The following is a guest post from Jesse King (AKA “Finks”). If you would like to contribute a guest post to BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me. Enjoy!

I love beer! I have known this since I was 18, errrm I mean 21 officer. I was raised in a home where my Dad drank Geary’s and my Mom Milwaukee’s Best Light. So I could have gone either way in the beer spectrum. Thankfully I sided towards the “better” of the two.

My journey in experiencing the vast diversity of our beloved hobby started in May of ’07. My wife and I were in Germany for her Dutch brothers wedding. My brother in law who is also American decided that while we were there we were going to take on the German/Dutch beer scene head on and never drink the same brew twice. We came to the conclusion that the best way to document what we wet our whistle with was to keep each and every cap of the brew we experienced. Well this left me with a pocket stuffed with the jingling coin like labels of some of the best beers I have ever tasted.

(click for a larger view)

I have always appreciated the art of modern day packaging, so when I came home I had to decide what to do with my new found collection. This is when I decided to not stop there. It’s one thing to say that you hate the big beer companies when your only real experience with them is drinking the occasional Budweiser or Coors Light at a friend’s party. It’s another thing all together when you can say with 100% certainty that you have drank the lion’s share of what Big Brew has put out, along side with a large assortment of what Better Beer has out there and definitively say, “You have to try Leffe Triple” or, “I won’t drink Michelob Ultra Light Tuscan Orange Grapefruit again if you put a gun to my head.” So I decided to drink any and every beer I could get my hands on for the next year (quite the feat in Arooktook County, Maine) and document it with its respective cap. Once it was all done I would compile it in what I now call my, “Man Art.”

The idea is simple. I took a stray cupboard door (you can use anything really though, ranging from picture frames to coffee tables) painted it black and then hot glued in my over 240 unique caps. Now I am not saying you need to do as I did and document your conquest in hops filled beverages like a notch in your bed post. Empty that bucket of caps you have been saving for years for no apparent reason other than it’s kind of cool and make something that will make any guy (or really cool girl) stop in awe and amazement to gaze at it like a lost Picasso.

A few tips before you start. First and foremost, consider your canvas. Place caps in your desired frame along the top and side to make sure they will fit neatly, making sure there isn’t too much or little spacing so your final product is balanced. Also bare in mind the different circumferences of pry off vs. twist off caps. If you plan on a pattern, please realize how difficult this can be, especially in a standard size frame. I have done similar framed caps for many friends and family since this project and it always comes up, “what about a cool design?” Maybe it’s a lack of imagination, but only once have I been able to successfully pull this off. In all honesty a well randomized frame really is stunning. I liken it to a grownup’s version of Where’s Waldo. Finally, how to make the caps stick? Now there are many methods but I found the best way was to use hot glue. After much trial and error I decided to just use 2 small dabs on the inside edges. If you use more than that you will see that it doesn’t really improve the adhesiveness and that you are blowing through glue sticks like a mad man.

Well there you have it, so simple yet far more fulfilling than only having a bloated belly to account for your years of downing one great cold one after another. Good luck!

Nominations have begun again for the annual Portland Phoenix Best of Portland awards. As always, I’m making a minor organic push for votes. If you’ve got a second — even if you’re not a local reader — please take a moment and click here (or on the 125 x 125 Phoenix banner you see on the right-hand sidebar) and enter “Blog About Beer.com” as your favorite local blog. Don’t worry, you don’t need to fill out every category to vote, only those you know/want to vote on. Don’t worry about leaving every other fill-in-the-blank blank. Thank you very much for your vote (and your on-going support), I appreciate it!

Cheers,
Luke

Last weekend marked the fourth annual Beer & Cheese party at Vignola restaurant here in Portland’s Old Port. As I mentioned before, this has quickly become one of my favorite annual Maine beer events. You can literally pig out on some of the best cheeses and beers in the world until you feel like you’re going to burst — in the best possible way — for a mere $25.

It’s great, too, because there are two very different sessions to this event. The first, which runs from 12 noon to 2:00pm is very relaxed. This is the session we always choose to attend and this year my party of four made up quite literally about 1/3 of the entire crowd (you do the math). It’s a great intimate setting where you can really take your time with each beer and each cheese, have good conversations with the distributors and chefs and generally just feel relaxed and not rushed or pressured. However, the evening session (which runs from 3-5pm) had nearly 70 reservations before the session started and I’m sure there were plenty of walk-ins. So I’m guessing that session is much more of a party atmosphere (if any readers out there can attest to this, that’d be appreciated, since I’ve never been to the later session). Point being, whichever style of “festival” you like better, you’re sure to find it at the Vignola event.

The setup of this year’s festival differed slightly from the last three years, and definitely for the better. Last year each distributor had their own table with their own beers (so no table had any rhyme or reason as far as beer style was concerned) and all 25+ cheeses where just laid out on the bar. Granted they were in order from lightest/creamiest to darkest/bluest/funkiest, but that was about it. It was very much a “here, drink some beers. okay, now eat some cheeses” sort of setup.

This year, much more effort was made toward actual “pairing” of the two. There were 4 tables set up throughout the restaurant (which had been cleared of most chairs to provide enough room for everyone to move about); the first featured a handful of IPAs and Pales to match with 4 or 5 different cheddars. Next you moved to a table of soft, creamy cheeses and meads (another new and welcome addition), which is pictured above. From there, to belgians and hard, aged cheeses and lastly to porters & stouts and the blues and really funky cheeses (my personal favorite of the stations). I definitely preferred this set up to the way the event was run in previous years and from the few other attendees (and employees) who had been to previous years, I think that sentament was universal.

The only downside, I felt, to this year’s event was that the selection of both beers and cheeses, although better arranged, paled in comparison to last year’s. The cheeses certainly never fail to impress — although I’d say at least 10 or 12 of them this year came from the same farm in Vermont; not bad, just not much variety –  and, as I mentioned, the meads were a nice touch, but other than that, the beer selection was pretty unimpressive.

I will absolutely attend the event again next year (and every year Vignola continues to put it on), and I appreciate the improvement in set up. I just hope next year they can find the right balance between improved presentation and the better selection of years past. See you next year!

Just a quick note that a quote from yours truly was featured in a story on CNBC.com yesterday about the addition of beer to the menus of Burger King restaurants in Southern Florida and a Starbucks on 15th Avenue in Seattle.

Burger King says its decision to serve beer came from customer feedback. They’re specifically targeting touristy areas like Orlando and South Beach and serving up fanny-pack favorites, including Bud, Bud Light, Bud Light Lime and Miller Lite.

(“The only thing Americans like better than cheap, crappy food is cheap, crappy beer!” quips Luke Livingston, author of Blog About Beer.com.)

Starbucks, on the other hand, is selling microbrews and cheese in addition to its caffeinated fare at the “15th Ave Coffee and Tea” shop in Seattle, in what appears to be its latest diversionary tactic from America’s romantic breakup with the $4 latte.

Of course it wasn’t anywhere near my entire quote (but I guess that’s mainstream media for you) and they took probably the goofiest, least “intelligent” part at that, but it’s there nonetheless. For more on the addition of beer to the BK Landscape, check out the original CNBC.com article here.

This is a guest post from my friend Jake. Jake is an aspiring home brewer that loves beer, sports, and the state of Maine. Born and raised here in Maine and now living in the suburbs of Portland, he brews his own beers and loves to try any new brew. He is co-editor of incessantrambling.com along with fellow BlogAboutBeer.com guest contributor Hokie. You can follow Jake on Twitter @IRdCjake. If you’d like to contribute a post to BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me.

Beer is good…at least I hope you believe that. If you’re reading this blog, I will assume you agree with me. If not, please go somewhere else.

I brew my own beer. I thought I could make a Dogfish Head my first time. Boy, was I wrong. Beer is a complex beverage that takes time to get right. You cannot give it a wing and prayer…good beer is a work of art. Raphael wasn’t a master sculptor every statue, though I’d love to have been that talented.

I’ve brewed Browns, IPAs, Nut Browns, Stouts, Strawberry Wheats, and other assorted beers. Only once did I strike out. My Strawberry Wheat exploded while conditioning and soaked my entire pantry closet. I received a phone call from my better half. “Jake, your beer exploded…you need to clean the closet when you get home.” “Yes dear.”

I love making beer. You are in command every step of the way. You make every decision. How much malt, how much hops, how long do I boil, do I add more hops for flavor or do I say it’s good. It’s all your choice. You get to choose style and then go from there. You can make beer from recipes available online, in books, or from friends or you can just wing it. Every beer is different…even if it’s from a recipe. Just using a different water changes the taste of beer, just imagine if every product in the world was changed by a simple difference like water. Computers chips would have different speeds from the region that the copper came from, quality of video would change depending on the type of silicon used, and sheet metal would be weaker in certain regions of the world.

Beer is the ultimate social equalizer. You can be a millionaire, slumlord, or on welfare, everyone drinks beer. It was the beverage of choice for years…it’s easy to make and everyone can. Humans have been drinking beer longer than any other fermented beverage. It has been around since we’ve lived in the crescent of civilization. It was healthier than drinking water and it still is in many parts of the world. Anyone can make beer and everyone should. Making your own beer is the epitome of local economy.

Have I already said that I love beer? Everyone who enjoys beer needs to home brew. It’s easy and isn’t very expensive. By making your own beer, you will understand what makes beer taste the way it does and where the flavor comes from. Brewing your own beer gives you flexibility and the ability to push the envelope on what you drink. As Ben Franklin said, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” So go out and get in touch with “God” and brew beer. Relax and have a homebrew, folks…I look forward to trying yours as you can always taste mine. Cheers!