New Beer Distributor

Manhattan NY-

Reading through some beer blogs the other night I found a suggestion on beertography that New Beer Distributor was the best beer store in the city. With a slim selection of beer in the Bronx I have been relying heavily on the Whole Foods Beer Room on the corner of Houston and Chrystie for good beer and was surprised to find that just a few blocks south on Chrystie was New Beer Distributor.

Visually New Beer is the complete opposite of the Beer Room, it is dark and relatively hidden where the Beer Room is bright and stands out on a corner. Despite the darkness once you enter New Beer you know that the selection is superior to the Beer Room. At first I was slightly overwhelmed by simply the amount of beers. The beers are arranged by country with Germany, England and the United States occupying the most space. Perhaps the best part of the place is that there are quality brews from countries that are not traditionally associated with great brewing i.e. France and Italy.

Definitely worth the trip.

-Giancarlo


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The Blind Tiger on a Weekday

Manhattan, NY-

On Tuesday, after a delicious plate of hummus at Hummus Place in the West Village, we decided to head down to the famous Blind Tiger on Bleeker Street. My last experience there taught me to avoid the place during weekends if I wasn't in the mood for large crowds. It's nice to see a place serving such good beer and cask beer is popular, but it was too loud and packed for my taste. However, on Tuesday night it was surprisingly relaxed. While it wasn't empty we were able to grab a table and enjoy our beers in the essentially unlit portion of the bar near the door. My Dick's Best Bitter satisfied my craving for a bitter and Rich enjoyed his Stone Ruination.

-Giancarlo

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Cambridge Common

Cambridge MA-

We braved a snow storm and made the trip from Brighton to Cambridge to have lunch at Cambridge Common. An impressive number of beers were on tap. I was a little disappointed to find that most of their specials on tap were characterized by their hoppiness. Our first round included Left Hand Fade to Black, an American Stout, and Tröegs Nut Brown ale. They were perfect for the wintery day, were reasonably priced, and the food was good. However, some beers were surprisingly priced. Delirium Tremens was fifteen dollars and Brooklyn Local 2 was twenty-seven dollars. The service was poor, it took three requests to get water and one order was taken incorrectly.

-Giancarlo

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Fun Fact: Etymology of "Lambic"

Bronx NY-

After listening to a recent radio show on Lambics, I found myself wondering where the word "Lambic" originated. I thought that it surely had some relation to the style's fruit flavors or natural fermentation. The answer it turns out it much more simple. According to etymonline.com "Lambic" is related to the fourteenth century Middle French word for a still, alambic. At this point the etymology takes an interesting turn. The fourteenth century term, through the previous three centuries of contact between French knights and the Arabic speaking world, was an adaptation of al-anbiq the Arabic word for "distilling flask." Reaching further back, al-anbiq is related to the Greek word ambix meaning "cup."

-Giancarlo

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Archaeology and Beer

Bronx NY-

Archaeology, my other nerdy obsession intersected with Beer on Saturday when I received my copy of the new January/February issue of Archaeology Magazine in the mail. The cover story was labeled "Lords of Peru" but in fact when I went to the actual article the title was "Trophy Skulls and Beer: unearthing the source of an Andean empire's power" by Andrew Curry.

Archaeology has yielded interesting results for the beer world in the past i.e. Dogfish Head Midas Touch (some statements about the discovery made by Dogfish are unfounded). This time it was archaeology learning something about ancient Peruvian culture. The article centers around practices on the borders of the Wari empire which ruled in Peru from approximately 600-1000 A.D. At the settlement of Cerro Baúl at the top of a mountain in the Andes, "the most critical building...may have been the brewery."

Curry spoke to archaeologists who stressed that the chica beer brewed at the site would have

been very important for maintaining relations with neighbors. One archaeologist even theorized that the Wari "may have actually wooed local leaders with a potent mix of beer and hallucinogens." The article goes into much more detail about the structure itself and the keros cups the Wari drank beer from but I would like to leave you with this story of the brewery at Cerro Baúl's last days in 1050:

"After brewing nearly 2,000 pints of beer over the course of more than a week, it seems the Wari held one last drunken blowout at Cerro Baúl. Two dozen or more lords, each raising a uniquely decorated kero, toasted one last time, then smashed their drinking vessels on the floor of the brewery. Then they lit the building on fire and left the mountain top forever."

-Giancarlo

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Fun Fact: Church Key

After being offered a couple of church keys by a local beer distributor to help with the beer I had bought I wondered how a bottle opener could possibly become associated with a church key. Turns out, the term came into use because the device looked like the handles of ornate keys, many of which were church keys. According to Michael Quinion, the term first appeared in print in 1951 but was probably in use by the 1930s.

-Giancarlo

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Fun Fact: Beer Stein Lids

This post begins a series of fun beer facts that we have collected while pursuing our enthusiasm for beer.

About a month ago Rich and his roommate gave me a stein and got me thinking about why someone drinking beer might want to cover it with a lid and when this development occured. After some quick research I came across and article in the Beer Stein Library that sufficiently satisfied my curiosity. Apparently the covered stein had its origins in 14th and 15th century efforts to keep the bugs that invariably followed an outbreak of plague from getting into the beer.

-Giancarlo

For more details check out the article:

http://www.beerstein.net/articles/bsb-1.htm

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