One of our newest readers, Steve Scott, opened my eyes up to a few brothers out there who are in the same niche as theBeerean.com. There might not be a whole lot of us…but it only takes a few to change the world (right Brad).

Pilgrams Pub – Our reformed brother, Jason, gives some good reviews on beers and biblical insight to Christian liberties.

Better Drinking – This brother (haven’t gotten his name yet) has some very insightful articles on beer styles and Christian perspectives on drinking.

EnjoyingBeer.com – I think this site has multiple authors. EnjoyingBeer.com has some great reviews/looks at different brews and breweries out there.

So take some time today to get to know our beer-loving-blogging brothers. Drop by their sites and let them know that you appreciate what they do.

Thanks be to God for letting me know that I’m no longer alone in this world.

Looks like I’m going to have to change my tag line now….any suggestions?

photo by: plasticpeople

For those of you that don’t know, today is Cinco De Mayo (Mexican 4th of July). In my opinion, this is one of the two beer drinkingest holidays of the year (St. Patrick’s Day being the other). I know people get their drink on during other holidays of the year, but that’s just it…they’ll drink anything (beer, wine, vodka, ect.).

Cinco de Mayo has a heavy focus on enjoying a nice cold one.  Any holiday that allows me to enjoy a nice cold one is a good holiday in my books.

I have noticed a trend that I would like to try and stop. That is the connection of Cinco de Mayo with Corona. Now I’m not much of a fan of Mexican beers in general. I live in New Mexico (yes we are part of the U.S.) so I have my choice of them. But most Mexican beers just seem weak to me. They seem to be lacking a lot of flavor (or their core flavor is “suck”).

Then there is the whole lime thing. I asked one of my Hispanic friends once why Mexican beers always come with a lime. In his words, “My dad said it was to cover up the bad flavor.” I understand putting a lime or slice of orange with a good Hefeweizen to enhance the sour flavor. But putting a lime in your beer to cover up the bad flavor is like covering a burnt steak with ketchup.

So this brings us back to Corona. There are some of you out there that love Corona. It’s your favorite beer. If that is the case, then enjoy it. Each person has a different palate and therefore will like different beers. But please don’t hold up Corona as the crowned jewel of all Mexican beers. There are plenty of other Mexican beers out there to try that don’t need a lime to confuse your taste buds.

So my plea on this Cinco de Mayo is to broaden your beer horizons. Try something outside the Mexican beer ordinary (my recommendation would be Negra Modelo). Ditch the lime and make sure that Cinco de Mayo doesn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth.

photo by: Penningtron

I got an email from Brad Ruggles (of BradRuggles.com go check him out) asking the following questions:

On a side-note, have you thought about reviewing any micro-breweries around the country or having readers submit reviews? I came across a neat one in Nashville when I was there a couple of weeks ago that I might hit again on the way back. I would also like to know if there are any others around the country I could hit on my travels. Do you know of a blog/web site that has these kind of reviews?

At the moment I don’t know of any good sites for this (if you have any leave them in the comments below). Originally, I had thought about doing reviews of local pubs, bars, and micro-breweries. But there isn’t much of a demand for knowing about where to get your drink on in Albuquerque.

So here is the challenge. Send me the reviews of your favorite place to get a drink. Here is the info that I will need:

• Name
• Address
• Web Site (if they have one)
• What beers do they carry (brewed on location, local only, domestic, imports, everything under the sun)
• If they brew their own beer, give us the best beers to try
• Whats good to eat
• What makes it your favorite place to go
• At least one picture of the place (preferably with you in it)
• Any other good information about the place (history, best/worst times to go, owners names, inside info, ect.)

When you get your review all together nice and neat like, you can email it to “reviews [at] thebeerean.com” (of course you need to format the address the proper way changing [at] to @ and taking out the spaces). I will then put your review on the site (ok some might not make it due to unforeseen reasons, but pretty much all of them will make it out). Depending on how many I get and how often, I’ll probably try to space them out a little bit.

There are some plugins out there for WordPress that will let you plot your posts on a map. I’ll do the leg work on finding the right one, and then I’ll post your reviews with them also having a place on the map. Then we can easily find a good place to get a beer no matter where we are (well unless someone hasn’t done a review for that area).