Welcome to WeirdBeerGirl.com (yes, another domain)

Weird Beer GirlWhy, you may ask, have you added yet another domain?  Why not just update your Philadelphia Beer Bars Examiner blog more often, as you used to?  The answer is twofold: first, I want to write about beer from beyond Philadelphia (even if I’ve most likely consumed it in a great Philly-area bar or restaurant), and, perhaps more importantly, while I have time to dash off a quick review, keeping abreast of everything that’s happening locally takes more free time than I have at present.

So, what will you find here? Beer reviews, plugs for bars and restaurants I like and general craft beer evangelism; if I can add to the ranks of Ladies of Craft Beer, I’m doing my job!

And if you’re a first-time visitor (welcome!) who wants to know whether the ‘weird’ modifies the beer or the girl, you wouldn’t be wrong to assume it’s a bit of both – I’m a BJCP-certified beer geek (and beer runner) who enjoys seeking out new and hard-to-find beers, but without the slavish devotion to Westy 12 – I like it, sure, but I like many other things much more.

In addition to the Examiner link above, there are a few year-end beer roundups to get you started; and so, without further ado, the first quick review under the new system – read on!

For quick comments on beer (and geekery), follow me on Twitter.

New Things, Old Things

Superfectablog screenshotAfter much CSS/PHP/JavaScript wrangling, DVAG Wire is finally up and running. I have no doubt, dear reader, that you have been desperate to know what has been going on behind the scenes at a number of Philadelphia archives: now you can keep track automatically.

Sticking with redesign mode, I’ve finally migrated Superfectablog from Blogger and over to WordPress and redesigned it, from logo to layout – as the site was approaching its fifth birthday (with only one-and-a-half major redesigns), the move and facelift were long overdue. While the new design is not a huge departure from the old one in terms of layout, the greater control and flexibility afforded by WordPress is very pleasant indeed – it makes up for the temporary traffic drop I anticipate from the move.

While planning the redesigns, I did a little digging for inspiration (or, perhaps more accurately, to review lessons learned) and found some old work in the Wayback Machine: a little feature I did on The Phantom Menace (before discovering its full horror), an old music review and a website for a radio show I built long ago.  While not universally the case, the fact that many of the ads were preserved is oddly pleasing to me.

General Superlatives: 2009

Arctic Club, Seattle
Arctic Club, Seattle

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Rather shamefully, I have no books on this list; while I read many, not a one was published in 2009 – my excuse is that I’m waiting for the new Nick Hornby novel to come out in paperback.  So, in fractured order, here are this year’s Things I Liked A Lot:

Best Thing I Wrote This Year: On Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra and Memory
Best Race (live): The Haskell (just edging out the Preakness)
Best Race (televised): Breeders’ Cup Classic
Best (human) Race: Dogfish Dash 10K
Best Soccer: US beats Spain, Confederations Cup
Best Trip: Seattle, Arctic Club/MLS Cup/REI pilgrimage/new light rail
Best Airline: Alaska Airlines
Best Live Show (overall): Leonard Cohen, Tower Theater
Best Free@Noon Show at World Cafe Live: John Wesley Harding/M. Ward
Best Beer (draft): Stone/BrewDog Bashah
Best Beer (bottled): Pretty Things Saint Botolph’s Town
Best New Bar: Varga Bar
Best Album: John Wesley Harding: Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead
Best Concept Album: The Duckworth-Lewis Method: The Age of Revolution
Best Random Song: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Home
Best TV: How I Met Your Mother
Best Event TV: Doctor Who
Best Movie: (500) Days of Summer
Best Movie Franchise Reboot: Star Trek

I Am Everywhere, Like the Latest Meme

Luckily THATCamp Austin is done now (although I continue to manage the THATCamp Austin twitter account, to help promote the other regional THATCamps that are springing up), for I have added yet another new writing outlet to my ever-expanding stable.  I’ll be blogging for the NTRA leading up to the Breeders’ Cup, with a focus on the Breeders’ Cup Marathon.  That means you can find me writing about horse racing on my own blog, on the NTRA site and on TVG’s Community; if it’s archives you’re after, go for A Movable Archives – for beer, I’m at the Examiner.  If you’re looking for the most recent updates, you can always come here and have a look on the right-hand side – new articles are added automatically.  I can be hard to avoid at times.