Beer News & Blog Roundup - May 5-8

Any good Cinco de Mayo stories out there? Last year we were on a cruise at this time and we were Cozumel for 5/5 - I shouldn't have been too surprised that no one in Cozumel seemed to care that it was 5/5 other than one bar that was right by the port for the cruise ship. In fact I had forgotten about it until as we were getting ready to get back on the ship and we passed a group of folks (fellow cruise ship passengers) with about 20 empty Corona bottles on the ground and one of them was shouting something like "Cinco de Mayo - whoooo!!!!" Ahhh, good times, good times.

I'll be out of town on a fishing trip until next weekend, so this will probably be my last post until 5/17.

Here's some news from the last few days:

• Looks like one of the drivers behind the Pyramid - Magic Hat merger was the costs associated with being a public company.
• Here's an article about rising hop prices (yes, another one) and some brewers tweaking their recipes.
• Looks like most of the original Guinness brewery will be sold (except, of course, the store that attracts all the tourists).
  
• "Obama Beer" in Kenya, isn't quite the same as Kennedy milk, in a lot of ways.
• Here's a referendum I can get behind - one to repeal taxes in Maine on beer, wine and soda.
• Is beer the new wine? They think so in NC. I say it's better and more complex than wine, but that's just me.
• Will we start seeing more organic beer in the marketplace? If Bison's IPA was any indicator, I wouldn't mind.
• Will Australia raise wine and beer taxes 300%?
• Now this guy has one helluva beer can collection - over 2600 empty cans.
• Anyone had a "black velvet"? Here's a NYT article on the drink (a mix of Guinness and champagne. I might need to try one. Thanks to Joey P for the head's up on this.

Here's a roundup of blog posts I've enjoyed this week:

• The stale beer ethanol home pump is now available for only $10,000. You know, for those of you who have more $$ than sense.
• Generik has a post about a beer brand I'm not familiar with (but would like to be) - Long Trail.
• Another post from Generik about new brew pubs in and around Indy. I couldn't agree more about his west side comment (as a north-west sider).
• Brookston Beer Bulletin has posted a list of the 10 worst beers in the world (from the Tampa Bay Times) - clever. I've only had the Beast (#9) .
  
• Brew Blog has a roundup of earnings reports and beer releases and some other tidbits about some of the macros.
• Looks like the folks at HBG have mixed feelings about the Three Floyds beer dinner at R Bistro. Here's the first post. Here's the second.
• Looks like Flying Dog is growing their own hops, partly to offset the hop shortage?
• DIG-B has some local tap updates.
• Might AB be acquired? Via the Brew Blog.
• Anyone been to Fireside on the south side yet? In addition to hearing about it on Matt's Beer Blog, my barber was telling me about it (she kinda, sorta knows the owner). All indications point to it being a pretty nice place.

Alright, that's it for now. See you after 5/17.