Sunday, December 18, 2016

Ölmönger Special: 1st Anniversary

One year ago, on the 18th of December 2015, I posted the first Ölbeat about Mikkeller Black Hole. Since then there have been some other Ölbeats, a couple of interviews and festival reports, one brewery visit and some miscellaneous stuff. Won't go into details or picking too many highlights now, since one year is a relatively short period for making a long list of the achievements. There won't be any summary on the year, either, because I prefer you reading all the previous posts. Only that way you'll be able to get the big picture on my blog and understand how messed up the writer must be.
Picking the candle for the birthday cake...
But if you insist on getting some recommended readings so far, I'll give you a couple:
  • Interview with Brouwerij de Molen with the following Ölbeat posts
    Since this was the first "something different" thing of the blog and the series was fun to make.
  • Buxton Rain Shadow
    So far the only Ölbeat to be written during and finished right after sipping the bottle. Unbelievably delicious beer and a couple of great songs to match. Had this again couple of days ago and was still blown away.
  • Visit at the Fat Lizard brewery
    Meeting the guys in action was actually much more interesting than writing the story but as the first brewery visit it was something special.
  • Interview with The Flying Dutchman with the preceding Ölbeat posts
    The project started out with having fun in Twitter - and has been great fun all the way after that. Meeting Ronald in person and chatting about beer, people and life while having a couple of pints was really joyful and interesting. The story is far from over.
More important than what has been in the blog during its short existence is the question: "What will the future bring?" Well, it will be more or less the same it has already been. I think there is no point in asking
What would You, Dear Reader, like to read about on the blog?
since the vast majority would answer "The announcement on quitting". Most of the leftovers would be like "Kill this sh*t. Just f**king kill it. No questions asked." Someone would probably say "Try to be less mean towards the beer fanatics/raters/tickers/bloggers/events etc. And consider retiring the blog, of course." 

The only thing I'm sure about is that none of these wishes will be granted. The blog is far from it's last post. And I'm far from being able to accept the presuppositions about the right way to think about beer. There will be for sure one post or more about the common dictation and misuse of concepts like 'beer culture', 'beer community' and 'craftbeer movement' and some different, stupid and allegedly humoristic points of view on the phenomena around beer, to mention a few ideas. Hopefully, there will also be some brewery visits and interviews. And some still unexpected crap, too.

Ölbeat

Since this anniversary post is mostly crap, so must the music be. Of course, this song would be just perfect soundtrack for beer festivals, alone and played in a loop, while the beer geeks in their tables would be confused: "I think I already had this one. Or did I? Or is it something else... No, I must have had this. By the way, this one's a great song." Besides the festivals, the song also matches with the moment you get the first taste of Yellow Belly or Goliat - and love it.  

DJ BoBo: There Is a Party (YouTube)

From the 1994 album There Is a Party, the song was written by René Baumann and Axel Breitung.