For a blog called “East Bay Beer,” I’ve certainly done nothing but write about Belgium lately. Sorry.
There are a lot of things going on these days. Breweries and bars are opening too fast for me to keep up. I still haven’t been to Cleophus Quealy, for god’s sake, and they opened last year! There are several big beer events this weekend and I haven’t written about any of them, and I promise I really meant to. You should go to Fieldwork’s grand opening and/or Triple Rock Firkin Fest today, by the way.
Such a good event, but…couch…
Part of it is that I’m busy. As some of you know, I have bartending/serving shifts every week at Albany Taproom and I’ve also started running all the beer stuff (I hate the phrase “beer program”) at the CommonWealth pubs. It’s exciting times to be in charge of the beer list for a pub everyone loves and a brand new one that’s starting to get attention. Ordering beer for a living (and complaining when the order is screwed up or the keg is broken or or or…) is actually more complicated than it sounds, and new responsibilities at work always throw me for a loop for a while because I like feeling like I already know everything 😉 Plus I live in Richmond, and the price I pay for bargain housing is a bad commute to everywhere south of, say, El Cerrito.
Gratuitous picture of Micropub food stolen from Stephen Loewinsohn of the East Bay Express
So right now, a lot of my beer drinking is tasting small quantities at one of three bars I work at. When I get a day off the last thing I want to do is hit a bar or a brewery tasting room. This is probably how most beer blogs die: bloggers start off all gung ho, then get industry jobs and drop the ball.
But! I do have time to do this! I don’t have kids and my house doesn’t need *that* much work. I mean yeah, I work 6 shifts a week, but I seem to have plenty of time to watch Inside Amy Schumer and look at Facebook. I just need to spend more time doing this blog thing I actually do enjoy when I get A Round Tuit. So I think I’m going to go over to shorter format pieces for a bit, dropping in on various drinking spots in the East Bay both old/taken-for-granted and new/shiny. I will also try to finish some projects I started, mostly beer history I don’t feel qualified to do (but no one else is doing it).
To reward your patience, my 8 loyal readers, here is a hilarious picture of me from the year I started writing about beer. I’ve been doing this too long to stop now!
I remember that picture and those Boston Beer times, well!
Hmmm. I see to have the beer blogger thing in reverse. Gung-ho, then dropped ball, but haven’t managed the industry job part yet.
BUT, I am taking Jay Brooks’ SSU class at Lagunitas, and it’s been phenomenal. So many great industry folks covering so many things. I truly have no excuse not to generate the posts, other than laziness. And the fact that my wife and I decided in the middle of this to buy a house. Life is truly upside-down right now.
Anyway, cut yourself a little slack. You’re knee-deep in beer — a beer geek can’t ask for much more than that. And I’m completely down with shorter, more frequent posts. I don’t have the attention span for novel-sized entries, anyway.
And I truly dig your Twitter feed. So if you wanna entertain the folks with your words, 140 characters at a time ain’t bad. Cheers!
I know how the house buying takes over life. Where’d you land?
Still in Hercules, just a different neighborhood. Upgraded from condo to house. I’m sure it’ll be worth it. Someday.
No big post on the goings on at CBC – not the best way to represent an industry, etc, etc?
I wasn’t at CBC this year, I represented the industry that week by actually working in it