Completely Conspicuous 226: Bottoms Up!

Part 2 of my conversation with special guest Ben Amirault as we discuss the growth of craft beer. Listen to the episode below or download it directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
- Check out Ben's beer blog The Church Key
- Dogfish Head has branched out with TV show, limited edition beers
- Northeast has many great brewers: Magic Hat, Smuttynose, Baxter, Long Trail
- "Ice beer" was, and still is, a thing
- Regional pockets of great craft beer throughout the U.S.
- Some of beers can overdo it with the accents (fruit, pumpkin, caramel, chocolate, coffee, etc.)
- Jay: Not big into pairing certain beers with certain types of food
- Canadians will drink Bud or Coors because it's so light
- Ben: Hard to keep up with all the new brewers
- Recent trend is putting craft beer in cans
- Some brewers won't do it, but many are: Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, Oskar Blues, Baxter
- Great packaging can get you to try a beer
- The bomber is a great way to check out a new beer
- Some stores let you "make" your own six-pack from singles
- Bonehead of the Week

Music:
Mission of Burma - Dust Devil
Father John Misty - Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings
Hallelujah the Hills - Hungry Ghost Extraordinaire

The Men - Open Your Heart

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!
The Mission of Burma song is on the forthcoming album Unsound on Fire Records. Download the song for free at Team Clermont.

The Father John Misty song is on the album Fear Fun on Sub Pop. Download the song for free at Sub Pop.
The Hallelujah the Hills song is on the album No One Knows What Happens Next on Discrete Pageantry. Download the song for free from Prefix Mag. 
The song by The Men is on the album Open Hearts on Sacred Bones. Download the song for free from Epitonic.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian; check out his site PodGeek.

Beer Can

Don't look now, but the beer can's making a comeback. Obviously, not with the general public, because it never went away for drinkers of the big mainstream beers like Bud, Miller, Coors, etc. But suddenly, it's becoming cool for craft brewers to offer their beers in cans as well as (or instead of) bottles.

The trend's been around for a few years, but I first noticed it a few summers ago when I was down in New Jersey at my brother-in-law Matt's place and found a few cans of Dale's Pale Ale in his fridge. Now Matt's more of a Michelob Ultra kind of guy, but some buddies had left some Dale's at his house and it looked intriguing, so I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Brewed by Oskar Blues of Colorado, Dale's made its debut in 2002 and was the first of several can-only brews produced by the brewery.

Oskar Blues asserts that using aluminum cans keeps beer fresher than bottles by protecting it from light and oxygen. I've always preferred drinking beer out of bottles than from cans or out of a tap, but I have to admit Dale's is pretty damn tasty. Last year, Harpoon announced it was releasing limited canned versions of its IPA and Summer beers in cans for the summer. And Magic Hat is releasing its popular #9 beer in cans as well. The CraftCans.com database currently features 303 beers from 115 breweriers.

One argument for canned beers is they're allowed in more places than bottles. For example, when we're down in Ringwood, NJ, at Matt's, we go down to the lake to hang out and you're allowed to bring alcoholic beverages, but not in bottles. Which made Dale's super convenient, because you could drink a beer in a can without having it be something super watery.

Does that mean I'm switching to canned beer entirely? Certainly not. But it's nice to have the option. And after all, variety is the spice of life.