Four beers good. Two beers better. Don’t believe it.

Free speech and beer are two topics that are near and dear to my heart. So, I wanted to depart from Beer and Wine Journal’s usual homebrewing— but mysteriously not winemaking — content and write an opinion piece.

To start things off, and just so everyone is clear, the current kerfuffle between Flying Dog and the Brewer’s Association (BA) is not a First Amendment issue. The government isn’t trying (or succeeding) to censor anyone, so nobody’s Constitutional rights are being abridged. Secondly, the BA is a private group. As such, they can make whatever rules they want (within the bounds of legality). Thirdly — and this will be the main theme of this article — all groups that give themselves the power to make rules will continue to make rules until they run into opposition. Any group that has the ability to tell others what to do will attract people who like telling others what to do. And those who really like making rules will likely rise to a position of leadership. In turn, the people who like bucking rules will resist them. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “And so it goes.” [Read more…]

My first book features 101 homebrew recipes, covering all major beer styles. It also makes a great fly swatter.

These days, I’m spending most of my time writing my second book. I’ll have much more to say about this later, but for now I can say that it is a brewing book, but not a recipe compilation like my first book. [Speaking of my first book (pictured here), Amazon has dropped its price to $13.10. I don’t have anything to do with how Amazon prices the book, so I have no idea how long it will remain at that price. But it’s basically half price now, so I thought I’d mention it. It’s also on Amazon’s top 100 list for Beer, so I’m pretty excited about that.]  [Read more…]