...containing notes from the "Beer Me!" site that don't seem to fit anywhere else.
Guy comes into the store today looking for dark German beers. I suggest, among others, Kulmbacher Mönchshof Schwarz.
He says it looks interesting, but his son recently brewed a Schwarzbier, so he'll pass on this one.
He asks me if I brew.
"Not at the moment."
"Oh, you should learn how. You'd love it."
Yeah.
The bad news: after three weeks of banging my head against their dysfunctional development tools, I've given up on writing a BlackBerry version of my Beer Me! mobile smartphone app.
The good news: work on the Android version is progressing nicely. I should be ready to ask for field-testers by the end of this month.
I might revisit the BlackBerry problem once the Android version is deployed. Maybe.
iPhone? Who knows.
The Palm version has sold 78 copies already, and the free trial version has been downloaded almost 250 times! That's kinda fun.
A couple of guys came into the store Sunday afternoon. They spent about fifteen minutes checking out everything in the coolers, displaying their satisfaction with the beer selection by exclaiming "DOOD" this and "DOOD" that at every turn.
They left with only a six-pack of Bud Light apiece.
And a Schneider Weisse glass to drink it out of.
Sad news out of Oregon.
It is with a heavy heart that I am closing the business down after nine years of operation. We are shutting down the website and liquidating our entire inventory out of the warehouse. We are selling all beer, mead and ciders at 10-30% below cost. Hundreds of great beers are available. For a list of products see the post below. Come to the warehouse early for the best selection.
The sale starts Fri Jan. 29th at 3:00 and goes through Friday, Feb 5th at 8:00 pm
Sale hours: M-F 3:00 – 8:00 Sat & Sun 10:00-8:00
Matt Maples
President
Liquid Solutions Inc.
WHO: Liquid Solutions Inc.
WHAT: Inventory liquidation sale
WHERE: 275 Beavercreek Rd #C149 Oregon City 97045
WHEN: Fri Jan. 29th thru Feb 5th
M-F 3:00 – 8:00 Sat & Sun 10:00-8:00
WHY: Business is closing
I've been buying beer from Matt for years, and I'm really going to miss the great selection and service he provided. Liquid Solutions will be missed.
Sad news out of Germany.
Germans may be famous around the world for their beer, but they drank less of the amber nectar in 2009 than at any time in the past 20 years, according to official statistics published on Thursday.
Sales of German beer, which includes the likes of Becks, Warsteiner, Radeberger and countless other brands, dropped to just under 100 (sic) hectolitres (2.2 billion gallons) in 2009, a fall of 2.8 percent on the previous year.
(That should read "100 million hectolitres", and the "gallons" in question are Imperial gallons.)
The article goes on to blame the "desperate economic situation" and a trend away from manual labor towards a service economy as factors for the decrease in beer consumption. But the massive consolidation of the German brewing industry surely is a factor as well. Germany has lost nearly half of its small, local breweries in the last twenty years through mergers and closures, with more in the works. This is the same process that culminated some forty years ago in the United States, resulting in a massive loss in beer diversity and culture. (And it's happening in the UK as well, with the same result.)
The Germans I've met are fiercely loyal to local products. When Größer-Bräu acquires and closes Kleiner-Bräu, they don't necessarily acquire the customers along with the brewery.
Anyway, read the whole story at The Local. And drink local beer.
The free trial version of "Beer Me! mobile 1.0.2" will be available starting around 9:30pm CST January 22, 2010. You can download and install it from this link:
http://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=com.beerme.beermefree
The trial expires 30 days after the first time it's run.
Please note that if you create brewery notes or beer notes in the free trial version, they will be lost when you upgrade to the paid version. I'm working on a fix for this; keep your eye on this forum for news.
Don't go to the beer. Bring the beer to you.
Several dozen university students occupied a brewery near Gothenburg in western Sweden on Tuesday in their long-standing effort to convince the brewery to build a pipeline to carry beer to the students’ union.
The demonstration was part of a tradition started in 1959 when the Chalmers University student union purchased one share in what was then known as Pripp & Lyckholm, part of the company which operated the brewery until it was purchased by Carlsberg in 2000.
The stock purchase gave the students a seat at the company's annual shareholders meeting, allowing them an opportunity to push the brewery to build a roughly 100 kilometre long pipeline to the university in order to facilitate the supply of beer to the Chalmers’ student union.
But progress on building the pipeline has been slow over the last five decades. So far, only two metres of pipe have been laid – one near the university, and one near a now abandoned brewery in central Gothenburg. No further construction has taken place since 1968.
Read the whole story at The Local.
