Each beer tells many stories:

• How a beer style originated
• Why a certain region brews a beer
• What the different styles of beers mean and why / how they differ from one another
• Why a a person decided to make a brewery

Many beers (or at least the original styles) are older than much of modern Western civilization. So, what better to study and appreciate than a beer?

I have began the journey to learn as much as possible about beers, the varieties, styles, and the ingredients, so I can eventually release a collaborative project with the intention of creating a community discussion around beer. Recommendations, descriptions, where to buy/find, breweries, and food pairings- all these things are eventual hopeful sections within the site.

So, I decided that I needed to create a list to chart which beers I’ve actually had. I thought that it’s best to start at the most basic level. From there, I hope to create pages for each beer, brewery, and type. But even by having a list, it’s already shed light on some great new avenues Mike and I hadn’t considered. First, the sheer number of different beers we’ve actually had. Second, the crazy world of corporate brewing (as you can see with the lists we created subdivided by brewery). I didn’t realize until recently that SABMiller, inBev, and CoorsMiller are edging ever-closer to a worldwide beer hegemony.

Yes, to many it may sound superficial and sophomoric to be even bringing world politics and global economic systems into discussion surrounding something as commonplace and oft-underestimated as beer. However, ask me anything you’d like about beer, and why I decided to embark upon this journey with Mike to create a site centered around beer. I can tell you. This site is far from complete, and the URL is unknown to all save a small quorum of close friends who are coders and significant others. But when this site finally reaches fruition (hopefully by the end of the summer) and goes into beta testing, please let me know if you’re interested.

I do know many people are interested in beer, more than just the standard “American” beers: Miller, Coors, and Bud. Some are even as interested as I am, and have quite a bit of personal knowledge about beers, breweries, and trips to Europe/Asia/Latin America where the beers are much different. That is why Mike and I originally began working on this project- to create an educated-yet-casual-dialog about beer, where people can join an online, organic movement to share the knowledge they’ve gained over the years with other beer aficionados, or people who just want to know a little more about beer.

We have a stated goal for touring 10 breweries by the end of summer. Between Duluth, Wisconsin and the greater Minneapolis area, there is a lot of potential for hitting this. So today, with spare time on my hands, I began to look for breweries that offer tours. Here is what I found:

Summit Brewing Company

• 910 Montreal Circle, St. Paul, MN 55102
• 651.265.7800
• www.summitbrewing.com

Tours are every Tuesday and Thursday at 1 PM. There are also Saturday tours at 10:30 AM and 1 PM, but you need to call ahead and make a reservation. There is also a smallish gift shop with pint glasses, hats, and shirts.

Flat Earth Brewing Company

• 2035 Benson Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55116
• info@flatearthbrewing.com
• www.flatearthbrewing.com

They look to play host to quite a few events. Brewery tours happen rather infrequently. The next tour is Saturday, June 28 @ 4 PM.

August Schell Brewing Company

It wasn’t until I went back as a junior facilitator the next year, and three years after that when I returned as a facilitator, that I actually had the “aha” moment, and understood what a vision statement is all about. When I had to explain to the students in my family group what a vision statement is and why to have one, that I clicked, and decided to start writing (well scribbling) my firestorm of thoughts.

The Franklin Covey series, and actually Sean Covey (his son), really push the seven steps for highly effective people (teens).

I don’t want to steal the seven steps, and plagiarize them, but in paraphrased-summation, I really believe the essence of the steps is the notion to have a vision, a goal, and that in order to achieve your goal, with whatever you do, you must keep true to your ideals, and what you originally set out to achieve. Back to your roots, quintessentialism, whatever you want to call it- keep your vision in your conscious and subconscious mind, and very close to your heart. Be willing to flex, and flow with the punches that life’s obstacles throw your way, and adapt. But through it all, remember it’s your vision. You have to be happy with what you are currently doing, and where things are going. With your life, with a project; it really transcends all areas of your life.

And with this, I challenge you:

Can you write a mission statement for your life? What do you want to do? Are you taking steps everyday to achieve it?

Small, medium, and large steps. Short term goals like starting to eat better, and long term goals like travel the world, climb a mountain, or solve a worldwide problem.

I am going to revisit that personal mission statement I drafted last summer, just a month shy of a year ago from today, and see what I’ve done, and what I still need to do. You have to be on-track with yourself before you can think about getting a project for someone else (or with someone else) in order.

• Summit Scandia Ale (Belgian Wheat, a bit like Blue Moon but sharper)
• Summit Pilsener (didn’t try it)
• Summit Extra Pale Ale (good, real good)
• Summit India Pale Ale (more hops, more bitter, heavier and tasty like EPA. Would not enjoy an entire pint of it, however. dry.)
• Summit Great Northern Porter (one of my favorite beers)

I walk up to the beer tasting tent and notice a few guys wearing Summit shirts. So I ask them if they are pretty big beer guys or just serving it up. The first guy responds by pointing to the second guy and informing me that he is the VP for Summit. I congratulate the man for such a fine brewing company. I proceed to ask how they got into beers, and developed their palettes. The VP tells me that he spent his money buying beer, six-packs and trying out everything he had never seen before. From there he began doing a bit of home brewing and experimenting until he could find a mixture that was decent enough to brew. The two were also very informative and could answer any questions I might have about beer. To begin, dark beer is not necessarily heavier than light beer. In fact, Guinness only has 10 calories or so more than Budweiser. Not bad. I wish I had taken notes but I was told the differences between EPA and IPA. Porter and Stout. Most differences have to do with the time the wheat was roasted for. In porters you can taste the dark roast, a hint of the burnt flavoring. I told the VP about our theory that a porter will have a nutty flavor while a stout could tend towards more of a chocolate taste. He figured that was a good place to start, but it is not a rule for the two styles of beer and not always true.

Christine was asking all the right questions. She got the guys to open up about what flavors she should be looking for and why that was the case.

Finally the guys offered for us to come take a tour of the brewery sometime. I noticed on the website that Summit offers free tours on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I am all for it. I think the more we learn about the process of beer creation, and how different companies have different approaches, we will be able to learn the nuances in taste and categorization. I also have a little brochure about Summit along with a few business cards.

Updated: I moved on to the Anheuser-Busch table to catch a sample of a Belgian Wheat by the name of Shocktop. Very citrusy. In fact, if you swig it and gulp, it tastes a lot like pulp-free orange juice. Good, but not something you want to drink a six-pack of in a short period of time. I asked the server if this was an Anheuser-Busch recipe, or a microbrew that they had bought and were distributing for. He confirmed that AB was in the market of buying a few microbrews but that this was an original AB recipe. He then asked if that scared me away from the beer, having the large company attached with it. I replied that it didn’t matter to me who made it, if it was a good beer and that I just wasn’t expecting AB to be in the market. One observation both Christine and I made was a comparison between Shocktop, Summits belgian Scandia Ale, and Blue Moon. Christine did not care for Summit, but felt that Shocktop had a good flavor, and perhaps Summit added a bit too much zing. We also noted the similarity of Shocktop to Blue Moon. I have to guess that AB wanted to get in on this finer beer market and target and replicated the most popular, which I assume to be Blue Moon. While Summit is also in the same market, their goal isn’t to become the same as the other top beers but have a distinct flavor of their own. So while Shocktop is good, i suspect it is trying to be a Blue Moon and take some of the market.