Holy Blogging, Batman

All of a sudden, there's scads of beer-related blogging going on. The main culprit is John Foyston, who is apparently a binge-blogger. (Axiom: blogging is like drinking; you gotta pace yourself. A word to the wise, John.) In the past four days, he's posted nine items, and most are pretty long and detailed. Of note:

The beer collectors are coming, the beer collectors are coming.

You probably know already that old beer memorabilia ---- breweriana --- is a big hobby for some collectors. What you maybe didn't know is that the American Breweriana Association Annual Meeting happens in Portland this year: June 12-16 at The Airport Holiday Inn on Columbia Blvd.

A buncha beer writers go to Hood River; this is what they find.

John goes to the Raccoon Lodge, and Ron Gansberg is who he finds:

Gansberg's brewing career began about the same time as Oregon craft brewing, because he worked for pioneers such as BridgePort and Portland Brewing before leaving to become brewmaster (and construction boss for the first year) at Art Larrance's Raccoon Lodge. Since then, Gansberg has become one of the state's most respected and original brewers. He's definitely not the the stereotyped hop-mad Northwest brewer and is the first to admit it. In fact, he's working hard to nerve himself to make an over-the-top hoppy Northwest IPA, but his innate desire for a balanced beer makes it hard for him to twist the flavor dial all the way to the left to "ultra-hoppy."

Which reminds me that Angelo De Ieso has been busy adding to his growing list of brewer interviews. Today he's posted an interview with Pyramid's Tom Bleigh, and last week, he posted an interview with Christian Ettinger, founding brewer of Laurelwood, who is just weeks away from opening his new place, HUB (aka Hopworks Urban Brewpub).

Fortunately, I've got the quasi-poetic review niche locked down, so my raison d'etre remains undisturbed.