Magic Hat Tasting
Sara from Magic Hat will be joining us today from 5:00-7:00pm in the tasting closet where she’ll be opening Pandora’s Box. Let’s hope it’s not this one.

Charlotte Beer Week
Charlotte’s Creative Loafing is again sponsoring Charlotte Beer Week April 17-25. Guess they haven’t updated the website yet since these were the events from last year.

Fine Living airs show about beer pairings
“Learn about that mysterious mix of hops and barley with Fine Living Network’s Beer Pairings. From mass marketers to small-batch breweries, the uproar over beer is finding its way from the sports bars into top-shelf restaurants. People are finding that beer is as tasty with food as the finest wine. This one-hour special introduces you to the experts who will tell our taste buds which foods go great with beer.” Set the Tivo.

Do you hulu?
Speaking of television, Hulu made its public launch yesterday with the mission “to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web’s most comprehensive selection from more than 50 content providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and more to deliver premium programming across all genres and formats, television shows, feature films, and clips.” Yup, you can watch The Big Lebowski on your computer. Prediction: It will be less than ten minutes until your IT guy blocks this site on your company’s server. 

“Open An Umbrella Inside Day”
In one of the more stupid holidays in America, Mom R. tells us that March 13 is National Open An Umbrella Inside Day. It’s also Ear Muff Day, Good Samiritan Day, and Uncle Sam’s birthday. We didn’t even know he had a birthday.

Limey!
First Miller Chill, now this. Why, god, why?

Beer floats
No, it doesn’t float. We’re talking nouns here. George Washington was fond of making porter floats with vanilla ice cream. Take that, all ye naysayers when we tell you to try that with your chocolate stouts.

Beer+ Chocolate=Love
“What makes a chocolate and beer tasting great is the fact that it is unusual, and it works. Even folks who say they don’t like beer like chocolate,” Halfpenny explained. “Anyone with an untrained palate can find bready, toasty, caramel, toffee, roasty, chocolate, coffee and, yes, fruity notes in beer. They just have to get it out of the bottle and stop long enough to think about it.” Hear, hear!

Atlanta taxis take matters into their own hands
Entreprenurial taxi drivers decided they’d double as a beer delivery service. The police did not like that idea.

Tipping Point pays off for Guinness
Struggling brewer, Guinness, rebounds after months of airtime for its award-winning Tipping Point commercial. Filmed up an Argentian mountain, the ad shows an uber cool domino effect that features 6,000 dominoes, 10,000 books, 400 tyres, 75 mirrors, 50 fridges, 45 wardrobes and six cars. Video with link.

Ah, the SuperBowl. A time for junkfood and what else—beer! We will be enjoying the Big Game with family and friends, eating too much, and catching up on a backlog of brews. We’re for the Giants, mostly because we have a little schadenfreude thing going on with the Patriots, as horrible as that may be. And, our team totally bit it this year and didn’t even make the playoffs, so we just prefer to cheer for the underdog.

Brooklyn Brewery and Harpoon have their own little game going on, too. According to cureforwhatalesyou.com, Harpoon President Dan Kenary called up Brooklyn President Steve Hindy and placed a bet.

The wager: if the Patriots win the Super Bowl, Brooklyn will pour a keg of Harpoon IPA in their tap room and if the Giants win, a keg of Brooklyn Lager will be tapped in Harpoon’s Boston tap room.

Famous New England chef, Jasper White—who more or less popularized New England style cooking—was cooking up fish-n-chips outside Rockefeller Center on The Today Show today. Since many of us head to the beach for Memorial Day Weekend, we found this Beer-Battered Fish recipe to be appropriate. (From “The Summer Shack Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Shore Food” by Jasper White—Serves 4)

For a real treat with family or friends, go to Jasper White’s Epicurious.com page for how to make your very own Maine Lobster Bake:

Of all the great American cookouts, surely the lobster bake, known outside of Maine as the clambake, is the most dramatic. The technique, learned from the original Americans, uses a steaming pit either dug in the sand or made from natural rock formations to cook a wide variety of ingredients without relying on forged pots and pans. The presentation, the most spectacular I have ever seen, is a ten-foot-tall burst of steam released upon removal of the tarp. As the steam subsides, bright red lobsters facing back to back on dark green rockweed come into view. Sweet corn surrounds the lobsters. Underneath the seaweed lie buried treasures: soft-shell clams, rock crabs, a whole fish, mussels, periwinkles, potatoes, boiling onions, sausage and hen or duck eggs. The sights and smells are intoxicating. The lobster bake, much more than a dish or even a feast, embodies a day filled with the wonders of water, fire, food, family and friends.

The most important rule to remember to ensure the festive spirit of a lobster bake is that all who partake must share in the preparation. A lobster bake is an all-day affair, so bring along a midday snack and plenty of beverages.

Image: NBC/Today Show Kitchen

Our fellow beer comrade, James, recently told us about the prevalence of Dogfish Head beers featured throughout the series of Reno 911 as well as the recent feature film, apparently. We were honestly surprised at this—being that we are huge fans of Reno 911 and Dogfish Head. How could we miss such a quirky thing? James also explained that he believed it had to do something with college times, and as yours truly actually went to college with Sam Calagione (though not acquaintances), we were sure we missed out on something juicy.

A little Googling got us this story at Delaware online which explains the mystery behind it all. Gosh, how we love the Internets.

When the show began in 2003, the big beer companies had problems with their product being associated with the wacky antics of the what just might be worst police department in the country.

But when it comes to Calagione and his Milton-based brewery, nothing is out of bounds. In the “Reno 911!” film, the beer shows up in the hands of an obese man right before he’s eaten by a crocodile.

Calagione says he has no worries about his beer being associated with the crazy stunts. “We give our customers a lot of credit for being … smart enough to know the difference between farce and reality.”

[edit] The other half points out that, speaking of Dogfish Head, we got more Red & White today. Get it while you can!

Source: Delaware Online
Image: Comedy Central