This is by no means the first time.
We've chronicled the problem before. In a week where we lost
Dr Dave Conz, the Arizona Craft Brewers Guild hosted a
Springfest in Tucson, Four Peaks had its
16th Anniversary Festival and Ed Sipos announces the
pre-sale of a landmark book,
Brewing Arizona | A Century of Beer in the Grand Canyon State, here is what the New Times chooses to write about in the beer world.
The Elephant Poop Beer: This was blog fodder everywhere and passed around social media. It has no relation to anything going on in the beer world here, but if you're going to write about it why not get a take on it from Cartel since it is a beer brewed from coffee and those guy make beer and coffee. In any case, you might want to link back to your own bad selves since Zach Fowle wrote about
Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel. Zach, the strongest link in your chain, wrote about the civet cat poop beer in 2010.
The Bud Bowtie Can: Another non-story which you chose to make a story. Bella, you're being hipster while invoking hipster. Here's an idea. How about getting some press over to
Dapper + Dash, the local bowtie purveyor. They're smack dab in the middle of a
Kickstarter campaign. ($1600 to go with 50 or so hours left.) They've done craft beer events with Tempe Handlebar and Four Peaks. You blew it. You could have re-directed Bud bowtie ire into local good.
Beer Brain Science: Hello?
Beer For Brains? Are you guys writing for people that aren't on facebook? Another re-cycled presser and a blown opportunity.
On a more positive track, the New Times enlisted Minerva Orduño Rincón, the founder of Muñeca Mexicana handcrafted food to write about Mexican Beers, "
3 Tips for Avoiding Beer Tragedies of the Mexican Variety". It's a topic that needs some attention given that almost all Mexican traditional or inspired restaurants seem to feel the need to automatically include 5 or 6 Mexican macro offerings at the expense of something that actually makes sense flavor-wise.
Unfortunately, the piece relies on snark and humor. We only get hints about what the actual story should be:
I would love to be able to share more on the new crop of Mexican micro-breweries working to develop Mexican beer to include more variety than the pilsners and lagers brought by German and Polish immigrants to Mexico during the 19th century, tasty as they are. Sadly, these beers, including the awesomely named CervecerÃa Minerva are not readily available in the United States.
That, is in fact, the real story we want to read about. How about an actual discussion about the duopoly that is Mexican beer? Provide some insights on how the regional breweries were gobbled up by Grupo Modelo or CervecerÃa Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma/FEMSA. There is nothing wrong with Negra Modelo, Pacifico, Corona, or Tecate in context, but please
provide that context. Minerva write that piece please. We'll get you some
Mexi-craft beers.
We know people.
Finally, Zach continues to write cogent pieces on new releases. He provides context, history and makes reviews interesting. It's not easy work, beer reviews. Most come off as dry or pretentious in the tasting notes. As an old guy, I didn't need so many 80's references in his last piece on the Class of 88, but alas today's newest drinkers were born in the 90's. There is always a place for a
Fred Eckhardt reference in a Barleywine review. Some day maybe someone at the NT will also appreciate Fred is also a
Sake expert.
Update: Great sounding beer and Chinese food event.
Forgets to list beer pairings in a beer pairings? Is a poop reference
de rigueur for beer stories now?
