into what had become a bit of a musty concept. Beaumont and Morin in The Beerbistro Cookbook have given us the best book on beer and food which, while suggesting recommendations, has saved us from the shackles of overly specific “pairings” instead encouraging us all not only to explore beer but to explore with a sense of one’s own taste.

Best Beer Trend: It has to be the setting of the sun on the tyranny of extreme. Finally, beer is learning what everyone but skate boarding thirty-year olds know: extreme may be more than a gimmick but not very much more. Few beer fans are really begging for even more hops and booze and barrels in 2010. Conversely, bigger craft brewers and even some regionals are making interesting beers which are not bombs. Lew recently noted both Magic Hat Odd Notion Fall ’09 and Narragansett Porter both of which I also found to be stunning for their value as well as their elegance. Yesterday, Andy was thankful for well crafted simplicity. Expect 2009 to be remembered for how we learned that cacophony in glass is not a brewers or a drinker’s “go to” brew.

Best Beer News. What is beer news that isn’t brewery PR, advocacy group paranoia or corner store failed robbery? Not much really but that does not make it a waste of time. The biggest beer news was Obama having a brew courtside last March. Best saucy beer news was the announcement that BrewDog complained on itself to the shadowy Portman Group, aka the competition. Other than that, it’s all about naked drunk frosh being caught on security cameras at corner stores in Kansas. Jay has a better list of big news stories of 2009 – though I have to admit that Beer Wars is more likely to turn out to be the Ishtar of beer documentaries. It was news because of the irritating PR.

Best Bodyslam Of Beer Pros By Beer Bloggers. This is a new category for 2009. First we had the ridiculous lecture from small market western Massachusetts beer columnist George Lenker whose pomposity triggered a response that Stan anointed as “The Beer Link of the Month (or Maybe 2009)” which made me get all verklempt… seriously… but which saw George drowning in his attempts to explain while sorta still insulting people. Then, we had Roger Protz, one of at least the top 20 beer authorities on the planet, freaking out over Brewdog and then get all superior and “begone you plebs” over bloggers correctly pointing out how little he understood the topic at hand. Then, just this week, we hear that there is some guy called Alan Brewer going all “pro” on poor old Max the Pivní Filosof alleging that, by hiring Max a mere a beer blogger, a Spanish beer magazine has “allowed the fox into the hen-house” and says that “if the hiring standards of the magazine have fallen so low, he could recommend a homeless man he knows, who is an expert in strong canned beers of less than a dollar.”

Sounds like a call for a good rumble of rock, paper, scissors between paper based semi-pros and web based semi-pros. Cherry belly time. Because let’s be frank. There are about 12 people in the world who really make a real living from writing about beer. The rest have other business interests in the hospitality world, a separate professional career or sources of other family income and patience. And there is that other thing: the Internet is not going anywhere. It’s a good thing, too, because anyone who says that the quantity and quality of beer writing on the web is not a good thing is a fool. A rising tide raises all ships and the more good discourse about good beer the better.

I’ll leave it at there for now. I think I have picked a beer of the year and a beer photo of the year for more than half a decade now and who am I to break the rules of convention even when it is my own.

My Week In Beer… Or “I Travelled For No Beer”

Well, at least I did have a beer today – a Sacket’s Harbor IPA at the brewpub with lunch. I was at a thinking session so I won’t get into it but suffice it to say that Sackets Harbor Brewing Co. on a warm spring day is one of the nicest spots to have a beer I have ever come across. But the weird thing was that I came back across the border with not one bottle in the van. Mad? No, I am just planning to spend Victoria Day Monday in New York State’s 48th senatorial district inspecting the Crown’s former territories and I expect to hit Oswego’s C’s Farm Market with gusto. I did stare at a six pack of Sierra Nevada IPA for $9.49 at the gas station just before I crossed back across the border but I really have a lot of beer from the recent trip to Quebec as well as kind travelers to Michigan and Wisconsin. Do I need more?

I don’t know what is weirder – coming back from the USA with no beer or what Greg Koch wrote in the comments on Wednesday. But what is weirder is that my post about “Hooray for Everything” rates #5 on Google right now for “American Craft Beer Week” so I suppose some pip squeek like me being less than wholehearted about one’s PR campaign might be the cause of some unhappiness – though others seem to have the same questions. But these things pass – Google rankings, PR campaigns, internet squabbles. Greg makes very good beer and that is the main thing.

I don’t know if I could sustain a “My Week in Beer Series” – I live in such a bubble and don’t get out much. What would it be like to live like Knut who nips south to Rome’s Football Pub, where a bar stool calls for me, when the slightest whim moves him. What would it be like to be Jeff, who runs the other greatest pub in Europe – grabbing a cask, conditioning it brilliantly and making a living from it. Such dreams. Jay still has the news, Stan is still on the trip and Lew has the blues. Such lives.

Me, I have a 3 Monts, a favorite pale ale, and spend Friday night watching Doctor Who with the kids. Beer in the rec room. A great end to the week.

Hail To The New Sponsor – Scotland’s BrewDog!

It was an intense stretch of negotiations. I begged. They were repulsed. I whined. Then…they pitied and came on board. We of A Good Beer Blog are always thrilled when a new sponsor signs up and we like to explore all sorts of ways to get along all in the cause of what might be thought of an alternative take on craft lagers and ales. The fine folk at BrewDog cover a few bases – they make incredibly good and innovative beer while meeting a sensitivity to the emotional needs of a North American bound fan of the Greenock Morton. It’s good to be in such a relationship. I’m all a giggle at the idea of them joining people like the hoteliers of Prague and, of course, the good good people at Ontario Craft Brewers. I think we’ll float the ad in the tops stories for a while. See how that works. Click on it and you will no longer even be here.

And this is part of a big plan we call the big plan. We are always looking for these sorts of new pals. It’s kind of like a support group for this one beer fan with a writing problem who finds himself bearing the full weight of a jurisdiction with monopolistic beer practices of limited variety, overly taxed price structures and friends who ask “can I have another one of those?”. Proceeds go to beer travel by car and beer acquisition by hand picked selection at some of the nicest stores in Quebec and the US north-east. That’s right: cash = stash. Simple math. And we dicker and we try to figure out a bazillion ways for you to join in whether by an ad or a sample or just by that Google ad cheque in the mail. Why? Because we love what you the beer hound, beer maker, beer writer, beer vendor and beer bar owner do. All proceeds include the tax man’s share (at least five ways if I was to think about it) and acquisitions go in part to the local beer nerds I am cultivating…though in larger part to me. Gotta be honest.

Do you have what it takes to sponsor or otherwise the support the program of good works we are undertaking at A Good Beer Blog? I bet you do. I do.

Considering My Own Inherent Irrelevance

Sifting the tea leaves of the place of oneself in the blogosphere and in life is entirely a mug’s game. Only idiots care. Yet, I am an idiot. It struck me yesterday when I reviewed the detailed commentary James Bow has written on the 2008 Canadian Blog Awards. Admittedly, it has been some time since I was nominated for these sorts of things and I can take my ego massaging from other sources but something struck me when I read the candidates for Best Blog in Canada – and realized I never heard of any of them. They may well have never heard of me either as they were blogging in a different way, not using the cut, paste and comment format that I along with most Oldie Olson bloggers use. They are pretty good, too.

Then, I got fiddling with the settings on Google Analytics to figure out what that could tell me. One of new features with mt bloggy systems upgrades is the server stats are gone. Once upon a time, back around the summer of 2005 or so, I think I could count almost 11,000 visits a day to this blog according to mt server stats. Now Google Analytics tells me that on 23 November 2008 Gen x 40 had 118 visits. The beer blog gets almost seven times that traffic now. I know it is all apples to oranges. Back in the day, every bot and spam was counted and now RSS readers are left out. Yet the message is clear. I write on this site for Hans and a few others. Yet I write and I enjoy the writing.

But it isn’t really just about the blog, is it. We all know that. David sent me a link by Twitter the other day that proves it. In itself, even the choice of medium was telling. He didn’t leave a comment because blogs are really so 2004. The link he sent me was to a Washington Postarticle entitled “The Dumbest Generation: The Kids Are Alright. But Their Parents …” in which my cohort, early Generation X, are shown to be the biggest bunch of losers in recent decades, maybe centuries. Now, to be clear, we knew that already. That is the whole point of me and my peeps. The slacker generation was not a slacker generation out of choice. Growing up in the era of recession after recession, there was no point in effort. But the article is perhaps a little to close to the bone on this core generational fact:

Whatever you call them (I’ll just call them early Xers), the numbers are clear: Compared with every other birth cohort, they have performed the worst on standardized exams, acquired the fewest educational degrees and been the least attracted to professional careers. In a word, they’re the dumbest. Obviously, we’re talking averages. No one would apply the word “dumb” to Barack Obama (born in 1961) or Timothy F. Geithner, his nominee for secretary of the Treasury (born in the same month). Yet the president-elect himself has written eloquently about how hard it was for him and his peers to obtain a serious education during their dazed-and-confused teen years. Like it or not, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (born in 1964), who stumbled over basic civics facts during her vice presidential run, is more representative of this group. Early Xers are the least bookish CEOs and legislators the United States has seen in a long while. They prefer sound bites over seminars, video clips over articles, street smarts over lofty diplomas. They are impatient with syntax and punctuation and citations…

Ouch. Kick in the goolies ouch. Yet here I am in pajamas, waylayed by a cold my grandfather would not recognize as a cold, writing on a blog no one reads, torturing the language as my grade 8 teacher told me I did and sluffing off of the things I ought to be doing on a Sunday morning. I am as I ought to be: looking forward to a game on the TV so that I can nap through more than half of it as the snow collects outside, unshovelled.

Beer Hunting in Michigan and Quebec

I have a couple of big trips coming up in October. Circumstances place me to the west in London, Ontario relieved of duties before noon on a Friday which means I have an hour to head further west still to the border at Sarnia and the afternoon to shop in Michigan. Having been there before, I have a sense of what I am looking for: something wet hopped, a case of Two Hearted Ale…as well as a little Bud American Ale…just to see. I don’t think I’ll make it as far as Jolly Pumpkin but Ron has given me the name of some of his most north-easterly clients so with any luck I will land some anyway.

The next weekend, however, sends me far east through largely uncharted territory as I head to a small IT/brainiac conference called Zap Your Pram in PEI. I will try to stop in a few government stores out east but on the way back on Sunday, I hope to hit a beer store or two in Quebec City like Le Monde des Bieres or Dépanneur de la Rive. I want to get my hands on some Dieu du Ciel for sure but, as John Rubin mentions in today’s Toronto Star, there are plenty of Quebec-made brews we never hear about in English-speaking Canada. The same is true of any regional brews due to our wacko inter-provincial trade restrictions but Quebecers, arguably, have a taste for a broader range of flavours than the rest of we Canucks and it shows in their brews. So maybe I’ll grab something from Microbrasserie Charlevoix or Hopfenstark, both unknowns to me but well regarded by the BAers.

Any hints before I undertake the 4,000 km two-part tour?

Notes From A Stay-cation

I don’t mind “stay-cation” except that you can’t spell it without the hyphen. Better than being called an unimaginative twerb who can’t get it together enough to take the family camping. I have excuses – I always have excuses. First, family reunion on Saturday. Then, the annual vintage base ball game that got rained out yesterday. Today, a beer writer or two visit as part of their multi-continental trip. So even though we are at home, we are getting something of an edjification.

I hope I don’t just watch TV but the twisted back makes that a possibility. I watched the ESPYs last night, thinking they would be lame. Best TV awards show ever. Justin Timberlake was a dreamy host – I say no more for fear of affecting my cred. Now, on a Monday morning in July, I hunt in vain for reruns of Mr. Dress-up and The Friendly Giant. What the heck has happened to the CBC? Thank God, I can at least look forward to Elwood Glover’s Luncheon Date at noon to go with my egg salad and parsley sandwiches.

Bob Asks A Good Question About Dutch Beer

We all know the story of India Pale Ale but Bob asks in the comments whether the Dutch ever did a similar thing:

Bob Schneider [11:37 PM June 25, 2007]
bob.blustar@gmail.com
http://brewersonthelake.com
I realise that this is a review of a book but I was wondering if you could satisfy my curiosity. When I was brewing professionally in Holland, MI, I was trying to come up with a beer name and tagline that connected with the Dutch East India Trading Company (correct name?) similar to India Pale Ale shipped to British troops stationed in India. I did some research but ended up making an IPA with our house German ale yeast. When I put the beer on tap at the brew pub, the owners renamed it anyway. It was still one of the best IPAs I have made.

So my question is; Did the Dutch traders ship beer as a commodity in trade for Asian goods? If yes, what years, what style? Were hops used in any manner then?

Thanks
Bob

Good enough to be brought up to the surface for a little bit more of a think….or a thunk if I can’t come up with anything. I will check through Unger’s texts but if anyone else has any ideas, please share.

From A Good Beer Blog’s Fan Mailbag

Through the grapevine…barley stem?… I learned that Roy Bonisteel, host of CBC TV’s excellent Man Alive from 1969 to 1989, is a fan of this here beer blog. I sent word back asking for a few words and low and behold there is some background on the greatest beer related poem ever, Al Purdy’s “At The Quinte Hotel”, which I recently posted:

I like the beer blog….it’s very good. In interesting fact that a lot of people don’t know is that although Bellevillians are very proud of Al Purdy’s poem about the Quinte Hotel…it is not the Belleville Quinte. It is the Trenton Quinte…now called something else…where Purdy drank. At this same time I had a room at the Quinte when I was driving cab and working at the Courier. At that time we didn’t know each other…but year’s later over many a beer, talked about the fact that we had both been there at the same time. Tell your friend I’ll keep up with his blog.

Fabulous.

You know, from time to time I wonder who you all are and where you are. I received a very nice email this week in fact from a gent – Roshan from Kochi, India – who was pleased to tell me that he now takes a moment to smell his beer, because he now knows like Purdy that it is made of flowers I suppose. From Quite to Kochi.

Drop a line anyone of you now 3500 daily visitors. Always good to hear from you.

Beer As Wire Story

I am a godfather of a blip. Woot! Click on through the image to get to the full story as printed in a Washington state paper, The News Tribune of Tacoma. Here is the story at the AP’s own asap website:

The Red Ensign Standard, Edition XXXII

The Elemental FormRed Ensigns. As I mentioned yesterday, I have been working on this edition of the Red Ensign Standard for a while. Some of my readers may have no idea about Red Ensigns so it is good that wikipedia has a good post about them. If I can take credit for being around at the start of this project called the Red Ensign bloggers, I would note that my first post in response to that first post of Packwood’s was on all the variety of Red Ensigns there were in the world and how they trace a common thread among many peoples wherever the British had been. While I started simply as a flag lover, I did begin to notice a pattern – that the Red Ensign has often been present wherever the goals of freedom and liberty have been advanced…even if at certain times it was not raised on the side of that progress. The Stars and Stripes is even a Red Ensign if you think of the white stripes as an overlay on the red background – which is actually how the design developed.

And that made me think about the fact that I am a lucky man. I live in Canada and I am proud of by far the greatest part of what makes our nation what it is today. It is neither perfect nor arose from any revolution – for much of the good I have a great debt to the continuing past. I am a kid of the British Empire as I am a kid of Scots immigrants. The tail end of the Empire got us to Canada – this time. It was the first plane trip of emigration after years of sailing here and back. Many of mine had been back and forth to Canada as far back as some relatives called McGill were in Quebec in the 1700s. Apparently one great-grandfather of mine was even born in the US – imagine that. None of these trips were anywhere near the most dangerous trip taken under the flag of the Empire either – those who went before were in India and the Sudan with the British redcoats not to mention WWI and WWII in the next two generations.

Those generations forged peace. I got to grow up here and enjoy that peace after a wave of mid-50s immigration only because I, like so many others, was born of parents who got to move here from so many lands. I think of Canada as an expression of the success of the Empire in its tolerance and diversity of people who came to be Canadian five decades ago. Inclusion – of a sort – has been part of the nature of Canada even back to the first British Empire and the centuries of success of the Quebec Act and protection for that part of the culture; similarly, the First Nations were protected by the Empire’s Royal Proclamation of 1761 though with less success and respect. We have our lost gratitude for people like those who fought at Quebec in 1755 against the American invasion, and like Molly Brant whose force of thousands of Loyalist Mohawks basically kept Upper Canada from the British from the 1780s right through to the Rebellions of 1837 when Tyendinaga’s again joined in the militia at Kingston. If it were not for the choice and the bravery of the followers of the Brants who came north after the American Revolution, it is likely Canada would not go past Montreal these days. We owe both recognition and debt to all these parts of our community. We repay that through continuing acceptance and justice…or at least we should. But we fail and we get sidetracked, too. Some now even disparage our multicultural society but then compare Canada with the recent experience in France:

Amin Kouidri, 20, has been hunting for a job for more than two years now and spends his days drifting around a government housing project here under the watchful gaze of France’s national police. He and his neighbors in one of France’s now-notorious housing projects say that they feel cut off from French society, a result of a process of segregation lasting for decades, and that alienation and pressure from the police have now exploded in rage across the country.

I don’t recognize this – even though my children go to school with kids unlike them in language, holidays, habits. I don’t recognize it because it does not exist here despite both the hyperventilating of some and some real uglinesses. In the school near here everyone’s experience is celebrated – even those of our vets. This year the Remembrance Day events in that small elementary school were far more elaborate than anything I recall. Maybe we have learned something from the Dutch who came here in such numbers in the 50s, something about remembering and respecting. Maybe we lose that when we become adult and maybe we have problems needing resolution but I know I don’t recognize that rage in another country. I can tell the difference.

I am also lucky that I live in Kingston with its legacy of confederation world all around us as well as our memorials the those who sacrificed to give us the world we have today. Throughout this post I have placed photos of the stained glass in Kingston’s City Hall that was dedicated to remembrance of all who worked and fought for the country in the First World War. Click on the images for a larger view. It is hard to place ourselves in the minds of those who fought fascism in WWII and harder to conceive of the thoughts in the trenches in WWI. It is safe to say, however, that didn’t fight for may of the things any of the things we argue over now. They did not fight for the libertarianism of I, me, mine. Likewise there is likely not much Trudeaumania and what followed on their minds: large deficits rung up by gutless Grits and Tories from the 60s to the 90s. They fought for their community, their friends, their home – a common belief in something right – and their efforts, despite Somilia, for that “something right” have continued in Korea, in the first Gulf War, in the Medak Pocket, with our jets over Belgrade and now with JTF2 in Afganistan. Don’t get me wrong – Canada is still really stunned sometimes like this, too:

Clifton Wenzel flew almost 50 combat missions during the Second World War and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Force Cross. But, in spite of his record, he was told when he left the service he didn’t qualify for a pension.

But it has always been so. There is a lot not to look back on with respect. The past was when women had no vote, segregation in Canada was normal and the state insensibly intervened with prohibition and censorship. Kids, like one of the great Canadian broadcaster Gordon Sinclair, died unable to afford the doctor. After the First World War, many of those that fought came home to fight in social equity and social programs for health care and other forms of relief expanded. After the WWII, the common practice of excluding people from services and accomodation based on religion or race was no longer accepted and the first human rights codes came into law. Conservative Prime Minister Diefenbacker joined the 1960s civil rights movement with our Bill of Rights. The bar was raised further in the early 80s when all provincial governments, but for the then separatist leaders of Quebec, came from across the spectrum and signed on to entrenchment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our constitution. The economic miracle of the 20th century coincided with the movement from protection of the interests of the strong to rights for all under the hybrid of social democracy and free market capitalism we enjoy today. Those are the things we can claim as the legacy of the past, too, and the Red Ensign is a great expression of that diversity, that progress, that fight. That is why I like it so much. That old flag with a fish on it…or Jerome the giraffe.

Here is the review of the Red Ensign Bloggers for 7 to 21 November 2005. You will see that I note the references to posts about Remembrance Day, something our glorious leader considers critical. Silence on the event is also noted, usually in kind:

A Chick Named Marzi has been having some web issues over the weekend. She expresses some unhappiness with the down side of sharing your views on the web, being swamped with disagreeable emails and regrets the loss of Martha Stewart’s version of The Apprentice.

Abraca-Pocus! honoured Remembrance Day and Veterans Day and her Uncle Eddy. She also raises the fearful spectre of yet another generation – Generation C.

Absinthe & Cookies honoured Remembrance Day and gave Mexican Food a go.

Albion’s Seedlings proposed a theory for an Anglosphere Blog but has serious troubles understanding Canada in a can’t let go of the failed control of Empire sort of way yet…and missed Remembrance Day.

At All AgitProp, all the Time…there has been little time to blog as he has very busy.

Angry in the Great White North has been…angry: he is shocked at treatment of veterans with VIA rail housing them in a barracks; shocked at the Prime Minister skipping the Commonwealth Conference; and shocked at Paul Martin not understanding that the election he wants called falls in Easter. I should read the angry man more often as, while true to his name, he is picking up stories others don’t.

Anthroblogogy is written by an ex-pat in USA with a love of ammo who celebrated National Ammo Day and and speaks of these little shining objects as one might speak of fine cigars or wine. He remembered Armistice Day and Veterans Day.

John at Castle Argghhh! is the Master of Ammo and none of that sissy small arms stuff like at Anthroblogogy. Cannons roar at the Castle Argghhh! He held an excellent discussion followed his consideration of the role of the military chaplain, provided the most comprehensive round-up of Remembrance Day and Veteran’s Day Observations and invited us all to Fort Leavenworth because someone else was buying the wine and cheese. Jon is one of my favorite reads, a daily stop and the unofficial ethical guide for the Red Ensigns.

Asiapundit. Ah, Myrick. The man with two places on the Red Ensign blogroll. Asiapundit is a great blog about another place – Asia. While there was no Remembrance Day post, he did pay two days of silen homage on the 11th and 12th. He has documented the chinese sign war against terrorism and has documented the effect of China’s blocking of blogs. He has also unfortunately provided my mind with the image of a skeletal Hello Kitty.

Ah, Damien of Babbling Brooks – a venerable if battle worn blogger, Damien has posted twice in the last two weeks. He is rightly upset at the state of procurement for Canada’s military and honours Remembrance Day.

At Blue Perspective, there were Remembrance Day poppies and lets loose the rumour that the Tories might cut GST.

Blue Tory honoured Remembrance Day honoured with Flanders Fields as well as “It is the Soldier”. While lots of news about the impending election from a Conservative perspective as you might expect from the name, Blue Tory has the grace to not slide into the sort of sweary mary talk. It must be the good influence of the NDP working its magic. A welcome voice from a different view than mine and his blog picture shows him in a grey dress shirt with a grey tie – something entirely 1983.

Unsettling cosmic news as Bound by Gravity is bound no more – Andrew quit blogging on 9 November.

On Remembrance Day, BumfOnline did a great job giving information on where one might shor respect in Calgary. A good reminder that blogs can actually provide information rather than repeat the opinions of strangers.

Canadian Comment did not post in the last two weeks and missed Remembrance Day as a result.

At Canadianna’s Place, for Remembrance Day, someone who refuses to wear the poppy was roundly taken on in a very good if fisky post. Otherise it is all election and the problems the Tories are facing positioning themselves. Good reflective posts from a conservative supporter.

Chris Cam missed Remembrance Day but he is dealing with and sharing the problems of being a working parent who travels. Plus he is a Red Sox fan. Good personal writing.

Conservative Canadienne honoured Remembrance Day with some interesting historical photographs and also addressed that unmentionable guy’s argument against wearing the poppy. He also looks forward to a fiscal plan from the Conservative Party.

Darcey of Dust My Broom is one of those prolific daily bloggers that give blogging a good name. Like Castle Argghhh! he ran a massive round up of Remembrance Day posts and featured the Red Ensign from Vimy. He covers the little discussed topic of aboriginal politics from a western Canadian view well. He provides a glimpse of things to come in his post Winterpeg.

ESR | Musings…did not cover Remembrance Day and mainly covers US politics as well as NFL on Mondays.

Here at Gen X at 40 the usual brilliant if pointless fare. I covered Remembrance Day with a couple of photos of one naval vet waiting for the ceremony to begin. The map of the global Gen X 40 Nation was created along with one for the sister station at A Good Beer Blog. So far beer is winning. Was there any doubt? The idea of a creating your own GUIs with a pen interface caught the nerd in me.

Remembrance Day was honoured at Grandinite with a personal essay on its importance. He also wishes Harper would get the guts to force the call of the election.

Hammer into Anvil wonders where the civil rights marches went as a means of protest.

Italics Mine is run by cartoonist Blair Hansen who has run into a bit of a wall getting them published other than on his web site. He notes that Ottawa is much colder than Afghanistan and actually argues about a position in relation to softwood lumber, a massive dispute which numbs my mind.

At John Murney’s Blog there is a guy called John Murney writing a blog. He actually has nice and genuine things to say about Shania getting the Order of Canada. He honoured Remembrance Day with observations on the last five WWI vets

John The Mad honoured Remembrance Day by republishing the eulogy of Canada’s Unknown Soldier from May 2000, pondered burnings in effigy and celebrated his first blogoversary by giving the Anglicans the gears about their treatment of Isaac.

Glenda of Just Between Us Girls recalls the letters from war in a really great Remembrance Day post, shares her version of the “I Am Canadian” speech and shares and writes a quite a good piece on abortion. A blogger to watch.

Minority of One has not published since October 14^th

At M.K.Braaten, it is all about the coming election with posts about the mini-budget, the reasons to not call an election and Alberta’s western separatism movement. What do these people in the west of Alberta want anyway?

At Musing, the fact that there are only 50 US and five Canadian WWI vets left was a source of sadness, neatly distinguishes between true libertarians and high school goofballs and discusses a number of US political issues.

Musings of a Canadian Slacker, true to the name, last posted on October 30^th and before that not since May.

Myrick, the man behind Asiapundit, has not posted to his own site since 12 October.

Quotulatiousness, run by Brigadier #3 in a three-man Brigadier relay team, has been cutting and pasting like a mad man. He loves Lee Valley Tools, the land of hardware porn, shares the humour over Open Source Media and, dry witted man that his is, actually quoted from Mark Steyn. I had to tape me ribs. What a wag! Nicholas remembered the vets in his own family for Remembrance Day.

The Raging Ranter has not raged since October.

The Ravishing Light has been dim since mid-October.

Rhetoricking with Myself, in a three post return to blogging after two months off, did not post on Remembrance Day but did chide Forbes magazine for noting blogs are pretty much bad and then disses the “new” Macleans, a Canadian magazine apparently delivered to dentist offices two months after publication. Very post-magazinist views.

Rightjab has come back from the Arctic Island where he was stranded since June to write one triff post on the Federal election (which surely must be coming if all the bloggers are talking about it) on the point that polls must be wrong as he has never been polled. This is a good point. I was polled on salad dressings and health care once. I am in favour of each.

Robot Guy has a 1970s-esque web site design going for him which is weird as the web only came into being about 15 years ago. There is something very Space 1999 about it. He a post about the Moons of Saturn, he plays sudoku right in front of your eyes but syndicated “Day to Day” which I cannot bear – though this is about one-third notch less bad than making me feel flayed like it used to before I made fun of it at Castle Argghhh! His coverage of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System makes up for it. He honoured Remembrance Day with Flanders Fields.

Update: Ed, the Robot Guy himself, asked me:

Could I get you to link to the monster sudoku here rather than the more mundane Thursday version?

There you have it. You know I had no idea there were grades of sudoku (not knowing even what sudoku is) but I am glad to hear there is monster sudoku which reminds me of this treasured recolection from childhood. I think Giant Robot took on the Monster Sudoku in episode 5 of season 3.That is the update…back to the past with you!

Ruth of RootleWeb sent me a large number of links on The Belgic Confession: Article 36and a wingy movie called “The Monstrous Regiment of Women” which I am sure not to ever see, especially now. In politics, Ruth covered the PQ Leadership race, the Big Brother Law, Election Timing, and the new Jack Laytonese, a language now audible to conservatives in Canada. Ruth honoured Remembrance Day.Cheery old intern Jay at the Shiny Happy Gulag came out of the forced labour camp for his first post since September on topic of a quote gnostic societies. No, I am not sure either.

Skeet Skeet Skeet has been AWOL since June and will likely be asked to leave the Red Ensigns…if anyone can find him.

Stephen Taylor is simply the man. I can say this because I have met him but unlike every other Red Ensign blogger I have met, I did not have beer with him. He rightly honoured Remembrance Day with a field of poppies. He does most things rightly, come to think of it. He announced the sad – nay, tragic – news that Paddy Binns, the premier of PEI, might run for his old Federal seat currently held by a stick painted red or some other stalwart of the Big Red Machine. He questions the polling methodology of the Liberals…yet stays quiet on the whole issue of why Rightjabman has never been polled. I know Monty knows, Steve knows Monty and now I want to know, too.

Striving Against Opposition stopped doing so mid-October.

Taylor & Company sounds like the name of either a men’s clothing shop or a high-end coffee shop. It is neither. Unlike Mr. Taylor supra, I allowed Chris (aka “Mr. T” or “T is for Taylor not t-totaller”) to sup ale with me and even to share a cab. He is decency itself. His Remembrance Day post (like mine…and damn few like us, I say) was an actual bit of citizen journalism with photos of many units present at the cenotaph at Old City Hall in Toronto. I think he is tempted to start A Good Scotch Blog.

The Conservative Hipster wrote an exceptionally good piece in the form of letter to our vets for Remembrance Day, notes the case of Darth v. Trump and ponders the Ontario voter in…oh, my…there appears to be an impending Federal election. Who knew?

The Freeway To Serfdom missed honouring Remembrance Day but contemplates the coming winter in Canada rather nicely. He speaks of being a bookish introvert. I think he is tired of talk about the impending election. I like him already.

[Ed.: At this point I would like to note one thing – holy freakin’ moly – this is takes lot of reading. I wonder if anyone else in the few left below will write something about…ummm…the timing of the impending Federal election.]

The Green Baron was displaced by Hurricane Katrina, suffered an engagement break-up and reinlisted in the US Army and as a result did not post from the end of August until Remembrance Day. Wow. No disrespect at all to the green one…but all I did in that time was put on some weight and blow my hockey pool picks. He is also quite, and quite uniquely, unkind to France.

The High Places did a great round up of Remembrance Day posts from the blogging Tories, that other more successful blogroll that we secretly envy and despise…unless we are on it. He ponders an interpretation in Lego brick of the greatest story ever told. He also takes a bash at the Vancouver civic election as well as the Surrey Civic Election. I like municipal politics and blogging except I can’t do it. And he discusses some panicking Tories in light of the…impending Federal election.

The London Fog is mostly about blogging municipal politics…but as it is 10:10 pm Saturday I will leave it to that for now and seek out a small jug of modestly priced but reasonably made medium oloroso to drive out the thoughts of the impending Federal election…

OK – let’s try that again. The London Fog is mostly about blogging municipal politics but takes a moment to recall Remembrance Day in the oddest way of all the Red Ensigns with a story relating how he can sympathize with vets providing recreational drugs for their pets. Other than that there are stories on or about issues surrounding what I am now referring to as the “IFE” including the cat who came back and the economic plan of the Grits all with a decidedly anti-Uncle-Joe slant. On the municipal scene, it’s all about the sewers.

The Meatriarchy shares my Atlantic Canadian shock at the failure to make Remembrance Day a public day of respect. He is also deeply involved with the War in Iraq and the War on Terror. Open Source Media makes him wonder about his own irrelevance. I need no such catalyst to consider mine.

The authors of the Monarchist honour Remembrance Day. They recall the day in 1975 that the Australian Governor-General did…something. [Ed.: sorry, I will be kind. Better put that another way.] One author lusts after my title of Esq., a bauble of my advancement to the bar. Aside from the royalist content, the Monarchists is a good read.

Victor at the Phantom Observer has a great post on why he marched on Remembrance Day.He also reviews the review by The Globe and Mail of the review of the 100 best Canadian books published by the Literary Review of Canada. Victor also goes after Federal Minister of Indian Affairs, Andy Scott and his actions or lack thereof in relation to Keeseekoose.

[Ed.: three to go.]

Tipperography has not posted since October 26^th. That one was easy.

Toronto Tory missed Remembrance Day but took the time to mention a special someone lying to YOU in relation to the “IFE”. And then he pointed out that someone was LYING TO YOU in relation to the “IFE”.

I am very happy to conclude this review by reporting that West Coast Chaos included a great post about an interview of WWII vet Dave Harvard of Hazelton, BC. In another post on a particular issue of Smither’s municipal politics, WCC says no to saving the pool. I like the way WCC covers local news and only wish there were more posts. And not one reference to the “IFE”. Thank you. Thank you.

There you are. Another 26^th of a year encapsulated. I am certain I missed no one because I used the blogroll and if someone is missing from the blogroll it is…my fault as I maintain the blog roll along with Ruth and Victor. The job of preparing the Red Ensign Standard was both much longer and more interesting than I thought it would be. These have been interesting times with the group to the point that even calling it a group and acting like a group is a challenge. It is my hope that members will reassert themselves a club of people who are interested in good web writing, regular web writing and the analysis of events from a Canadian perspective or awareness that includes respect for and understanding of the traditions which have and continue to make this a great country.

Below is a list of previous issues of the Red Ensign Standard. Some of the links may be dead as some members have signed off over the year and a half since this project began. Others have left the group through the sorts of finger-pointing schisms that only traditionalists can pull off. In each Standard you will, however, find that particular member’s take on the group and its meaning.

Tiger in Winter (now blogging at Tiger in Exile)