Saturday, December 30, 2006

'Topic of the Week': Week In Review; Respecting Beer

I shouldn't let 'em get to me so easily. Most times I don't. But, last week on BA threads was far from my favorite and, lucky for you, I vented. The whole 'respect beer' thing is relied upon as a crutch for them to shout people down when they don't agree with their viewpoint. 'Respect Beer' is a great mantra; heck, it's the BA slogan and carries a lot of meaning. So, why do I bother with them? Well, because I do (really, do) respect beer, I feel the need to pay attention to what everyone is talking about. This includes respected writers and columnists, brewers blogs, macro news, amateurs, and other industry sites like Beer Advocate. Further, I feel the need to hear what everyone is buzzing about in order to get a bigger (better?) picture of the beer industry. So, sometimes I get sucked into pointless threads and get bent out of shape. There...now I'm done. I have more important things to get to... Travis and Adam rang in with their opinions on the subject. They both echoed roughly the same sentiments. They both pointed to their past frustrations with overly zealous contributors to beer and political threads. To combine and paraphrase, they singled out the ideas of liking what you like and blocking out the noise. Great advise! Lastly, allow me to borrow a phrase included in Jack Curtin's 12/27 posting, which dealt with a similar strain of the subject: "...And fun is what we're all about around here. So enough of this..."

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