words from the Terrier about medals and contest.

General Beer Discussion by BRADPEAR

So I ask ole Massa: "Do you know who Michael Jackson is?" "You mean the one who writes bier books, sure I know of him. He may have been to the Terrier once or more times I am not sure. For awhile there, we were infested by men with beards mumbling at their biers. That guy had more wannabes then Madonna." I asked about how many medals the Terrier had won over the the years. The answer was none. Why not? "Contest really don't hold much weight in a small operation like this one. Our distribution is so limited, even if the Terrier won a medal, it would not increase sales. The opinion of one person, or a group of people is not interesting to me. We get a panel of judges in here every day, and have done so for over 200 years. The customers are the true judges of our product. After all, we are in the bier selling business, not perfomance art". One last word. I had something called Graber Brott this same day. It is bread made from spent grains of the mash, sunflower seeds, some other flour, and bock bier. It was excellent! I am thinking about sending Biertest a bottle of the Spezial to see what they say. Stay tuned... On Jackson: 25 or so years ago, Ole MJ was pretty much the the only way to go. If you want to read about world brew in one book, it was his. 25 or so years later, his books are a good kick off point for setting up a bier tour of Belgium (he don't know nutin bout German bier). Folks in Flanders who have sen him dozens of times say "he was just another guy drinking our bier, now he thinks he's calling shots..."- but no one every calls the guy a jerk or asshole, and that is many points in his favor in my book! One surprise you may have when using his books is several of the bars or pubs he suggests are long gone or moved! This caused much sorrybastardlimey comments from my drinkin brother three years ago when we took out first trip to Belgium. Today, MJ is still an institution, albeit one who now perfers super hoppy brews (ole taste buds goin out on ya Mike?) and whiskey from Scotland. I for one WANT to walk the whiskey trail, and ole Mike already been there, done that, wrote a book, and is raking in the geld from its sales. Hard to argue with success. This message was edited by Brad Pear at 4/11/2005 4:36:23 AM.