Author: J T. Ramsay

Geeking Out at Memphis Taproom


Weyer­bach­er Fireside
Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

I met Kei­th Fitzger­ald at Mem­phis Tap­room last night to talk about blogs, apps, and all the oth­er fun geek stuff our wives tell us “sounds fun” as we walk out the door.

Our won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tion was aid­ed and abet­ted by some deli­cious beer as the No Repeat Beer Week rolls on! I start­ed the night with a smoky Weyer­bach­er Fire­side (pic­tured) before delv­ing into a bunch of beefy IPAs. Here’s last night’s list:

I took it easy since it was a school night, but I can assure you I had no dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting up this morn­ing for a quick three-mile run.

Our con­ver­sa­tion end­ed with an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about how RSS is the blood cours­ing through the veins of the Inter­net, yet we still find our­selves join­ing every known social media plat­form that comes down the pike. Isn’t RSS sup­posed to make our lives real­ly simple?

Speak­ing of which, we also chat­ted about Pitch­fork’s head­scratch­er of a redesign. It remind­ed me of Paper Thin Walls after it was redesigned and made ready for a social net­work that nev­er took off. Ouch. I told Kei­th that Pitch­fork should’ve looked to ESPN.com’s redesign and focused on their video pro­duc­tion. Why they’re still mar­ried to the con­cept of a music webzine escapes me.

Kei­th also shared his pet project with me: a run­ning app for the 3G iPhone that should blow Map­MyRun and its ilk out of the water. I’m con­sid­er­ing buy­ing a new iPhone just to beta test it against my Garmin watch. It sounds great for begin­ners and advanced run­ners alike. There’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for an iPhone app like this to meet the needs of Garmin cus­tomers who’re still wait­ing for Garmin to roll out their Mac features.

It was a great night for geek­ing out on beer and the Inter­net. I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Kei­th on tweak­ing and adding fea­tures to Kens­ing­ton Blues over the next few weeks. To that end, can any­one rec­om­mend a clean, free, 2‑column Word­Press theme?

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Elysian Avatar IPA


Elysian Avatar IPA

Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

Helen and I stopped in at the Abbaye for brunch this morn­ing and I stum­bled upon yet anoth­er inter­est­ing brew from the good peo­ple at Elysian.

What made this IPA stand out is its sub­tle fla­vors. Elysian’s Avatar IPA does­n’t bowl you over with high alco­hol con­tent or over­pow­er­ing hops. A hint of jas­mine makes this an insane­ly refresh­ing IPA and at just 5.6%, it’s prac­ti­cal­ly eli­gi­ble for ses­sion beer status!

This could be a sta­ple at my house this sum­mer, if I can find it locally.

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Philly Brewing Co. Birthday

Philly Beer Co. Birthday

Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

I was able to sneak over to cel­e­brate Philadel­phia Brew­ing Com­pa­ny’s first birth­day this after­noon with a cou­ple plas­tic cups of Ken­zinger. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a year since their brand of deli­cious brews flowed forth from the site that once housed the mighty Yards Brew­ery, which has since relo­cat­ed to Delaware Avenue.

In that time, they’ve deliv­ered some great local beers for a great price. If you’re look­ing for a ses­sion beer this sum­mer, look no fur­ther than Ken­zinger. For my mon­ey’s it has all the best aspects Yards Philly Pale Ale offered, but just a lit­tle more refreshing.

My per­son­al favorite? Row­house Red! It goes with just about every­thing, while main­tain­ing its own dis­tinct personality.

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No Repeat Beer Week @ Memphis Taproom

Lest peo­ple start to think that this blog is going to focus exclu­sive­ly on the issues fac­ing the music indus­try, I’m writ­ing today about anoth­er one of my pas­sions: craft beer! In the past year or so I’ve got­ten very seri­ous about the beer I drink, thanks in no small part to Bren­dan, Leigh and every­one at my amaz­ing local bar, Mem­phis Tap­room. We Philadel­phi­ans are also for­tu­nate to have Lew Bryson and Joe Six­pack, two of the coun­try’s best beer crit­ics, right in our own back­yard! So while I’m not going to attend any of the offi­cial Philly Beer Week events, but I’m mak­ing the most of Mem­phis Tap­room’s No Repeat Beer Week…and then stum­bling home happy.

Last night Helen and I were joined by our friends — and new neigh­bors! — Rick and Grace for a nice din­ner, which ulti­mate­ly evolved into the girls going home and us boys geek­ing out to some new beers. I can’t think of a bet­ter way to wel­come them to the neighborhood!

What did I drink? Jess was kind enough to loan me a pen and I used one of their handy beer menus as a check­list. I tried one of each of the following:

What did I like? I’m par­tial to every­thing Elysian does. I enjoyed their Bifrost Win­ter Ale immense­ly and look for­ward to try­ing more of their stuff. My local dis­trib­u­tor’s even stock­ing it now! The Loki Lager had an amaz­ing fin­ish that demands your attention.

Any­one who knows me knows that I’m a suck­er for an IPA, even though I’m try­ing to break the habit of default­ing to these some­times over­pow­er­ing beers. What can I say? I’m a total hops-head!

Dog­fish Head makes some of the most nuanced beers I’ve ever tast­ed, and the Red and White was no excep­tion. They’re always work­ing on anoth­er lev­el in my opinion.

My sur­pris­ing favorite? The Ipswich Orig­i­nal Ale. I know! I’m shocked, too! Lew Bryson says it’s going to be a big year for ses­sion beers, and if they’re as sat­is­fy­ing as this one, who could deny him?

Let’s just say it was an amaz­ing way to cel­e­brate Philly Beer Week in my ‘hood! Be sure to stop by and sam­ple some of the great stuff they’re tap­ping this week at Mem­phis and Cumberland!

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The Sky Is Falling!

Here’s my absurd, reduc­tion­ist view­point on why edi­to­r­i­al will sur­vive the demise of the music indus­try: just because big con­glom­er­ates won’t make mon­ey sell­ing music does­n’t mean peo­ple will stop mak­ing it. Artists will keep doing all sorts of beau­ti­ful, irra­tional things, often at con­sid­er­able per­son­al expense, even if there’s no one to buy it. Some­one still needs to dig around to find what’s great, right?

If we as crit­ics con­cen­trate sole­ly on solv­ing the music indus­try’s prob­lems, we won’t be able to ade­quate­ly address our own. Jason Gross and I have been going back and forth quite a bit about this on Twit­ter. He wrote, “Music biz = our bread/butter (& our love). As for sav­ing crit­i­cism, do you mean the whole scribe trade or our just our own turf?” Con­flat­ing the music busi­ness with music itself is sil­ly. (I’m sure Jason agrees, but his tweet is illus­tra­tive nonetheless.)

If crit­i­cism sur­vives it will be as a cul­tur­al fil­ter. It sounds imper­son­al, but it’s of cru­cial impor­tance to an audi­ence. We have to stop think­ing of our­selves as ser­vants of the music indus­try and con­cen­trate on being of val­ue to an audi­ence with pre­cious lit­tle time to spend think­ing about our pas­sion. Remem­ber, crit­ics have always been cul­tur­al cura­tors, so it’s not a rad­i­cal change in job descrip­tion. We just have to think of our role in broad­er terms.

Our love is writ­ing about music. Let’s not for­get that.

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