"August" news and stories

Photo: Bobbique

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly establishments across the country.

In New York City, August struck for real last Saturday. With the last bastion of summer upon us and only a few more weeks of heat before the weather starts to cool off, all the remaining weekends are "getaway day" musts!

For America's largest city, getting away often means heading to the shores of Long Island. In the waterfront village of Patchogue, patrons at Bobbique can grab great barbecue and great beer all in one spot ... and hear live blues music on the side. Brews, blues and barbecues: If those things don't say summer, what does?

Still, according to manager Jessica Higgins, "Business booms all year round. We have such a diverse selection of beers; we attract a lot of locals." And local patrons like local beers. "We try to stock at least one Blue Point on draft, which is extremely local," Higgins says, referring to the Long Island brewery located less than a mile from their door. "We keep some Brooklyns on too, but we also like to showcase a lot of beers you can't get anywhere else."

The draft list, after the jump.

If you purchase beer on a regular basis, you've probably noticed an uptick in the number of fruity beers (and I'm not talking about Schmitts Gay). Fruit flavors such as lime, blueberry and strawberry have been invading the suds on our shelves at an alarming rate, and even the big boys are getting in on the action: this summer America's #1 selling beer, Bud Light, introduced Bud Light Lime and Warsteinner (who takes great pride in brewing according to the German Purity of Law of 1516) introduced "Premium Mixes" consisting of 60% beer and a 40% mixture flavored as Orange, Lemon or... achem... Cola.

However, the most interesting and inspired fruit infusion experiments are still happening on the craft beer level. Smaller breweries originally jump started the trend during the formative years of American craft brewing in the early '90s. While macro-breweries were trying to juggle members of the mass market, microbreweries were carefully carving out niches. Fruit flavors originally appeared in domestic craft beers as a novelty but the trend not only stuck, it's growing. Why? Well, yes, they can be more quaffable (which is probably why Anheuser Busch and Warsteiner jumped on the boat), but so is a wine cooler or a Midori Sour. The true secret behind the trend: Fruit is the great equalizer, a flavor for the proletariat!

In many parts of the world, the month of August is a time to slow down. It's a chance to enjoy the good weather and get a little rest in before the school year starts again. However, around here (Philadelphia for me, but I hear from friends that it's the same all around the country) things seem to be speeding up, instead of becoming more relaxing. Work is getting more demanding, new projects arrive that needed to be done yesterday, traffic snarls intensify and you find yourself racing from thing to another, without time to do more than bolt a sandwich that you could hardly taste.

While you can't control the speed of your life in some respects, you can try to quit scarfing your food. Zen Habits recently put up a post extolling the virtues of eating more slowly. They say that slowing down your meal can lead to weight loss, better digestion and less stress, as well as a greater sense of satisfaction with the food you consumed. Slowing down doesn't mean you have devote three hours to a meal. All it takes is 20 minutes in which you put aside the computer (I eat at my computer more often than I like to admit), the television and the Blackberry and eat consciously. You can read the full list, with elaborations and explanations here.

photo by Marisa McClellan