In Praise of Two Guys on Beer

There’s some­thing amiss in the Philly beer blo­gos­phere, if you ask me. Lew’s been crazy busy with more impor­tant things, like send­ing his son to col­lege, not to men­tion fin­ish­ing up that book. (Con­grats on both, Dad!) Ram­blin’ Jack has been a lit­tle heavy on the press releas­es late­ly in anci­ti­pa­tion of launch­ing a new site, which has been post­poned, per his lat­est post. Beer­lass has been doing her thing, but her blog tends to make me more hun­gry than thirsty. Love Joe Six­pack, but hate philly.com too much to find his stuff.  Where do I turn for more beer insight?

I’ve been tweet­ing recent­ly with Dave Mar­torana, half of the Two Guys on Beer duo. They have a video pod­cast, which you can also view at their YouTube chan­nel. Nat­u­ral­ly, I’m eat­ing crow here as they haven’t record­ed since the World Cup end­ed, but I think that’s due to some shenani­gans at Indy Hall. Dav­e’s been great about rec­om­mend­ing oth­er video pod­casts to me, like Beer Tap TV and Two Beer Queers.

Thing that’s great about video pod­casts now? They look great on your iPhone 4. Seri­ous­ly. Amaz­ing. I was total­ly over pod­cast­ing. The word just turned me off and the prod­uct often was­n’t much bet­ter. You know what changed all that? HD tech­nol­o­gy. Every­thing looks and sounds awe­some, and you can watch while you ride the train to work! Per­fect, bite-sized morsels of beery goodness.

But you know what? I want more! Rec­om­mend your favorite beer writ­ers and pod­cast­ers. I love local folks, but I want to know who your favorites are. It always helps to refresh sources and I feel like I’m long over­due for some good­ies. Drop your rec­om­men­da­tions in the com­ments so I can check ’em out!

Who Do You Follow?

Tell me who you fol­low! I feel pret­ty com­fort­able with Google Read­er and Twit­ter; I’ve amassed quite a col­lec­tion of per­son­al­i­ties there and enjoy them immense­ly. But I find myself awash in end­less reblogs on Tum­blr and I would­n’t know the first thing about who’s worth watch­ing on YouTube.

Do peo­ple still get into pod­casts? I’ve down­loaded DJ Rup­ture’s Mudd Up, Doug Hen­wood’s Behind the News, and Two Guys on Beer, but I have to admit that I’m not a reg­u­lar con­sumer of pod­casts. Are there any you check out? Do you think video pod­cast­ing may final­ly break through now that we have the devices that not only sup­port it, but make it sexy?

Last­ly, what are your favorite blogs? In this age of microblog­ging in all forms, is there any­one else out there who still likes to read thought­ful pieces? My Google Read­er is stuffed, but I’m always look­ing for new sources to check out. I’m always look­ing for local folks, as well as great peo­ple cov­er­ing music, tech, Phillies, food, and media. Share your favorites!

So, who do you fol­low and where do you fol­low them?