At least after exercise it is, according to some crazy Spaniards, as reported by Fox News. Even though it has a bit of shaky credibility, and a spelling error in the first sentence of the first paragraph, it's enough evidence to convince me.

A great beer hero has fallen. Here is a quote from wikipedia that I think sums him up perfectly:

Life (See also: Beer style) - Michael Jackson - Life

I'm kidding of course, but there's nothing worse than a wine-snob wanna-be putting down the most delicious beverage in existence. I don't know why so many people love to hate on beer. Do they think it makes them sound more intelligent? I realize that it isn't just wine snobs picking on beer, but I'm really tired of going out to eat and seeing ridiculous wine lists, wine recommendations, wine-food pairings, wine specials, only to find out the place's beer selection is worse than a gas station.

I came across the winners list today. I have no idea when It took place*, but here are some notable results...

Category: 11 Specialty Honey Lager or Ale - 29 Entries
Gold: Redoak Honey Ale, Redoak, Sydney, Australia
Silver: Midas Touch, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, DE
Bronze: McGuire's Millennium Ale, McGuire's Irish Pub #1, Pensacola, FL

Probably one of the greatest beers I've ever had. It's kind of a combination of beer and a mead. I have a recipe to make a clone, but it requires saffron which I don't feel like buying.

Category: 28 German-Style Heller Bock/Maibock - 19 Entries
Gold: JW Dundee's Pale Bock, High Falls Brewing Co., Rochester, NY
Silver: Barre Maibock, Privatbrauerei Ernst Barre GmbH, Lübbecke, Germany
Bronze: Blonde Doppelbock, Capital Brewery Co. Inc., Middleton, WI

I thought that it was a damn good Bock. High Falls came out with a Hefe and something else new that I still have to try.

Category: 41 French- Belgian-Style Saison - 21 Entries
Gold: Straffe Hendrik Blond, Liefmans Breweries, Dentergem, Belgium
Silver: Hennepin Farmhouse Ale, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY
Bronze: Barking Duck, Matilda Bay Brewing Co., Melbourne, Australia

Good stuff.

Category: 47 Belgian-Style Dark Strong Ale - 18 Entries
Gold: Bonsecours Brune, Brasserie Caulier, Peruwelz, Belgium
Silver: Lozen Boer Abt, DeProef Brouwerij, Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium
Bronze: Three Philosophers, Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY

I have a bottle of this in the bottom of my fridge, now I can't wait to pop it open.

Category: 61 Oatmeal Stout - 24 Entries
Gold: Strom Bomb Stout, Bottoms Up Brewing Co., Pinedale, WY
Silver: The Poet, New Holland Brewing Co., Holland, MI
Bronze: Blackbird Stout, Hereford & Hops Brewpub, Wausau, WI

Good stuff, second only to Murphy's Stout as far as stouts go, IMO.

...mmm, now I'm thirsty...

*Update: it took place in April.

A beer specialist has told food scientists a swift ale is a better choice than fermented grape juice - soluble fibre, vitamin B12, folic acid, niacin and antioxidants, yum!

...I f'n hate rebates.

Earlier this year I bought a 12-pack of Honey Brown which had a $1 rebate stuck on it. Honey Brown is usually pretty cheap compared to my other favorites, and I probably would've bought it without the rebate, but knowing that I'd save an extra dollar made me feel a little better.

A few weeks later I filled out the rebate form and started realizing that the rebate form only had the PO Box, and no City, State, and Zip code. I found two ways to contact High Falls Brewery through their terrible flash site and sent messages to both. I got the following response from them on March 17th: the day that the rebate was supposed to be postmarked by:

Good morning,

We apologize for any inconvenience that this mix up may have caused. We would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention since the rebate forms were printed by a separate company and thank you for your interest in Honey Brown. The complete address is listed below. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further inquiries.

HONEY BROWN VALENTINE REBATE
P.O. BOX 4412
YOUNG AMERICA, MN 55558-4412

Thank you,

Consumer Affairs
High Falls Brewing Company
445 St. Paul Street
Rochester, NY 14605
consumeraffairs@genbrew.com
(585) 263.9446

I rushed home for lunch (after all this was for a whole dollar, or $0.61 after postage), and mailed out the rebate. Then in early April the letter with the enclosed rebate was returned with this message on it:

NIXIE	553	1	06	03/30/06
RETURN TO SENDER
NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED
UNABLE TO FORWARD
BC:	(my zip+4)35	*1913-14629-17-35

Of course all of this had to happen when I had been working over 10 hours a day 7 days a week for pretty much all of March. Needless to say my blood pressure was high enough without some BS like this. Now I know it was only $1, but it's the principle of the whole thing. I almost felt like sending it to Eliot, I think I have an idea of what would happen, and after all the lawyers got paid, I don't think I'd see my dollar. I've contacted High Falls since then but they've not even bothered responding to my emails, let alone try to rectify their mistake. (how about a $1 off coupon, jerks?) Maybe The Consumerist will save the day? Anyone else get suckered in by this one?

The Reg reports: official. Seeing as St. Patty's Day (week) is coming up, I should be in tip-tip shape. ;-) Keep at it you crazy boffins!

These guys are like the Chuck Norris's of beer. Except they don't have beards or roundhouse kicks. Plus there's three of them, so I guess they're more like the three amigos or the three musketeers, or maybe the three stooges or something. In any case I look forward to their new column in the D&C.

I've been aching to make another batch of homebrew, but with our upcoming wedding, it's been on the back burner. I hope they let me help out with their home-brewing experiments. I'm always trying to get others interested, but usually all they end up doing is drinking my beer.

No, I'm not talking about the store (although they have been great to order from for all my extract homebrewing goodness), I'm talking about three recent articles that caught my eye that I haven't really had time to blog about until my lunch hour today.

The first is about beer powered cars. Well, it's close, it's about making ethanol from barley. (from AutoBlog)

The next is about beer with nicotene added. Since smoking is now about as uncool as it gets, and it's illegal in NY bars, people need their nicotene via other methods. I have vague recollections of 7th grade health when they told us nicotene + alcohol was bad for some reason, but I don't remember why or care very much. (from Gizmodo)

The last is about this sweet beer nozzle that can pour a Guiness in record time. If I had a bar, or a keg system of some sort, I'd definitely look into it. (from Gizmodo)

At $15.75 it looks (and sounds) like it's the most expensive fake plate in existence.