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Keep warm while drinking a cold one
The curse of Southeastern Michigan is its incompetent winter. After it
gets through screwing around with what we call autumn here,
eventually it drops an inch or two of wet, slushy snow, waffling back
and forth with rain and sleet. Most of the first two months of winter
are damp -- "an' the blasted Henglish drizzle
wakes the fever in my bones."(1) In fact, Winter in Ann Arbor is not
unlike winter in London -- granted, one city has far too many cars for
its streets and parking, and a lot of confused tourists who end up
driving the wrong way -- but I understand London is far worse. But I
digress. This rambling, contentious introduction is intended to explain
why Beer Geek undertook to taste a selection of high volume, "Winter"
beers: it isn't exactly the season for quaffing a liter of Warsteiner at
Metzger's
or sipping a Honker Pschorr at the
Old Town, now is it?
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Some savvy Bavarians figured they were onto a good thing
One of the joys of being an American is
that we can lay claim to all sorts of ethnic festivals. Not Irish?
Doesn't matter, enjoy St. Patrick's day anyway. Not German? So what?
Octoberfest is almost as American as apple pie, these days. I mean,
it's just an excuse to overindulge in beer and wurst, right?
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14 hours, 9 breweries, 40 beer nuts
was doing fine until we got to Kalamazoo. I had been pacing myself,
drinking lots of water and eating regularly. Then we hit Bell's - But I
suppose I should start at the beginning.
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Gosh, it's so ... Irish ... in here
ince this is supposed to be a beer column, I suppose I'll
say a few words about beer somewhere in here. But
mostly, Irish Pubbery is about the wonder of it all, the
creating of atmosphere out of nothing, the attempt to make
a place familiar overnight. Conor O'Neill's is something
downtown has needed for a long time: a standup bar that
you can wander into without giving your name, rank, and
email address to a 22-year-old Educational Psychology
PhD candidate moonlighting as a hostess and receiving a
crippled pager in return. It has all the right kinds of beers
and a few of the right kinds of whiskey (and Bushmill's,
too, more's the pity). And the staff are mostly friendly.
But, but, but ...
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On the Diag without Bud
I'm ArborFood's resident Beer Geek, Joe McConnell.
Like a Supreme Court nominee or an OJ-jury wannabe, I have to start
with a bit of a disclaimer: Jeff More, half-owner and hands-on
manager at Ashley's, is an old friend of mine. Consequently, I don't
want to write a standard restaurant review of the place, making
qualitative comments and so on -- wouldn't be seemly. Personally,
I like the place, but if you're looking for recommendations, you
don't want to read something written by friends and family.
Oh the other hand, this column is supposed to be about beer in the
large, beer and Ann Arbor, and there's no way I can start down that
road without talking about Ashley's. So forget the ethereal
quality of the fried cheese sticks and whether there's any real buffalo in
the buffalo wings. I'll leave that to the foodies. Instead,
here's a brief report of a chat with Jeff about his
little tap on State Street and its frankly remarkable beer
strategy.
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Beer Geek 
