MAC Brewfest cancelled

Just announced: Sad news for Washington, D.C. area good beer fans.

Unfortunately, due to late planning, lack of staffing and unfortunately poor ticket sales, we've had to cancel MAC Brew Fest which was planned for Saturday, October 15th, 2011 in Washington, D.C. - www.macbrewfest.com.

We really appreciate all the breweries that had planned to participate - we really wanted to hold this event, but we priced tickets too high in order to cover costs - Urban events simply cost more - and our planning and marketing simply got behind. All ticket purchasers have been notified and will receive Full Refunds - we've been around 14 years, and we will make good on that promise.

Thanks for working with TasteDC Management and MAC Brew Fest - Cheers to American Craft Beer!

We second Mr. Adler's toast, and we wish him continued success in spreading the good beer news, and, phoenix-like, a Mid-Atlantic Brewfest for 2012.

Life isn't all beer and skittles.

It's not often, but sometimes, that YFGF looks up from a beer mug. Tonight, that will be so.

Baseball playoffs!

" Unless you're a citizen of Boston or a native of Atlanta, Wednesday's season conclusion may have been the most thrilling thing to happen in recent baseball history. (And, please, let's not have that trope that nothing exciting ever happens in baseball.) The down to the last strike, last out, last game, win by the the Orioles (yeah, Baltimore) and the Rays (go, uh, Tampa), and the double-historic end-of-season collapses by their respective opponents Red Sox and the Braves —collapses so severe that their scopes have never been witnessed since baseball was first organized in the 19th century— together were the ingredients that brewed an evening of pure baseball ecstasy.

As the best writer in baseball today, Tom Boswell, of the Washington Post, put it: "The glorious insanity fed on itself and went viral."

Now, October begins —a day early— and we, Washington Nationals fans, will root for the nefarious Philadelphia Phillies to lose (and, we, Nats fans of a certain vintage, will yet root against the nefarious Bob Short and his 40-year old progeny, the Texas Rangers).

For the next few weeks, the air will be crisp, the foliage brilliant; the beer will be cold, and the baseball hot. October is the splendid season.

Pic(k) of the Week: Chaos among the kegs

Where in the world? What in the world?

This was the warehouse of a beer and wine wholesaler, somewhere in 2006. Identity withheld to protect the guilty.

Borrowing a family phrase, passed down from my father's mother, Anna: "Hacar, macar, šiandien, vacar!" It's Lithuanian, as filtered through Williamsburg, Brooklyn, patois, and can be roughly translated as "here, there, today, tomorrow," or, in other words, "helter-skelter."

I'm uncertain as to the spelling.

********************
Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as subject. Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

It's Autumn!

The Autumnal Equinox occurred at 5:04 US Eastern Time this morning. The Earth's axis stood straight up and down, relative to the sun, and autumn began. For our neighbors south of the equator, it's spring that's beginning. For them, this was the Equinoccio de Septiembre (Equinócio de Setembro in Brazil).

Contrary to popular belief, in most of the world today the hours of daylight and dark will not be equal in duration. Close but not quite. From TimeandDate.com:

During the equinox, the length of night and day across the world is nearly, but not entirely, equal. This is because the day is slightly longer in places that are further away from the equator, and because the sun takes longer to rise and set in these locations. Furthermore, the sun takes longer to rise and set farther from the equator because it does not set straight down - it moves in a horizontal direction.

Moreover, there is an atmospheric refraction that causes the sun's disk to appear higher in the sky than it would if earth had no atmosphere. timeanddate.com has a more detailed explanation on this topic. timeanddate.com has more information on why day and night are not exactly of equal length during the equinoxes.

I think that an Oktoberfest Lager will be called for tonight!

***************

• For many, Oktoberfest —the annual lager beer celebration held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and arguably the largest party in the world— is a sure sign of autumn's arrival. Oktoberfest actually begins in late summer and ends in early October. This year's festivities kicked off last Saturday, 17 September 2011, and will continue through Monday, 3 October. More than six million guests from around the world are expected to consume some 7.1 million Maßkrüge — one-liter mugs of beer, pronounced "MAHSS KREW-guh). That's 17 days of gemütlichkeit.
• The Washington Post has published a round-up of Oktoberfest celebrations in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland, and Virginia suburbs.

Pic(k) of the Week: Beer Tableaux

Displayed, like a tableaux, at a beer-training class for a restaurant staff.

• A bottle of Yeungling Lager, brewed by the oldest brewery in the United States (1829), and the largest wholly American-owned brewery (or the 2nd-largest, depending upon who is doing the counting).
  
• Sample of malted barley.
  
• An issue of All About Beer Magazine, with Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver on the cover.

********************

• Garrett Oliver is the Editor-In-Chief and leading author of the forthcoming book The Oxford Companion to Beer, a 943page reference book, to be published by Oxford University Press, and released this month (September 2011).
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject.Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.