I'm searching for the light - but it's all black

Blackened is the end
Winter it will send
Throwing all you see
Into obscurity

Craft Beer Rising was a juxtaposition of a cold warehouse and the warmth of the friendliest industry in the world. Brewers, salesmen and marketers mixed in a harmonious couple of days where love for beer was the theme making the madness of craft debate as irrelevant as the subplot in a Steven Segal film. I did hear of some brewing companies so incensed that breweries capable of making the same beer twice could claim to be craft that they were going to remove the term from all of their promotional literature. I would suggest that they also change the term brewing to homebrew to properly reflect their capabilities as brewers.

Frankie Valli once wrote this song about his love for craft and I think the words resonate to this day.

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now that we can be who we are

Craft is the word
Craft is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Craft is the time, is the place is the motion
Craft is the way we are feeling

The Mr Real Ale black IPA is in CT with stacks of harrrps (craft spelling) and is now black. There is some controversy about the appellation “black IPA”. It seems that some crazy people think that a beer can’t be black and pale at the same time! The UK’s biggest selling cask ale Greene King IPA is not in any way related to the Indian subcontinent yet it is still referred to as an India Pale Ale. At what point does a phrase or term lose its meaning? Like the term value used to describe beef derived from horses and seafood derived from potatoes. And the term passionate used to describe the impeccably dressed robots who work for Costa and Starbucks. Some argue for Cascadian dark ale but I am opting for blackened IPA because the beer Simon and I brewed wasn’t born black it became black at a later stage. The beer still has no link with India.  

Unspontaneous Panzerfaust is now all but gone but blackened IPA will need another couple of weeks on the harrrps and is likely to be released mid March. Spontaneous Panzerfaust has a fungal/bacterial bloom on it but won’t really get going until the weather warms up.

Last but not least The Driftwood Spars are having a Beer Appreciation Weekend on 15^th-16^th March. I am working as a chauffeur that weekend for my old mukka Jean-Marie Rock of Orval fame who is gracing the event with his celestial presence. I am sending a cask of the Dubbel Coffee Stout. We will be there most of the weekend with me popping in and out to sort things at the brewery and watch England be deprived of the grand slam by Steve Walsh the refereeing world’s answer to Ferdinand Marcos.