Not-quite jumping in at the Deep End

It's taken me many years to do this, and by many, I mean over ten years.

The point of this blog is to take as its inspiration one or more of the various of-the-moment conversations which will (mostly) originate elsewhere, and expand upon one or more particular idea -or even an entire train of thought- expressed therein.

In the past I've found that this sort of exercise has proven to be cumbersome in day-to-day usage, especially when the (often) short attention span of your average Social Media user is concerned. 

But... older users of Social Media cut their teeth on the "old-fashioned" hobbyist fora, and simply stated, the old want bite-sized, INSTANT (and preferably free) just as much as the young.

But that is pretty much exactly the opposite of what this blog is about.

To say I think a lot about beer is fair, and the fact is my tendency is to "over-think" certain aspects of the modern approach to beer. 

By this I mean not so much the modern beer and brewing industry itself, but rather the knock-on effect.  In other words, I parse the various streams which comprise the contemporary Beer Hobby.

By "Beer Hobby" I mean that which is not wholly reducible to the sum of its parts: Homebrewing, beer rating and reviewing, beer trading, "Truck Chasing". . . and all manner of silliness in-between.

These various aspects of the hobby have grown since Fritz Maytag purchased Anchor Brewing Co. (and certainly since the introduction of Liberty Ale), and they continue to grow and diverge.

As is typical for the way I have written for most of my life, I will ask more questions - most often they will be rhetorical ones - than I will answer. 

What's that you say?  Boring?  Tedious?

TRUST ME!  I know how tedious this style of writing can be.

But I've found that through the tedious process of asking such questions, some degree of clarity is usually reached, if not exactly an capital A Answer.  For as we know, answers can be variable and deeply personal things when we're talking about such rhetorical questions, espeically those which deal in sometimes-intangible amounts (barrels, dollars) and personal tastes or palate.

And as anyone whose judged an amateur homebrew event knows, a palate is VERY personal.

Anyhow, my next post will jump right in at the deep end.

P.S. I'll explain the title of the blog in a later post.  It's not as simple as it sounds.