Hi again beer lovers! Happy Friday! Come in and join us for a cold one.
Tonight I'll break the rules and lead with a cocktail. Check out this Ultimate Bloody Mary. It looks big enough to last all evening, and includes dinner too!
The $50 Bloody Mary comes with all the trappings of the more-typical version — pickles, celery, onions, olives. Then it ups the ante with sausage, shrimp, scallions, and, of course, bacon-wrapped jalapeno cheese balls.
Finally, to top it all off, the dastardly mixologist brings the delicious pain with an entire fried chicken.
In the beer world, Weekly Pint asks "Is there a craft beer bubble?" FNBB regulars might remember that my answer to this has been YES for a long time now. "Is there such a thing as too much good beer?" No, that's a different question. My issue is that because "drink local" has become such a hot trend, too many brewpubs and small brewers are getting away with making stuff that isn't all that good.
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Deadspin's list of 18 Overrated Beers is entertaining. Only a couple of craft brews make the hall of shame; he's mostly talking about inexplicably popular industrial lagers like Heineken and Stella Artois.
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A number of craft brewers need to get a new calendar: BeerPulse tells us that the pumpkin ale releases are starting already. Dammit, it's just the first week of August! That stuff shouldn't be out until October IMO. (If at all).
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In non-beer news, today is World Cat Day. I told FNBB about the loss of my cat Hillary back in May but never introduced my new housemate. This is S'More, who has been with me since the beginning of June.
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What's up where you are? Is anyone brewing? I've got the "Josephsbrau" sampler from Trader Joe's. What are you drinking?