But Casey Hard is even more insane

Max's on Broadway debuts their new 102 tap draft system tomorrow, and, well...Capone's is cool and all, but this is just nuts:

Abita Purple Haze	Abita Select Weizenbock	Aecht Schlenkerla Lentbier
Allagash Confluence	Allagash White	Amager Imperial Stout
Avery Maharaja	Bear Republic Nor Cal	Bear Republic Rebellion
BFM Abbaye De Saint Bon Chien 2007	Troll Stella Natalia	Blue Moon
Boddingtons	Brewers Art Resurrection	Brooklyn Dark Matter
Contreras Valeir Divers	De Hoevebrouwers Toria	De Hoevebrouwers Toria Triple
Del Borgo Genziana	Delirium Tremens	Dogfish Head 60 Minute
Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron	Dogfish Head Midas Touch	Dupont Biere De Miel
Duvel Green	Emelisse Barleywine	Emelisse Espresso Stout
Emelisse Rauchbier	Evolution Sprung	Flying Dog Double Dog(Nitro)
Flying Dog Raging Bitch	Fransizkaner Hefeweizen	Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse
Fruili Strawberry	Great Divide Oak Aged Espresso Yeti	Guinness
Haandbryggeriet Nissefar	Heavy Seas Letter of Marque	Heavy Seas Loose Cannon
Het Alternatief Ambetanterik	Het Alternatief Bitter Truth	Het Alternatief Hik Blonde
Hitachino Espresso Stout	Hitachino XH	Hoegaarden Wit
Hopfenstark Lou Lou Porter	Hopfenstark Ostalgia Blonde	Hopfenstark Post Colonial IPA
Hopfenstark Saison 16	Hopfenstark Saison 55	Italiano Tipo Pils
JW Lees Harvest Ale	Le Trou Diable La Buteuse	Le Trou Diable La Chose
Le Trou Diable La Grivoise	Le Trou Diable L' Imperatrice	Le Trou Diable Weizgripp
Leipziger Gose	Lindemans Framboise	Magic Hat #9
Malhuer 10	Malhuer 12	Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast Stout
Mikkeller Black	Mikkeller Single Hop Amarillo	Mikkeller Single Hop Cascade
Mikkeller Single Hop Chinook	Mikkeller Single Hop East Kent Golding	Mikkeller Single Hop Nelson Sauvin
Mikkeller Single Hop Nugget	Mikkeller Single Hop Simcoe	Mikkeller Single Hop Tomohawk
Mikkeller Single Hop Warrior	Olivers Bishop Breakfast Stout (Nitro)	Olivers Strongman
Olivers Hot Monkey Love	Ommegang Rare Vos	Ommegang Three Philosophers
Pausa Cafe Chicca	RJ Rockers Fish Paralyzer	Sam Adams Boston Lager
Sam Adams Summer Ale	Schnieder Brooklyner Hopfen	Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Sint Canarus Potteloereke	Southern Tier Jah Va	Stella Artois
Stone Sublimely Self Righteous	The Bruery Rogbrod	The Bruery Saison De Lente
Victory Hop Devil	Victory Prima Pils	Weyerbacher Quad
Woodchuck Amber	Yuengling Lager
CASKS
De Regenboog Catherine The Great	Alvinne Podge	Stillwater Stateside Sasion-dry Hopped in French Oak
Olivers Cherry Blosom	Victory Uncle Teddys Bitter

See all those Mikellers? But the best part? The head beer guy at Max's, Casey Hard, is an insane gearhead when it comes to draft systems. So this stuff is not just great, it's served great. Whew. I'm really kind of sorry I'm headed to Chicago tomorrow, because it sure looks like Baltimore is the place to be.

Matt Capone is insane

You guys are aware of the kind of ridiculously amazing beers Capone's has on practically every day, right? Like today's list (from Matt Capone's hand-crafted e-letter):

Oskar Blues Gordon	Weyerbacher Juliet	Lancaster Shoo Fly Porter
Summit Honey Mai Bock	Widmer Braggot	Bear Republic Apex
Bullfrog Deaune	Bullfrog Double Espresso Stout	Cigar City Cuban Espresso
Ballast Point Victory at Sea	Emelisse Double IPA	Mikkeller Simcoe
Hair Of The Dog Blue Dot IPA	Duvel Green	StillWater Stateside Belgian Saison
DeCieul Approdite on Nitrogen	Brouwerij St Louis Gueze	Fruli Strawberry
Founders Backwoods Bastard	Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree Double IPA	Dogfish Head Burton Baton
Brooklyn Brew Master Reserve Black Matter	Hoppin' Frog B.O.R.I.S the Crusher	Philadelphia Fluer De Lehigh
Coronado Idiot IPA	South Hampton Double White
River Horse Summer Blonde   "On Draft Thursday"	Voodoo Cow Bell   "On Draft Thursday"

It's simply sick. God bless the man.

KegWorks and Mr. Fizz continue to please me

I told you that I finally gave in and ordered a CO2 tap, the Mr. Fizz from Leland, after years of fiddling with a handpump picnic tap. It was a huge and fantastic difference: almost zero wasted beer, no frustration with juggling pressure -- it's a set-and-forget beauty -- and maybe best of all, we didn't have to drink a whole keg in one day or have the remainder go flat. I love the thing.

But we've got a party coming up: the first of eight nephews/nieces/son & daughter graduated from high school (congratulations, Matt! GREAT job, and accepted an Echols Scholar at UVA!) and I offered to bring the tap. And then realized I had no gas. Yikes! Scramble, and find that KegWorks has the best price/shipping combo...but can't guarantee delivery before we have to leave. Gamble, order six cartridges (about $10 each, and worth it).

Lo and behold, they showed up today, three days before the earliest estimated delivery date. Bravo KegWorks! We'll have perfect beer for the party.

Folks, I get no freebies and no remuneration from either of these two companies; they don't know me from Adam. I just love the products and service, and cheerfully recommend them to you. Now, if you'll excuse me...it's Beer O'Clock.

Pints, prices, and punters

I wanted to get back to the "cost of beer" talk we've been skirting. By 'cost of beer,' I mean retail cost of a glass of draft beer, not cost of ingredients, or cost of bottled beer in stores. Those are sufficiently different topics that tackling all of them would take more time and room than I care to take here...maybe some other time.

I've been thinking about what it is we get in the U.S. when we order a "glass" of draft beer, because while a lot of this discussion (and that's a polite word for it) has centered on the price of the standard "shaker pint" pour, some of it focuses on just what is being poured: is it a pint? 14 ounces? Less? Seems like something that's on peoples' minds, so let's have a whack at it.

First, let me short-circuit any mistaken ideas: I do get a fair number of beer samples, but it's bottles, sent to my home. I pay for over 95% of my beers in bars and brewpubs, so I do have a good idea of what things are running out there, like the $6.50 I paid for a shaker pint of Molson Export at the Hard Rock Cafe in Montreal last summer (I only mention that because it was so lame, and so expensive, and so annoying).

That out of the way, here's my main thought. As I've mentioned all too often, I have a diesel Volkswagen. I love it. But when I go to fill up, the price of diesel is all over the map. Gasoline prices rarely vary by much; the competition is too intense. If the price is high, there's a reason: better service, the station doesn't sell that much and makes most of their money off their garage, local suckers, whatever. Auto diesel, on the other hand, is not something you find at every station, or even half of them; competition is lower. I've seen prices vary by 30 cents a gallon or more at stations within half a mile of each other.

Beer prices follow a similar profile. When it's the price of Bud Light, or Heineken, beers that are commonly available, you'll find a pretty close level price. It's not price-fixing; people are just aware of what the 'other guy' is charging. But when it's the price of a rare Belgian import, or a craft that's new to the market area, bars charge what they believe the market will bear. Their ideas of what that is may vary as much as $3 a glass.

Up until recently, they could do so with little push-back from drinkers; folks just ponied up the bucks. Now, however, the economy's in the dumper, money's tight, and more and more customers are starting to balk, and ask why, particularly why is one bar charging $4 and another charging $7 for the same beer.

What exacerbates this is that there is no tradition in the U.S. of stating what amount you're getting in a "glass of beer." We've only started saying "pint" fairly recently, and I'd guess it's because we're aping the Brits in an attempt to appear more worldly than we are, kind of like that annoying affectation of referring to the Atlantic Ocean as "the Pond." We ask for a "pint" of this and a "pint" of that, only we're really asking for a glass of inderminate measure.

What we seem to mean is the "regular" 14 oz. "shaker pint," right? How do you want a bar to advertise those glasses of beer? "14 oz. glass"? "Shaker 'pint'"? "Glass o' beer"? "Medium beer"? All are wrong or suspect. You don't get 14 oz. of beer in those glasses unless you've got no head, the reason for fill-lines on Euro glasses. There are several different volumes these glasses come in, and none of them are exact. Besides, a shaker glass is not a pint, so even if you put quotes around it, calling it a 'pint' is incorrect and misleading. A "glass" or a "medium" beer can be any amount the bar wants to pour.

What is it we want? "Fair" measures and prices, standard glassware? Is the standard going to be some kind of calibrated shaker pint? Because I know some beer geeks who will hate that, hell, I don't mind the shaker pint and I don't like the idea: let a million glasses bloom! We just don't know how much draft beer we're getting unless we go to a standard, and I don't see that happening.

What I can see happening is bars being held up to the same scrutiny that Don Russell forced on the concessions at the Vet back in 1998: tell the customer what you're going to pour -- 7 ounces, 12, 16, 18, 22, whatever -- and then pour that much. And if an inspector comes in and orders a beer, and it comes up significantly short (I'd say an ounce is significant), that gets reported somewhere that people will actually see it, and the bar is fined.

Tell me what you're selling me, then deliver that. I don't think that's such a big deal. Then when I have to decide whether I like your place enough to pay $7 for 12 oz. of beer...at least I'll know it's 12 ounces I'm talking about. It's a place to start. Because until you know what it is you're comparing, you're just making meaningless noise.

Whatever happened to...

...the furor about expensive draft beer? In the first half of 2008 we got Jeff Alworth's Honest Pint Project, Andy Crouch's upset rant (vent? screed? tirade?) about prices, bunches of posts on the beergeek sites, and ink in BeerAdvocate and other beer rags, all about prices being just too damned high!! And now? It's all gone away. Why no more complaints about prices? Is it because gas dropped by more than half from its ridiculous mid-year high and no one cares anymore? Is it because a lack of business has brought prices down? Is it because someone got to the ringleaders, promising them free beers if they'd just shut up? (I have no proof of that, and no reason to even suspect it, but it's never stopped anyone from saying shit like that about me, so what the hell...) Is it maybe for the same reason that I haven't written anything new on my PLCB rant-site since October?

Dunno, but the silence is deafening.

The PLCB Should Still Be Abolished

After over a month, my other blog has lurched back into relevancy: there's a new Reason Why the PLCB Should Be Abolished. This time it's about how the PLCB and The Almighty Liquor Code don't really care about you; they just want your money. You're shocked, I'm sure. Read, enjoy, get pissed off.