Friday, November 12, 2010

Beer blogging on the go was a no go

Right now I'm sitting at my desk, exactly a full week removed from day one of the Beer Bloggers Conference I referenced in last Friday's entry. As you can see by the lack of even one single entry between that post and now I:  1) didn't remember to blog, and 2) was in fact not sober, which 3) directly affected my ability to even want to write. So ya... blogging on the go = epic failure.

I think that post was more of a test to see if the Android Blogger app for my Droid X works (it does, very well actually), combined with the recent burn out I've been experiencing for well over a month. I now know what my buddy "Chipper" Dave Butler, he of the blog Fermentedly Challenged, felt like.  Being entrenched in the beer world - day in and day out - for over three years has finally caught up to me.  It's a big reason I haven't been around, or as I like to refer to it in a cool Jack Baueresque sorta of way - I've been off the grid. But I think I've finally turned the corner and see the light at the end of the tunnel, the bottom of the beer glass, etc. and so on.  I'm getting the writing bug again and it feels good.  Almost as good as downing a great dark winter beer. Mmmmm.... beeeeeer.

The mega event that is the Great American Beer Festival had something to do with that. This year it was far more work then fun, but in the end, well worth it.  We live streamed nearly a dozen hours of footage from the event itself, which you can see here on the BeerTapTV.com website.  Everything from our trip to Falling Rock, to the Rare Beer Event at Wynkoop, to the entire member's only awards ceremony.  It's well worth a look.

Last weekend we covered the Beer Bloggers Conference in Boulder and over the next week or so we'll start posting some of the talks we filmed, including Greg Koch's keynote speech, Jay Brooks talk about the future of beer blogging, Erik Boles energized rant on how to monetize this niche, etc.  As I suspected it was a very informative and helpful conference and the 100+ bloggers from around the country (and one from England) look forward to next year's conference... in Portland, Oregon!

Now comes the Holiday season, and a much needed respite before we journey far north to the Great Alaska Beer & Barley Wine Festival in mid-January.  Having never been to the 49th and largest state, it should be a whole lot of fun. We're looking forward to hanging out with the gaggle of brewers from "The Land of the Midnight Sun."  Huge props to fellow beer geek Bill Howell, the 2010 Beerdrinker of the Year and author of Drinking on the Last Frontier for helping to get us up there. Alaska... in January.  It should be veeeeery interesting indeed! ;)

Zivjeli!