Back by popular demand, a beer review done in style of haiku

It takes many cells
of brain to write in haiku.
I have so few left.

But will try my best
to give you, the reader, eight
good haiku reviews

If Brooklyn in the
summer tastes like this, I am
staying home this year.

Burton Baton is
a good scotch; incognito,
disguised as a beer.

What the Fraoch? This is
beer? More like a stroll through the
Highlands in the spring.

What does a sailors
delight have to do with a
farmhouse saison ale?

You can sip it; you
can swig it; you can gulp and
swig it: Aprihop.

Off we go to drink
the Warbird Thunder; high on
wheat, tastes like the sun.

Unibroue sixteen:
the real champaign of beer.
So sorry high life.

Black dog ale is not
a bad dog ale; be no bad
dogs, just bad owners.

Last review was lame;
so were my taste buds after
seven beers were gone.

Used chance to make a
social statement; like Bob said
"Spay or Neuter Pets."

Whatever Happened to Beer?

An article on Slate yesterday focused on the death of beer sales in America, which have grown less that one percent since 2000. Where have the customers gone? To wine. In fact, the article highlights, a 2005 Gallop poll showed that Americans preferred wine to beer.

What's this mean for the aspiring beer geek? Maybe not much. As the article points out, one of the reasons for the switch to wine is that the American middle class is becoming "connoisseurs of everything". So maybe the issue isn't so much that Americans are turning away from beer - maybe the issue is that Americans are asking for more from their beer. Which, if you ask me, is a win for everyone.

Little glasses o' beer - The Hop Shop

I'm not going to rehash Mike's post about our roundtable at the Hop Shop. Suffice it to say that, like Mike, I thank Courtney of the Hop Shop for his beer sagacity and Jim Walker from INtake for hanging out with us to see how we do things. And wouldn't you know it, for this roundtable, we did things completely differently from the way that we normally do them. Sorry for switching up on you, Jim. I hope you had a good time and were enlightened nonetheless.

Mike's four-word review method was indeed my idea, but I have to confess that it was an idea that I stole from the music industry website Coolfer. So while I'm not completely original in my thinking, I stole the idea because I thought that it would be an easy way to review the murderer's row of beers that we plowed through last night.

Before I hit the four-word reviews, the "Little glasses o' beer" in the post title refers to the way that we drank last night. Normally, we each consume at least one full pint of the feature beer. But since we sampled so many last night, Courtney was kind enough to break out beer sampler glasses for us. We did things in small doses, which was a great way to go.

On with the show . . .

Brooklyn Brewery Summer Ale - You ain't no Oberon.
Dogfish Head Burton Baton - A perfectly peppery finish.
Fraoch Heather Ale - S***, I'm drinking grass.
Clipper City Red Sky at Night - Delightful Belgian farmhouse ale.
Dogfish Head Aprihop - Wow, this stuff rocks!
Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat - A good summertime choice.
Unibroue 16 - Stupendous, mysterious Belgian-style ale.
Black Dog Ale - Dark, smoky, altogether malty.