New South Brewing to start canning

From my new column in the Weekly Surge:

Soon, you’ll be able to purchase a six-pack of New South Brewing Co.’s White Ale in area grocery stores.

You can already buy the Myrtle Beach microbrewery’s beers at local bars and restaurants. New South has been producing kegs of several types of beer for 10 years.

But now a canning machine is primed and ready to go, said owner Dave Epstein, who has been finalizing the art work and labeling for his cans.

“We’re still on track for late next month or early April,” Epstein said. That’s to start canning. The famous White Ale – the microbrewery’s “flagship” brew – should appear in local package stores and grocers by May, maybe late April.

Beer distributors, rather than New South, will make the sales pitches for the White Ale to individual stores and chains, so Epstein doesn’t yet know for certain where you’ll be able to buy his beer. But those distributors have long-standing relationships with area retailers.

“Anywhere you find a good selection of beer, hopefully you’ll find us,” Epstein said, adding that local golf courses are also a target market.

New South will start with ringed six-packs and White Ale, but of course, Epstein plans for more.

If the microbrewery can keep up with demand during the summer months, and if everything runs smoothly, Epstein will add a second beer in the fall. Twelve-pack cartons are a possibility, eventually.

The price for that locally brewed six-pack? That’s yet to be announced. Epstein noted that the baseline price for most microbrews is $8 for a sixer. Whatever you pay at the checkout counter, Epstein said it will be competitive, on the lower end of the microbrew price scale.

Red Hook's Double Black

Red Hook's ESB is one of my all-time favorites.

Their Double Black, a limited release, is about as dark as I like it: an Imperial Stout "enhanced by coffee and dark malts with a big, roasty flavor," according to the label.

I liked the smoothness. The bitterness did not overwhelm my taste buds. I could also tell, much like my experiences with Rogue beers, that the water used in the brewing process was high-quality.

I found Red Hook Double Black in a one-pint, six-ounce bottle for $4.79 at Kroger in the Galleria shopping center, corner of Lake Arrowhead Road and U.S. 17.

Again, it's a limited release, so seek it while it may be found.

cheers,
Colin

Men and Women in the Confessional Booth

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In the confessional booth, what sins do men confess the most?

What sins do women confess the most?

This morning, NPR reported that a 95-year-old Jesuit priest has released survey results on those two questions.

He organized them according to deadly sins. Here are the top three.

Catholic men confess:

1. Lust

2. Gluttony

3. Sloth

Catholic women confess:

1. Pride

2. Envy

3. Anger

I wonder if the Anger is a result of the Sloth?

'Working with Gandalf and Jesus'

"Working with Gandalf, and Jesus, and then I showed up; it felt like the trilogy was complete." -- Jeffrey R. Smith on working with AMC's production of The Prisoner miniseries, starring Sir Ian McKellan (The Lord of the Rings) and Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ)

For more information on this miniseries, based on the 1960s television series, see the video in which Smith made the above comment, or click here for the blog.

Herren Pilsner at the MB GB

I've been meaning to tell you all -- I visited Gordon Biersch at The Market Common over the weekend, and tried the seasonal Herren Pilsner.

It's unfiltered -- and outstanding.

Chief Brewer Pete Velez's notes on the Herren Pilsner read, "Unfiltered German style pilsner. This spicy flora aroma leads to a delicate body with a lightly hopped bitterness and crisp finish."

Like I said, the waitress said it was a seasonal, so try it soon.

Beach HomeBrew no longer at the Galleria

What happened to Beach HomeBrew? It's no longer in the Galleria shopping center at the corner of U.S. 17 and Lake Arrowhead Road.

And, the Beach HomeBrew MySpace page has disappeared, too.

Does anyone know if the store has relocated?

I hope Ed Waldorf did not go out of business.

But the way this economy has been, a lot of companies have gone out of business.

Let's 'know' together

Two quotations by Walker Percy:

1. Awareness is not only intentional in character; it is also symbolic.... I am not only conscious of something; I am conscious of it as being what it is for you and me. If there is a wisdom in etymologies, the word consciousness is surely a case in point; for consciousness, one suddenly realizes, means a knowing-with! In truth it could not be otherwise. The act of consciousness is the intending of the object as being what it is for both of us under the auspices of the symbol.... Mead's major thesis was that the individual trascendental conscious is a myth, that mind and consciousness are indefeasibly social realities.

2. The decisive stroke against the myth of the autonomous Kantian subject is the intersubjective constitution of consciousness. There is a mutuality between the I and the Thou and the object which is in itself prime and irreducible. Once, in theorizing, this relation is ruptured, it cannot be recovered thereafter -- witness the failure of both Sartre and the empiricists to give an account of intersubjectivity.

The first quote is from "Symbol, Consciousness, and Intersubjectivity," in The Message in the Bottle.

The second quote is from "Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism," in The Message in the Bottle.

Best places in Myrtle Beach to drink session beers

In my Weekly Surge column, I recently gave the low-down on session beers and the best places to drink them in the greater Myrtle Beach area. Read it here.

College students and the Grammys

It was an informal survey, of course, but I really did not expect what it revealed.

During the past two days, I have polled about 80 students in four sections of English 102 at Coastal Carolina University.

I asked questions like, "Did you watch the Grammys? Who watched the Grammys?"

I was thinking, "Who wouldn't watch the Grammys?"

The 51st Annual Grammy Awards included live performances by U2, Lil Wayne, M.I.A., Coldplay, Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood, Katie Perry, and several more recording artists who (surely) are familiar to folks in their late teens and early twenties.

So how many of my English 102 students watched the Grammys?

In one class, I might have had six hands in the air. In the other three classes, fewer than five raised their hands.

Some of those hands came with comments like, "I watched some of it."

These classes are mostly populated with freshmen.

I think music must be getting more democratic, less hierarchical. After all, the Grammys is a marquee event for popular culture, and most of the English 102 students didn't stop to watch.

I often use examples from popular films in my classes because there are some movies that nearly everyone has seen.

But music? It's less likely that everyone has heard the same songs or loaded the same tunes onto their MP3 players.

Movies still have big advertising and marketing campaigns, and still have distribution routes that keep viewers on a tight leash. If you want to see a new Hollywood movie, most of the time you have to go to the cinema.

But music? A televised, annual event with live performances by big-name recording artists can't draw much more than two percent to three percent of my students.

Or, you could say, movies have a portability problem that indirectly allows some of them to become popular in ways that songs and even recording artists cannot.

It's easy to listen to music on small devices, but movies (once they've made their run in the cinemas) require at least a small screen to view. You can't watch that small screen while you're driving, but you can listen to music just about anywhere, just about anytime.

The portability of music and the convenience of transporting allows the proliferation of distribution routes and low-cost, or free, or pirated downloads. Spend a few minute on the Web and you'll find dozens of bands that are new to you. Some band sites on MySpace will allow you to download select MP3s for free.

But all that is just well-worn speculation about the impact of technological changes.

I'm just surprised more of those students weren't watching the Grammys.

A few words about coffee

Lately, Kristi and I have been starting our days with Cashua Coffee, roasted right here in South Carolina.

Cashua roasts in Florence, roughly a half-way point between owners Jason and Cathy Savage of the Columbia area and Joshua and Neva Campbell of the Myrtle Beach area.

Kristi has known Neva for years, and the Campbells used to hang out in our old, departed coffeehouse, The Living Room Coffee Bar & Used Books in Myrtle Beach.

Kristi and I have been very happy with Cashua's roasts and offerings. So far, we've tried their winter blend, Kenya, Nicaragua, Brazil, Espresso blend, and probably another varietal that I'm forgetting. Cashua has been as good as Larry's Beans (of Raleigh), which we served at The Living Room.

Scroll down this page to find Columbia-area and Myrtle Beach-area retailers that carry Cashua, or order Cashua online by clicking here.

This morning, however, Kristi chose a larger cup than usual, and unaware that I had not poured any coffee for myself, she finished all but what amounted to an inch's worth in the bottom of my mug.

Running late as usual, I compromised.

So now I'm in my office at Coastal Carolina University, sipping a quickly cooling 16-ounce cup of Starbucks Sumatra, purchased at the Piggly Wiggly in Carolina Forest on this freezing, windy morning.

Logging into email, I noticed that Yahoo News announced that Consumer Reports once again has picked Eight O'Clock Bean's Colombian for its best coffee. (Read the report here.)

Starbucks, Consumer Reports said, did not rank among the top ten coffees.

I've heard this Eight O'Clock Bean claim several times before. It's a consistent winner among big media outlets, like network morning shows, as well as Consumer Reports. But I've tried it before and wasn't impressed. Something of body and quality seemed to be missing. Larry's Beans, Cashua Coffee, and even Starbucks seem to offer broader flavor profiles. But because I am a devoted coffee drinker, I will give Eight O'Clock Bean's Colombian another try sometime soon.

By the way, Yahoo Food lists Michaele Weissman's 10 Ways to Judge Good and Bad Coffee.

Coffee

Lately, Kristi and I have been starting our days with Cashua Coffee, roasted right here in South Carolina.

Cashua roasts in Florence, roughly a half-way point between owners Jason and Cathy Savage of the Columbia area and Joshua and Neva Campbell of the Myrtle Beach area.

Kristi has known Neva for years, and the Campbells used to hang out in our old, departed coffeehouse, The Living Room Coffee Bar & Used Books in Myrtle Beach.

Kristi and I have been very happy with Cashua's roasts and offerings. So far, we've tried their winter blend, Kenya, Nicaragua, Brazil, Espresso blend, and probably another varietal that I'm forgetting. Cashua has been as good as Larry's Beans (of Raleigh), which we served at The Living Room.

Scroll down this page to find Columbia-area and Myrtle Beach-area retailers that carry Cashua, or order Cashua online by clicking here.

This morning, however, Kristi chose a larger cup than usual, and unaware that I had not poured any coffee for myself, she finished all but what amounted to an inch's worth in the bottom of my mug.

Running late as usual, I compromised.

So now I'm in my office at Coastal Carolina University, sipping a quickly cooling 16-ounce cup of Starbucks Sumatra, purchased at the Piggly Wiggly in Carolina Forest on this freezing, windy morning.

Logging into email, I noticed that Yahoo News announced that Consumer Reports once again has picked Eight O'Clock Bean's Colombian for its best coffee. (Read the report here.)

Starbucks, Consumer Reports said, did not rank among the top ten coffees.

I've heard this Eight O'Clock Bean claim several times before. It's a consistent winner among big media outlets, like network morning shows, as well as Consumer Reports. But I've tried it before and wasn't impressed. Something of body and quality seemed to be missing. Larry's Beans, Cashua Coffee, and even Starbucks seem to offer broader flavor profiles. But because I am a devoted coffee drinker, I will give Eight O'Clock Bean's Colombian another try sometime soon.

By the way, Yahoo Food lists Michaele Weissman's 10 Ways to Judge Good and Bad Coffee.

Doubt versus ideology, humanists versus rationalists

I recently dusted off The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (The Free Press, 1994) by John Ralston Saul.

I found his introduction very compelling:

"Our civilization is unable to do what individuals cannot say. And individuals are unable to say what they cannot think. Even thought can only advance as fast as the unknown can be stated through conscious organized language, an apparently self-defeating limitation.

"The power of dictionaries and encyclopedias is thus enormous.... A dictionary can as easily be a liberating force as one of control.

"In the humanist view, the alphabet can be a tool for examining society; the dictionary a series of questions, an enquiry into meaning, a weapon against received wisdom and therefore against the assumptions of established power. In other words, the dictionary offers an organized Socratic approach.

"The rational method is quite different. The dictionary is abruptly transformed into a dispensary of truth; that is, into an instrument which limits meaning by defining language. This bible becomes a tool for controlling communications because it directs what people can think. In other words, it becomes the voice of Platonic elitism.

"Humanism versus definition. Balance versus structure. Doubt versus ideology. Language as a means of communication versus language as a tool for advancing the interests of groups."

Doubt versus ideology; humanists versus rationalists

I recently dusted off The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (The Free Press, 1994) by John Ralston Saul.

I found his introduction very compelling:

"Our civilization is unable to do what individuals cannot say. And individuals are unable to say what they cannot think. Even thought can only advance as fast as the unknown can be stated through conscious organized language, an apparently self-defeating limitation.

"The power of dictionaries and encyclopedias is thus enormous.... A dictionary can as easily be a liberating force as one of control.

"In the humanist view, the alphabet can be a tool for examining society; the dictionary a series of questions, an enquiry into meaning, a weapon against received wisdom and therefore against the assumptions of established power. In other words, the dictionary offers an organized Socratic approach.

"The rational method is quite different. The dictionary is abruptly transformed into a dispensary of truth; that is, into an instrument which limits meaning by defining language. This bible becomes a tool for controlling communications because it directs what people can think. In other words, it becomes the voice of Platonic elitism.

"Humanism versus definition. Balance versus structure. Doubt versus ideology. Language as a means of communication versus language as a tool for advancing the interests of groups."