One of the recent additions I’ve made was to create a mobile version of the blog, so now you can read Blog About Beer from your iPhone, Android, or most mobile devices.  A nice feature is that you don’t need to remember any specific URL, as you just have to go to blogaboutbeer.com and it will automatically detect your device and redirect you to the mobile site.

It is beer fest season in Oregon with the Portland International Beer Festival this weekend and the Oregon Brew Fest next weekend, so I’ll be a busy guy for the next week.

Have a great weekend.

Who Am I?

Well to start off I’m currently a 28 year old guy, married to a beautiful wife and have a new daughter who was born in April 2010 (you can see I’m a proud dad).  I currently own an Internet marketing company during the day and brew beer, play drums, volunteer with middle schoolers, keep up to date with the Seahawks and Blazers, and spend time with my family on nights and weekends.  Oh yeah, I’m also known for liking extremely spicy foods.  Whats better to wash down some salsa made with ghost chili’s than a nicely paired beer right?  Ok, maybe more than one beer if I’m eating ghost chili’s. Other than that, I love beer.  I’m not a beer snob, just a fanatic.

I also live in a suburb of Portland, Oregon…

Portland, Oregon? I thought This Was a Portland, Maine Blog?

Yes, I live in Portland, Oregon, one of the greatest craft beer cities in the US.  Why do we have so many breweries in the northwest?  Well, we have great water and excellent climate for growing hops.  I understand that this blog has had a focus on Maine in the past, but I have some big ideas.  Since I’m from the west coast, most of my beer experience comes from the west coast breweries.  However in the future I’d love to get consistent guest posts focusing on different areas of the country to make this a blog featuring beer from Portland to Portland (coast to coast).

What’s To Come?

Over the next few weeks you will start seeing new features on the blog such as the following:

• Multiple city beer guides (such as the one currently on the site for Portland, Maine).
• A mobile version of Blog About Beer for your phones.
• More beer reviews.
• Videos and interviews with brewers.
• Lots of new blog posts.
• Improvements to the blog design.
• and a whole lot more…

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me as I’d love to hear them.  If you’re ever in the Portland, Oregon area and want to grab a beer I’d love to meet up.  Thanks for the support!

Logan Thompson
Author, BlogAboutBeer.com – July 2010

Rather, I wanted to take a minute and say goodbye and, more importantly, say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has read and followed the site since its inception. After nearly 3 years, it’s absolutely difficult for me to see the site go, but I’m confident that I’m leaving it in good, very capable hands. Thanks to all the readers, thanks to everyone who has commented on a post, everyone who has emailed me, everyone who has come up to me at an event to introduce themselves; thanks to all the breweries and companies who have sent me products to review or given me tickets to their events; thanks to BlueHost.com for being a kick-ass web hosting company with virtually zero downtime and great customer service; thanks to the thousands of you who have visited the site and the hundreds who have subscribed to the RSS feed, despite my often embarrassingly dismal coverage of the craft beer world, over the years; thanks to my friends, family and my girlfriend for putting up with my often obsessive blogging habits; and thanks to everyone for your well-wishes in my next endevor, Baxter Brewing Co. (here’s the announcement I made on the site a few weeks ago, in case you missed it).

If you enjoyed what I had to say and want to continue to follow my progress and updates, I’ll definitely be blogging about Baxter’s progress on BaxterBrewing.com from time-to-time, so check it out. And hopefully I can come back to BlogAboutBeer.com for a guest post or two, every once-in-awhile, too.

The site will be in a state of flux over the next few days as the domain and database transfers happen, but please stick around and please give the new author the same level of attention and respect you always showed me. I have no doubt he’ll continue to show you a good time.

And I guess that’s all I have to say about that. So long, and thanks for all the beers!

la’heim,
Luke Livingston
Author, BlogAboutBeer.com – Aug 2007-June 2010

Cheers,
Luke

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.

I do however expect I’ll have enough time later this evening to do just that. So my tardiness is your (possible) gain. If you yourself have been too lazy to enter the contest (which can be as easy as commenting on the original post) and thought you missed your chance, I’ll give you until 10 o’clock (EST) this evening to enter, at which time I’ll hopefully have the chance to compile the list of entries and select the winners. Good luck!

What you can win:

(1) A $50 gift certificate to the Cataqua Pub at Redhook Ale Brewery in Portsmouth, NH, two tickets for a Redhook Brewery tour & tasting and a Redhook skateboard (please don’t drink and skate!).

(2) A Jubelale gift pack from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR. The gift pack includes Jubelale ornament, Jubelale long-sleeve T-shirt, Jubelale pint glass and a Jubelale poster signed by the artist.

(3) A Magic Hat gift pack from Magic Hat Brewing Co. in Burlington, VT. This pack includes a mini tin-tacker sign that reads “Drink Me”, a Magic Hat t-shirt, a bottle opener and a key chain.

(4) A Growler Kit from Kegworks.com, which includes glass growler, an insulator jacket and growler filler (a $44 value).

(5) An Allagash Brewing Co. t-shirt (Portland, ME) and a pint glass and poster from NorthernBrewer.com.

(6) A Shipyard Brewing Co. t-shirt (Portland, ME) and a pint glass and poster from NorthernBrewer.com.

(7) A Seadog Brewing Co. t-shirt (South Portland, Topsham & Bangor, ME) a pint glass and poster from NorthernBrewer.com.

(8) A t-shirt of your choice from beer clothing headquarters craftbeerclothing.com.

Alright, now here’s how to win these wonderful prizes. Like last time, each prize will be awarded to a random winner drawn from the radomizer at random.org but the more you participate, the more “points” you can earn, and each “point” is another entry into the contest (i.e. the more “points” you earn, the greater your chance of winning something).

How to earn points:

• Blog about this contest on your own blog with a link back to BlogAboutBeer.com (make sure your blog entry leaves a trackback on this post; if it doesn’t, please leave a link to your post in a comment) – 5 points
• Follow @livingstonmedia on Twitter and tweet about the contest with the following Tweet:
  

  Just entered to win a bunch of #craftbeer schwag from BlogAboutBeer.com. To enter, simply follow @livingstonmedia and RT http://bit.ly/7TVtIC

  (Tweet MUST be in this format and you must also be following me so I know you’ve entered) – 2 points

• “Stumble” this contest post using StumbleUpon (if you “stumble” the post, let me know in a comment) – 1 point
• Share the contest on Facebook (if you “share” the post, let me know in a comment) – 1 point
• Share the contest on any of your other favorite networking sites or forums (Digg, Reddit, Myspace, etc. If you share the contest anywhere, please specify in a comment) – 1 point
• Comment on THIS post (which you’ll have to do letting me know you stumbled, dug, etc. etc. so really it’s like a free point)- 1 point
• Subscribe to BlogAboutBeer.com Subscribe to blogaboutbeer.com by Email (by clicking the link) – 3 points
• Here’s my favorite part: Write a guest post for BlogAboutBeer.com. I’ll accept nearly all of the decent guest posts and they’ll appear here on BAB over the coming weeks (complete with a link back to your own blog or website, if you have one/would like the link). – 5 points (PLUS: a bonus of 5 points for best guest post).

The Fine Print:

You can only win one prize (one prize per person, per household). Once you’ve won a prize, your name and all remaining points will be removed from the rest of the contest. All directions in the “how to earn points” section must be followed. If they aren’t, your entry will be void. The contest ends at 10pm EST on Thursday, January 21st, 2010. That night I will email all winning parties; if a response is not received by 5pm (EST) on Monday January 25th, your winning point will be forfeit and the prize will go to the next winning name in line. If you have won an article of clothing in your prize pack, please include your shirt size in your response email. Important: in order to win the Redhook gift certificate, you must be willing and able to provide your own transportation to and from the Redhook Ale Brewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. If you cannot do this or choose not to, please indicate that along with your entries. If you are awarded the “Redhook Package” and are unable to get to & from Portsmouth, you will automatically win the Jubelale gift pack from Deschutes and the “Redhook Package” will go to the next winner in line. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask them by filling out the form on the BAB contact page. If you represent a brewery or beer-related company and would like to include prizes to be part of this contest, please email me ASAP and I will add them to the contest. Thanks for playing, thanks for reading and good luck!

New Year's Eve - Times Square, NYC 1907

Wanted to wish everyone a happy, safe, fun and beer-filled New Year’s eve this evening (and New Year’s Day recovery tomorrow). I hope you are able to spend this holiday with friends, family and those you love. It may be a good day to think about pulling that special bottle you’ve been waiting on out of the cellar; it’s time.

I also wanted to thank the many thousands of people that stopped by BlogAboutBeer.com in 2009. Some only came once but lots & lots of you chose to stick around, and for that I can’t thank you enough.

In a way, I’m sad to see the Aughts go, it was a pretty big decade for me — high school graduation (early in the decade), college graduation (later), turning twenty-one, getting into better beer, etc. — but I sure am happy that 2009 itself is nearly behind us. And I am VERY excited for the year ahead. I’ve got some big plans on the horizon which will be shared soon enough. But for now, check back to BlogAboutBeer soon (like this weekend) for a pretty fun little event I’m going to be throwing around here to kick off the new year.

Until then, be safe, be well & Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Luke

Just stopping by amidst a few much-needed days (mostly) away from the computer to wish any and all a very Merry Christmas. Whatever this holiday means to you, I hope it is a joyous couple of days during which you are able to put aside life’s many stresses and enjoy the company of loved ones and the joy of some good hardy brews.

May your days be merry and bright. Salude, Prost, L’chaim and Cheers.

Hi All – You’ll notice a whole bunch of new changes to BlogAboutBeer.com today if you visit it from the web (rather than your RSS reader). While it’s not the handmade theme I mentioned a few days ago (unfortunately, due to an extreme lack of free time, that project will have to be put on the back burner for the time being), I’m still pretty happy with the way it turned out. I found a free theme I was actually pretty impressed with and then hacked it up a bunch to get to the nearly-finished product you see here.

Important Changes:

Since I was already knee-deep in WordPress routing around changing the theme, I went ahead and made a bunch of other adjustments, too. I limited the number of posts which appear on the homepage to 5 in order to cut down on load time. I also discovered that, overtime, I had somehow built up to nearly 40 installed plugins (most of which I wasn’t even using) on the old theme, so I deleted all but 10 or 12 of them, which should speed things up considerably as well.

I cleaned up the sidebar quite a bit; again eliminating a bunch of clutter that just wasn’t being put to use. I tried to make better use of the advertisements on the site (there has to be some, blogga’s gotta get paid!) while streamlining them and hopefully making them less obtrusive than before (which I hope will, in turn, lead to more ad sales ). I installed a plugin called Sexy Bookmarks (you can see why) to encourage more social interaction with the site. And last but not least, what’s probably my new favorite part – I added the option for threaded comments. So now you can reply directly to any comment left on any post on the blog (check it out, you’ll see what I mean).

Alright, I believe that’s everything. There are still a few kinks to hammer out this morning but it’s all part of what I hope will be a whole new & improved BlogAboutBeer.com as we move into the new year. Keep your eyes peeled for lots more fun and exciting stuff going on ’round here soon, too. And of course, if you have any comments or suggestions on the new look of the site, let’s hear ‘em!

Thanks,
Luke