I am in San Francisco for the weekend to attend the BN Anniversary party and enjoy many great beers. But a change is in the winds, we'll be moving to North Carolina in a few short weeks.

The Beer Geek in me looks forward to seeing what the beer scene is like in the Raleigh-Durham area. It will certainly be a change from the cool mountains of Flagstaff, but change and new surroundings are a good thing, it gives life a fresh perspective.

I'll likely get to see some East Coast friends I have missed the last few years a little more often. Besides what fun is life without a new adventure occasionally.

In a time of economic turmoil you want people who know how to meet a bottom line and attract business development into a local economy. Flagstaff voters choose differently tonight, watch how it impacts the economy and job base in town. People want to escape the poverty with a view, but they just ensured that won't change anytime soon.

Disagree? Wait and see.

You never know what you will get for weather and I am just fine with it. Saturday 98 in Phoenix and a few days later Flagstaff gets snow.

After my long days when I work my day job and at the local homebrew shop I don't feel like cooking. From time to time I'll stop at Himalayan Grill next door to the shop to grab some food before going home. I get to try the Indian beers while waiting for my food to be prepared. The restaurant mostly stocks lager beers, but they are trying to expand there repertoire they even have added Oak Creek Amber recently. Great food too so if you are in Flagstaff and looking for Asian food give them a try. Tonight I stopped in and tried the Flying Horse Royal Lager.

It is a standard Lager pale, crisp with a clean finish. There was a clear hop character in nose at first but faded over time, it was not unlike a Czech Pilsner but not quite the spiciness of Saaz hops. It was very smooth and went well with the crackers and toppings they offer as appetizer at the Grill. Considering it was brewed in India in August of last year according to the bottle code and shipped here it had traveled in great shape. I noticed was the bottle was a bit larger than a half Litre bottle typically used internationally. Upon closer inspection it was actually a 650ml so they do deliver quite a punch in that sized bottle. The beer is owned by United Breweries Group but was brewed by Blossom Industries Ltd I don't know if Blossom is a subsidiary of UBG or simply has a contract to brew there beer. That said it would seem odd to me if Anheuser-Busch hired a small regional brewery to make a secondary label for them, but who knows for sure.

While I wouldn't reach for a Flying Horse everyday it does go really well with Indian food and worth trying at least once.

One of my RSS feeds I actively check is one on flickr of photos tagged with Flagstaff. One image I have noticed is rather popular. Something about this bunch of signs seems to attract attention because it appears on the feed about once a month.

Being a Western crossroads town, having that many roads converge is the norm, but perhaps that's just me.

(Yes, a bit of a silly post but I am trying to post more often as a New Years Resolution. Back to beer blogging tomorrow)

Update (1/12/07): See another photo

Haven't written the follow up because frankly there wasn't much to say. The organizers of Made in the Shade did charge more and gave us less. As one local brewer noted it was a drunk fest not really a beer tasting anymore. Another brewer wondered if the festival will even be around next year in it's current form because of how badly it was managed. The absence of Arizona brewing community with the exception Beaver Street and Mudshark stood out to everyone I spoke with at the festival. The lack of homebrewers and local breweries pouring their beers ensured that the lines got long fast. I noticed some folks even drinking cans of mass produced swill waiting in line to enter the festival, I couldn't help but wonder if they came to sample new and different beers or thought it was a college kegger.

Only a couple beers really stood out for me. Steamworks had a nice Amber lager that was very clean. The New Belgium Mothership Wit was so good I have gotten a six pack after the festival to enjoy some more. The Stone beers were as usual excellent.

At one point we got into a mystery line which turned out to be Pyramid, since I don't care for their Hefe, I tried some Honey beer which was overly sweet and had no complexity. A friend disliked it so much he pour it out on the ground, the ultimate of insults at a beer festival. But then I did the same for Redstone's Raspberry Mead which was more reminisce of koolaid than a fruit mead. Largely it was a bunch of mass distributors and a handful of Southwest regional breweries.

In the end everything I predicted before I walked into the festival was correct sadly. Many of the craft brewing fans I spoke with are doubting they would even come next year. It makes me wonder if the Brewing Guild or some local group won't take up the mantel of making a smaller, more community minded event in the future. There is a market for a high quality beer tasting event in Flagstaff that the community can once again be proud.

Preparing both mentally and physically for this year’s Made in the Shade festival. But for the first time in a long time, I am not really excited about it’s approach. I get the feeling the organizers are charging more, offering less, and are not returning back to the community on the same level.

First off the price has gone up, but the festival doesn’t pay for the beer, the brewers do, and I doubt the county has had a dramatic price increase in use fees.

I get the feeling they are offering both attendees and brewers less. Attendees used to get glass glasses and I can accept plastic make less mess when dropped. They are probably cheaper but for $35-40 for general entry fee they can give us a decent piece of glassware as souvenir.

The next way we are getting less is fewer breweries. Now sure if you look at this page they advertise over 50 breweries, but the truth is there are only really around 30 breweries. Then a few regional distributors who show up with a truck and pour you beer from a bunch of breweries. Breweries they have no experience working at the brewery or knowledge of the beer. I come to beer festival to meet a brewer or someone who works there and knows about the beer. I go early just so I can check out a few places early before the event gets crowded to get to know the brewers and their beer. Actually have a bit of conversation, because these events are as much about the social experience as the beer. When you go to a distributor truck with 10 taps, they won’t generally discuss the beer because frankly they don’t KNOW it. The distributor gathers delivery people to the festival to pour and they don’t care about it, they just want to move a line.

The festival used to be a star in the Southwest attracting breweries from as far as Las Cruces, San Diego, and Boulder. New Mexico and Nevada both used to be strongly represented and they are hardly here this year. In fact outside of two local breweries, only one other Arizona Brewery decided to come which is a clear sign of what the state's brewing community thinks of the event. 3 out of 30, okay 3 out of 50 if you use their numbers, regardless of whose you use, it is a horrible sign about the condition of this beer festival.

The festival organizers are also offering less to the brewers as well as us attendees I have heard. First off our homebrew club and the Phoenix organizations were denied to even share our beer this year. In addition this is only a rumor that I am working to confirm, but I have heard this year they are far most restrictive to brewers/pouring staff. The organizers are requiring the brewers to buy a special use liability insurance to pour at the event, prescribing number of kegs to bring (that the breweries pay for), that those people who pour can’t sample beer at other booths, and lastly the festival used to sponsor a brewer's hotel where the rooms were covered by the festival in exchange for the brewer's staffs work and free beer. Brewers must pay for their rooms this year. My source indicated that the AZ Brewers Guild was so put off by the requirements they have decided to boycott the festival. Hence why less than 10% of local brewers participating in this year’s festival, but this is only a story I have heard from one source, I trust, but I am working on confirmation.

Restrictive rules like the above will impact small regional brewers and homebrewers the most. They are the ones least likely to be able to meet such requirements, but it is these groups that are at it's core the heart of the Craft Beer Revolution. They are the most ones on the front lines with the most innovative ideas. Without them you are left with larger wholesalers and the megabrews. Companies more interested in a bottom line and less interested in flavor. Flavor, diversity, and community are core values that craft beer was built on, ignoring these values and ultimately the festival will lose it's heart and soul.

The brewing community has a long history of supporting the larger community, but you can’t make it all demands and no return. Last year I heard the complaint that the only places with interesting and unique beers was the homebrewers. This year with the lack of them and the local state brewers I suspect the overall impression will be even more bland. If this is the case the organizers will need a major shakeup or I will start taking the money I spend from this festival and putting it toward other more local friendly events like the Prescott Oktoberfest.

Flagstaff's local Channel 2 always covers national news after the first break, but frankly why? Lately they have cut back local coverage, giving up on weekend and morning broadcasts. The last thing they have currently is waste time in the 22 or so minutes they broadcast. It is rather doubtful that anyone in this small town tunes into their programming to catch the latest national news headlines. When you tune into Channel 2 you want local news, weather and sports roundup. NBC offers a seperate national news show for those interested and even those without cable can get it. For those with cable or satellite there is even more choices, so why would they tune in to a local news channel? I don't know either.

The only advantage Channel 2 has over all of these other programs is they cover this local market, so why waste our valuable time and attention.

It just boggles my mind.

Making a profit on other's death is a rather sad thing, but ultimately free speech is free speech. Regardless of certain idiot laws passed by state legislatures. I don't agree with his tshirts, but he fundamental has the right to make them in this country. I see this case going to the Supreme Court and I see the State of Arizona losing.

Me and the local homebrew club will be celebrating Big Brew this weekend at Homebrewers Outpost in Flagstaff Saturday May 5th. Stop by and enjoy the fun if you are in the neighborhood.

In the middle of moving to a new place this week so posting will be virtually nonexistant, but those fine folks on my blogroll are writing interesting stuff.

Served the Highlands Heather ale for First Friday ArtWalk this month. I might make it again to work on the recipe again as a good Summer mild but I am not sure it's my style of beer.

It was great talking to people about the beer and it was fairly popular, I brought less than a 10% of it home. We did have to contend with a last minute problem of a valve that would not lock down. Thanks to a coworker who showed up with a spare keg and he preformed an onsite operation and replaced the damaged equipment. The rest of the night went very smoothly.

For an experiment of a beer that I was working with no experience base, nor recipe it worked out well. I wanted kindof a Scottish version of a mild beer with heather as an influence and it's what I got. The heather was used for the most part in place of hops, changing the character of the beer completely. The consensus was that next time to increase the amount of the heather flower tips to increase their character in the beer, but with an unknown ingredient it's always easier to start low then build in future versions of the beer then over use the ingredient and make it unpalatable. That said I may add a specialty malt like Carapils to add to the body of the beer.

All and all the night and the beer was a success, but I can and will make it better.