Yesterday's purchases

It was time to restock the beer fridges yesterday:

1. Abita Abbey Ale


2. Achouffe Houblin Dobbelen IPA Tripel


3. Baird Kurofune Porter


4. Baird Red Rose Amber


5. Beer Here Mørke


6. Boulder Flashback


7. Boulevard Imperial Pilsner


8. Crabtree Golden 8


9. Flying Dog Horn Dog 2009


10. Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti


11. Left Hand Chainsaw Ale 2010


12. Mikkeller Cascade IPA


13. Mikkeller Chinook IPA


14. Mikkeller East Kent Golding IPA


15. Mikkeller Nugget IPA


16. New Belgium Belgian Style Blonde


17. Nøgne Ø Andhrimnir Barley Wine


18. Obolon Bile


19. Odell India Barleywine


20. Odell Saboteur Brett Barrel Brown Ale


21. Odell Woodcut #4


22. Point Einbock


23. Rakovník Bakalář 1454 Beer


24. Rakovník Bakalář 555


25. Ridgeway Oxfordshire Blue


26. Rogue Chatoe First Growth Single Malt Ale


27. Rogue Double Dead Guy 2009


28. Rogue Double Mocha Porter


29. Samuel Smith Winter Welcome 2009-2010


30. Schell Bock


31. ShillingBridge Git-R-Done


32. Shiner 101 Czech-Style Pilsner


33. Sprecher Barley Wine Gold


34. Sprecher El Rey


35. Van Pur Karpackie Premium


36. Van Pur Karpackie Super Beer


37. Van Pur Premium

Search by locale

Here's a new way to search Beer Me!: by geographical location.

The new search field lets you look up breweries near an address, city, state, whatever. Typing in the field presents you with a list of locations that match what you've typed.

Clicking on one of the list items takes you to a page listing the twenty closest breweries to that location.

I'll be adding a map to that page shortly, and I'll also add this search function to the Beer Me! mobile app.

One thing about typing a location: if the place you're looking for doesn't show up as a partial match, keep typing. For example, lovely Danbury, Connecticut doesn't appear in the list until you get all the way to "danbur".

The 'Beer Me!' Forum

I'm considering getting rid of The 'Beer Me!' Forum.*

There are literally twenty spammers signing up for every one legitimate forum post, and I'm getting tired of cleaning up these turds.

Register your approval or objections in the Comments.

*Not to be confused with this blog.

Lakemaid

I like pretty-girls-n-beer as much as the next guy, but this 12-pack strikes me as...just a bit...creepy.

Maybe it's just me.

Beer Me! mobile version 1.0.3 is now available

Beer Me! mobile version 1.0.3 is now available at the Palm app store. I made a couple of changes that should smooth out the search results display and make it easier to use.

The free trial version is also updated and available.

'Hangover' Molecule in Brain Found

Good news for those who suffer from this malady.

The neuroscientists from the University of Southampton's School of Biological Sciences studied the simple brains of C. elegans worms, which have a makeup similar enough to the human brain when intoxicated or dependent on alcohol.



Basically, when a worm brain (similarly, a human brain) is exposed to drinking over a long period of time, it becomes accustomed to certain intoxication levels. The brain experiences a series of withdrawal symptoms when the drinking stops.



When the worms were given small doses of alcohol during their withdrawal their irritable behaviors eased. Unfortunately, this approach to combating a hangover also increases the chances for alcohol dependency.

You and your pet Caenorhabditis elegans can read the whole article at LiveScience.

Beer tasting rooms back on tap

Sign On San Diego provides this welcome followup to the San Diego brewery tasting room scandal:

The great beer bust of 2010 has gone bust, as the county Department of Environmental Health this week reversed itself and tasting rooms reopened at four local microbreweries.



[...]



The county then dropped the matter. “We got clarification, and we decided to allow the state jurisdiction,” Gath said.



So the tasting rooms are back in business.



“As long as we’re operating the way we were, we’re OK,” said Peter Zien, AleSmith’s brewmaster. “I lost a weekend’s worth of business in the tasting room and no one has apologized for that, but I guess that’s the way it goes.”

Read the whole story at Sign On San Diego.

Stone Brewing Co. Europe RFP

Stone Brewing is now officially looking for a European partner. The Request for Proposal is available for download. (PDF)

Bavarian beer prices stable as beer garden season begins

According to checks conducted by [Bayerische Rundfunk], prices per litre have changed little since last year, when they were on average €4.40 in Bamberg, €5.20 in Passau, €5.60 in Augsburg, €5.80 in Regensburg, and €5.90 in Nuremberg and Würzburg.



The most affordable Maß was found in the Upper Franconia region in the town of Hallerndorf for just €3.50.



Meanwhile prices are reportedly so high in Munich because tourists like to snag the large beer mugs for souvenirs.

Read the whole article at The Local, and leave your sticky fingers at home when you visit Bavaria.

Mosquitoes prefer the blood of beer drinkers

This explains a lot.

The experiment was conducted four times: before beer, after beer, before water and after water.



The after-beer group drew 47% of the mosquitoes, compared to the 35% for the before-beer group.



But there was almost no difference between the before-water and after-water groups, who drew 37% and 38%, respectively.



“Despite individual volunteer variation, beer consumption consistently increased attractiveness to mosquitoes,” wrote the study's authors.



The researchers have no idea why mosquitoes prefer the odour of beer drinkers. All they could determine is that it wasn't related to increased breathing or changes in body temperature.

Read the entire article at the Toronto Sun.

It only takes one asshole

What the hell? Who has so much time on their hands that they can — ANONYMOUSLY, the fucking coward — call out the dogs on every brewery tasting room in San Diego County? What the hell are they trying to accomplish?

This isn't about sanitation. This is about prohibition. This asshole has found yet another way to screw with brewers and hide behind "public safety".

On Tuesday, we were surprised inspected by the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health. The two inspectors were sent out to visit our facilities (and other breweries in San Diego) as a patron had lodged a complaint about local tasting rooms. So I’d like to take a moment to thank that one person who felt it was important to lodge a complaint about brewery tasting rooms all over San Diego. Apparently they were concerned that we didn’t have a GIANT BLUE “A” on our cold boxes!

Read Tomme Arthur's entire rant at The Lost Abbey. And somebody please send him some GIANT BLUE "A"s!

Mobile site

I was trying to use my new phone to look up information on some beers that we sell at °Brix, and I discovered that the full Beer Me! site with its images and Javascript is just too complex for a smartphone browser.

So yesterday I put together a greatly simplified site for the mobile crowd. It doesn't have all the features of my Beer Me! mobile app, but it does allow you to look up breweries and their beers.

Give it a try at http://beerme.com/mobile/ and let me know what you think.