Someone give Father Time a beer & a book to slow that boy down.

First of all,

It’s been a bumpy ride here at school because I have technically 8 courses. That’s right EIGHT! I’ve been told by many that this is NOT NORMAL! So apologies to the following are required:

• to my friends and relatives that are reading this expecting my aforementioned and promised weekly email updates. Yeah, I hooped that one. I didn't think that 8 courses would be so demanding on my time. 

• to my fellow beer aficionados and enthusiasts that expected more from this blog. All I can say is "Umm, I'm going to school? Uh...(looks at the ground sheepishly), I've never been to college before?  Er...I'm learning lots of beer stuff and things?....Look! A BARKING SQUIRREL! (makes a run for it)"

• To other beer bloggers or even bloggers in general. All of you can't tell me that starting out blogging was easy is it? It's like anything, it needs dedication right? I apologize for dragging down any stand up reputation of the term "Beer Blogger". (Whew, that should keep them pacified because I never considered myself a "Beer Blogger" in the first place.)

 So I AM dedicated...to my studies. For example, here is a pic of the bookshelf in my room.

It’s like a well stocked beer fridge! Recognize any?

Notice they’re all beer books, not books about the other subjects I’m taking, like Business Mathematics. Keep in mind I have about 4 more sitting in my locker at the college. Oh CRAP! I just realized I have to get that “Designing Great Beers” book back to Adam (Sorry Adam). 

  

I guess this mini-library is a lot like the stereotypical woman who has many pairs of shoes in that I have a fair number of beer books. Yes, I do read them when I can. Now do I say this to brag? No, because of course in the beer-geek world, some guy is going to get his nose out of joint, say "Oh YEAH?!" and then go and one-up you. Regardless, I get bored with that sort of nonsense VERY quickly. So if you’re one of those people...stop, just stop. Thanks.

Please keep in mind that I have about another 6-7 beer books at home in BC. I didn’t feel the need to bring them ALL here but I’m glad I toted the ones I did.

I find that there are SO many books out there that I want to still get, such as the following:

The Brewmaster’s Table by Garrett Oliver. -  I’ve been recommended this book many times by many people. I should just cough up the money & get it. Garrett Oliver is the Brewmaster for Brooklyn Brewery in New York. I’ve been told the book is a journey of his beer pairings with food. Considering the guy wrote an article for Cigar Aficionado magazine about pairing beers with cigars, I think he’s pretty well travelled. I don’t smoke, but that’s pretty cool.

Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels – Just from perusing this book, it has great charts and insights on brewing to style guidelines. For a wanna be homebrewer like me, this would be a great start.

Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation – I have the book from this series about hops (For the Love of Hops) and the one about Water. According to my pal JP, this book strictly talks about dry yeast...or was it wet yeast? Damnit! I can’t remember now. Well basically it eliminates one of the yeasts from the text, which is a bit one-sided in my view.

Sacred & Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner– My pal Mike Victory has this book and it’s very informative. It inspires me to want to brew a Heather Ale. I also like history and this book has some great historical references including recipes!

How to Brew by John Palmer – I’ve been told in no uncertain terms by a few colleagues in my class that it’d be “foolish to start home brewing without this book”. I’ve heard of this John Palmer fella before so it seems like a good bet. I have a home brew book written by Randy Mosher (who’s Tasting Beer book is pretty much one of my bibles) but what is one more right?

So what are some of the beer related books that YOU are looking to get? Please, put it in the comments.  Are there books that you’d think I’d benefit from purchasing?  It’s not that far off from the holiday season so maybe, just maybe, the books we want will end up under the tree or in a stocking...if we've been good. 

Thanks for reading,

BeerLearner

Disclaimer: Above I made reference to the “stereotypical” woman with lots of shoes as a matter of perspective and an attempt at humor. It wasn’t meant to offend. For the record, I have about 18 pairs of shoes and boots – which, last time I checked is a LOT for a guy.  Oh yeah, I own 3 pieces of glassware that are shaped like boots. Does that count?

Week 1 - Beer School (aka Brewmaster & Brewery Operations Management)

And so it begins,

The title for the course is a bit of mouthful isn't it? Much like a chewy stout or a bombastic porter. 

Personally, I find it a bit gutsy to say that each of the 26 of us in the inaugural class is going to erupt out of the course as full-fledged, bonafide Brewmasters. Brewers - Sure! BrewMasters? I reserve my judgement but of course have high hopes. 

Where do I begin talking about this course? Let's talk location, location, location, shall we?

Geography:

I'm proud to say our class is a true coast-to-coast representation of Canada. We have people from the East Coast; like Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and even P.E.I. Some lads out from the Prairies, local boys from Calgary, a gal from Edmonton, and a handful of us, like myself, from British Columbia. 

You might be thinking - no one from Quebec? All I can say is: Je ne sais pas. 

For those of you that don't know where Olds is located, it's about 1 hour North of Calgary in Alberta. 

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBe50Ol6pOPuYB_IYgkKY8m_RS65kvMyY8CTnnwQLNioX2CeCoVDNl9ibkn6nidTufjPG76yeGCXBm3rRv7I_YHjrMo5tIs9-E0z3t3VhSeUJmMD-V_aR0FwoZ7sdkZhz7zZ-KyWDcPTI/s1600/Olds+map.jpg

    Another thing about the town of Olds is that you can’t turn a corner without smacking into a liquor store around here. And the prices are cheap; much better than BC by far. (Disclaimer: I better be careful or the BCLDB will hunt me down out here.) You’d be surprised as to how many would be willing to order in product for you. They must like their booze out here and I'm okay with that. 

   A couple of the guys from my class work in a couple of the liquor stores in Olds. I say that's good representation for the craft beer scene.

     The college and brewery are a mere 15 minute or so walk from where I live. Before registration day I got to look through the windows to have a peek. This really just transmits into getting my nose and handprints all over the windows to almost the point of drooling. 

     I know I was pretty excited when I walked up to the intersection where the college is located and saw this from afar:

     Now in subsequent posts I'll do my utmost to put in more pictures but this guy has to get prepped for a trip to Yakima, Washington. It's a class trip where we'll learn about the wonderful way of hops from the region and establishments such as HopUnion. I'm still overwhelmed by the schedule so I better go get things organized. 

Thanks for reading, 

Jason Armitage

(aka The BeerLearner)