Notes have taken a break

as I haven't been consuming much high-octane brew in Tennessee, but here's a pieces on the rise of beer tourism (hint: it's cheaper than choosing wine country, though in Western New York, you can do both).

Act surprised: I like Ted Strickland

Should my arsenal of positive ever run low, this one is always close at hand.

From dispatch.com:

And Ted will bring the beer
For John Haseley, Gov. Ted Strickland's chief of staff, the 90-minute commute to and from work made a long day even longer.

So Haseley last weekend moved his family from his lifelong, beloved hometown of Athens, where he had graduated from Ohio University, to Bexley. The move cut his daily roundtrip commute from three hours to about 15 minutes.

Haseley got some unexpected help with the move on Sunday when Strickland showed up in work clothes and with some cold beer.

Posted by Joe Hallett, senior editor on June 11, 2007 3:32p.m.

Buckle this, Bible Belt

Two weeks in Tennessee has forced some hard realities upon me:

1. Beer of 6 percent alcohol by volume or less (90 percent of the beer most people drink) can be sold in grocery stores
2. Anything stronger falls under hegemony of liquor stores. If it's made by a monk, you'll probably find it on a small shelf at the rear of a wine store.
3. Beer tastings cannot be held on the premises of liquor stores, so most hold them at adjacent coffee shops and cafes.

I've got a big sigh building up, and I don't know when it will break out.

Fortunately, I discovered Grand Cru Wine & Spirits (great name) with a helpful manager name Jason, who hails from Portsmouth and as he put it, "learned to drive on North High Street."
I nabbed a few new Belgians (and a Duvel to hold me over), at which point Jason started talking vintage ale, then gave me a free bottle of a vintage ale circa 1996, which he described as "candied chocolate mushroom water, but good."
Needless to say, a review is forthcoming.