My book, North Carolina Beer and Breweries is officially released today.

Neat.

And before the book was even officially out, I’d already had at least one AMAZING, humbling review.

Now comes the hard part – the the book tour. In this, I need help.

I’m a nerd. I’ve been to a lot of book signings and releases, and in each and every one of them the author generally gets up, reads a bit from the book, answers some questions, and then shmoozes and signs books for a while. I’ve also been to a couple of beer book signings and releases before where the author kind of stands around and drinks while signing books when people manage to approach the with a pen and a book in hand. I find the latter kinda lame. I want to hear from the author, that’s why I’m there. Otherwise I’m just drinking with somebody I don’t know and I could just buy a signed copy of the book and have the exact same effect.

So, this is where you come in – what do I do at these? The nature of this book is such that reading from it is difficult – it’s not fiction, it’s essentially episodic non-fiction. There are small snippets about the entire state and what’s interesting to a crowd in Wilmington will be different than what’s interesting to a crowd in Asheville. So, in order to make sure that everybody who goes to one of these gets a great experience, what’s the best thing to do?

Read from the history section?

Just do a talk about beer in North Carolina?

Q&A?

Beer tasting with whatever is local? (Remember – that requires buying kegs.)

Just hang out and shoot the shit?

Stand on the bar and deliver a gospel sermon about craft beer?

Help me, internets – what would YOU find interesting?

I’m going to diverge from beer for a moment because everybody on the internet needs to hear – read… whatever – this. This tweet, or Facebook posting. I see it every day:

OMG! Just 10 more followers and we have 1,000! We’re like totally going to give away a SOMETHING AWESOME to our 1,000th follower! Tell your friends! Will you be the lucky one!?!?!?11?3FCtrl-H

No. I won’t. You know why? Because I already follow you. And thank you so much for acknowledging that by giving a SOMETHING AWESOME away to somebody who doesn’t currently follow you. Why should I tell my friends? That doesn’t reward me at all. That rewards them. What I should really do is stop following you and watch your total to see when you get close to 1,000 and then just unfollow you and refollow you again and again until I’m the 1,000th. That’s stupid.

Give a SOMETHING AWESOME away to a random follower at that round number. Give a few. Give everybody who currently follows you a link to a free download that’s only available for a short amount of time – but they know about because they follow you! Go hold some sort public media whatsit at that round number. Send out a thank you message to all of those people wasting their time by following you. Do something to acknowledge the fact that a lot of people have decided that you’re interesting enough to listen to. Rewarding somebody who doesn’t currently pay attention to you is insulting to all of the people that do.

[/rant]

There are a couple of reasons that I’ve been so quiet here this spring. One of which, given my most recent posts, should be obvious: this brewery that I started up. As it turns out, those take a whole lot of your time. It’s a little insane. It’s fun, but it doesn’t leave much time for public musing.

The other reason that I’ve been so busy is because of this book that I wrote. You can buy it online or at many bookstores, bottleshops, or breweries around North Carolina.

Well, now that both of those are essentially wrapped up, I’m still going to be busy. But! This is the type of busy where I can actually see people, and hopefully have the time to write a little on the side. So, just in case you want to say hi and share a pint here’s where you can find me in the next two months:

Thursday, April 12, 6PM – 8PM: Book Launch Party @ Mystery Brewing Company
437 Dimmocks Mill Road, Suite #41
Hillsborough, NC 27278
www.mysterybrewing.com

Saturday, April 14, 12PM – 11PM: All About Beer’s World Beer Festival Raleigh

Tuesday, April 17, 8PM: Fullsteam Brewery
726 Rigsbee Avenue
Durham, NC 27701
919-682-BEER
www.fullsteam.ag

Wednesday, April 18, 4:30PM – 7:00 PM: Bottle Revolution
4025 Lake Boone Trail
Raleigh, NC 27607
919-885-HOPS
www.bottlerevolution.com

Thursday, April 19, 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM: Olde Hickory Tap Room
222 Union Square
Hickory, NC 28601
828-322-1965
www.oldehickorytaproom.com

Saturday, April 21, 12PM – 6PM: Hickory Hops

Wednesday, April 25, 7PM – 9PM: Carrboro Beverage Company
102A East Main Street
Carrboro, NC 27510
919-942-3116
www.carrborobeverage.com

Friday, April 27, 4PM – 6PM: Cape Fear Wine & Beer
139 North Front Street
Wilmington, NC 28401
910-7663-3377
www.capefearwineandbeer.net

Wednesday, May 9, 6PM: Foothills Brewing
638 West Fourth Street
Winston-Salem, NC
336-777-3348
www.foothillsbrewing.com

Thursday, May 24, 6PM: Olde Mecklenberg Brewing Company
215 Southside Drive
Charlotte, NC 28217
704-525-5644
www.oldmeckbrew.com

Wednesday, May 31, 7:30 PM: Malaprop’s Bookstore & Café
55 Haywood Street
Asheville, NC 28801
828-254-6734
www.malaprops.com

Thursday, June 1, 4PM – 7PM: Hops and Vines
797 Haywood Road, Suite 100
Asheville, NC 28806
828-252-5275

You can also find this schedule on this page which will be updated regularly as the schedule is updated.

Herein lies one of the things that keeps me up at night.

Now that Mystery lays on the cusp of opening, I find myself faced with an interesting new challenge: the words “highly anticipated” that I keep on seeing pop up in articles and on social media.

On one hand – holy shit that’s awesome. It’s mind-blowingly flattering to know that people are looking forward to the opening of Mystery and to know that people are excited about the beer that we’re going to make. I can’t help but think that it’s at least in part to the fact that we’ve been out and about in the community, sharing samples whenever possible, and generally trying to build buzz.

Here’s the thing that worries me: As soon as we open our doors and roll out onto the market, we graduate from pre-opening buzz. How do you keep that wow? We’re planning on releasing some beers that we’re excited about, but, y’know.. it’s just beer. It’s good beer, but it’s not like we’re releasing gold-plated eaglets bedazzled with elf tears. Will the anticipation built in pre-opening buzz live up to a blonde ale, even if it’s a great one? What if it’s not spectacular enough?

A few months ago, when I participated in a charity event called Cask for a Cure, I found myself in a preview of the situation that I imagine I will find myself in shortly. The event was originally going to be just a cask from Mystery and a cask from Haw River Farmhouse Ales. We were contacted by the organizer of the event saying, “Hey – so, what if we try to get casks from these other people who are starting breweries?” and my first thought was: “Man, I’m not even open yet and I’m already not exciting enough; they need someone newer.” In the end, it worked out great and I met some great new guys who are getting into the industry, but it was initially very intimidating.

It’s a little bit of what I’m worried about in the marketplace, though it’s something that I’ve seen other breweries weather and handle well. It’s exciting to see the spotlight sweep your way, and I kind of wish we could revel in it. I don’t think it’s something you can chase. You run the risk of seeming gimmicky if you’re constantly hitting the market with the most alcoholic beer ever made, or the 1000 IBU beer, or a beer made with live turtles or something like that.

Right now, I think the only thing we can do is just keep on making great beer and hoping that it’s enough to keep us a little corner of the wow and to try, every once in a while, to nudge back into it with a release.

Until we lose that wow, though, I think we’re going to enjoy it. See you on the market soon.

Last year about this time I held a beer class – it began as the idea to make a Certified Cicerone^TM study group for an upcoming exam, but others wanted to take it to just learn about beer, and it sounded like a great idea. Now, by popular demand, it’s back.

This time, we’ll have the advantage of experience under our belt, and we’ll have a much more focused class. If enough people in the class are interested in the Certified Cicerone^TM exam, we will arrange to have an exam offered at the end of it, however the course covers material well above and beyond the Cicerone^TM exam. I don’t teach to the test – I want people to understand all aspects of beer.

Here’s a loose syllabus:

Week 1: Intro, Beer Ingredients, How to Taste Beer, style tastings.
Week 2: Hot-side of Brewing (from milling through mashing, boiling and lautering), Off-flavor tasting.
Week 3: Cold-side of Brewing (yeast and fermentation), style tastings.
Week 4: Post-fermentation brewery-side handling (clarification, filtration, souring, and conditioning). Off-flavor tasting.
Week 5: Beer packaging, shipment, storage, and aging. Style tastings.
Week 6: Serving beer: draught systems, casks, bottles, glassware, and the rest. Off-flavor tastings.
Week 7: Style history and tastings.
Week 8: Beer and food. Questions, and review. Style tastings.

The class will run Monday evenings starting at 7PM at Mystery Brewing Company in Hillsborough, NC starting on January 30th. There will be multiple weeks off through the course (when I’m busy). The course will end in April.

Join us! We will have a maximum enrollment of 16 people, the course costs $150. Payment is due on the first day of class.

Pre-Requisites: None, but you’ll probably be happier if you are at least somewhat familiar with beer and are a Certified Beer Server^TM.

Questions? E-mail Mystery Brewing Company.

Use this form to save your seat. Since there are limited seats, please only reserve a seat if you mean to use it.