Busy-ness

I've been a little slack lately. Actually, I've been flat out like a lizard drinking, truth be known but I've been slack as well.

I haven't been posting on the blog as much as I would like or need but that is not to say I haven't been giving the keyboard a thourough thrashing either. It seems like I am writing something all the time and then I look at the blog and wonder where it all went.

To keep (or put) you all in the loop here's the short version of what Beer Blokes is up to.

I have been writing pretty frequently for Australian Brews News which is a very fine online publication managed by good beer bloke and friend Matt Kirkegaard (Beer Matt). Matt is a proper journalist with years of real experience and he is certainly taking a huge risk allowing my drivel to pollute the webosphere, but that's the kind of mate he is. We are always talking about our writings and he also kindly provides editing and feedback on my stuff you might even see an improvement in the crap that reaches these pages in the future.

I'll try to be more proactive and run a post here when Matt publishes my pieces on ABN but for now, here is a link to his very good beer site.

Also sharing some of the time-and-written-word activity of the Prof is James Smith over at The Crafty Pint. Another fine friend and proper journalist (what is it me suddenly attracting journo mates? Still, if I had to pick a couple, these Word Merchants would be top of the list!) Crafty is as busy as a Benghazi bricklayer at the minute making sure the site is promoting everything to do with craft beer in Australia. And that's no small job in itself. He is also part of the steering commitee organising Good Beer Week which will take place in Melbourne from May 16 to 22 and centres around the AIBA Awards.

We have been working on a few specific projects together including some Beer Dinners and The Great Beer Debate and a couple of other little projects which should allow us to make an absolute shedload of cash and retire by the end of the week. Or not. I'll let you know.

So, between that and more than a handful of Beer Dinners I've been hosting at various venues and the new venues wanting to get on board and do dinners I've been writing menus and trivia questions and tasting notes and matching suggestions and whatever else. No excuse for not writing heaps here, but there's your reason! I think that's about it. What else ...? Hmmm?

Oh, I remember! The Book!! The Critcs' Choice ... it is a lovely little book which hits the shops on April 1st and attempts to gather together the cream of Australia's finest beer experts to put together Australia's best beers of 2010 and sort them into order from one to one hundred. No mean feat, let me tell you.

I have been fortunate enough to be involved from the start and have been busily assembling the Voting Panel and sorting the Criteria and then sorting it all into some sort of legible format. It's harder than you think to sit down and sort beers into any order and harder still to write comments on some of the beers to express your admiration for them. I'll keep you informed about the various goings on of the book and the controversy it is bound to generate. Keep an eye out for it in newsagents and bookshops from next Friday.

Back to work now.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner