That's some good EJ research right there. Nice work!

Found some Rogue Dead Guy Ale yesterday, very nice indeed. Thanks for the recommendation!

Kaubel, I'd send you some beer, but I'm afraid my selection might be rather limited and boring. Still haven't been able to get any Dogfish Head, for example -- apparently they don't distrubute to California.

On the topic of Sam's/Costco and getting in, you can always forgo the inevitable "I've no idea what you're talking about..." greeter at the front entrance by lying to him or her. Just say you're there to purchase a membership.

The only other reason for buying a VB is for making a shandy - 50% VB, 50% lemonade. Horrendous thought I know, but I was introduced to beer by this drink at the tender age of 6. Learnt to drink the real thing responsibly about 8 years later. (progressive parenting, what can I say).

Cannot argue at all with the Cascade lineup. Certainly recommend a tour of this brewery - located just outside of Launceston, Tasmania. Cascade is a top notch local brew, the seasonal ones are my favourites. The seasonal ones from James Squires are just as good, but that's just my opinion.

Also, if in Melbourne (Vic, Australia, not Florida), it's worth finding out about touring the Carlton United Brewery. The range of beers produced there is quite surprising.

That's the problem with Tasmania, everything is barely two hours from somewhere else.

So that's where that one is brewed. Was a good drop.

OT: If you like wines, Margaret river is a couple of hours south of Perth - just a little day trip. If you really like wines, spend three weeks ambulating slowly along the Murray river to the Barossa Valley in South Australia (time and money well spent).

Whee they had Oberon's at the work party today!

So tell us about it.

Right. But was the beer sampled today good, bad, or ugly in the taster's opinion. If people are just going to tell us they had x beer today and now they're drunk, what's the point?

And I took a dump this morning. So?

Forcing people like me to mention that Oberon is a fine, fine thing to drink on a warm summer afternoon alongside some burgers and brats, like I did this weekend.

Then to continue drinking into the warm summer evening.

The very first wheat beer I ever had was a 500mL Hacker-Pschorr Weiss with a double-decker pizza on an outdoor patio in a Chicago summer, so I definitely like that pairing. Tomato sauce has quite a lot of acidity, so I think the less hoppy brews pair well with it. On other hand, if I were having a four-cheese pizza with white sauce, I'd probably go for something more like an IPA to offset the rich cheese and cream fattiness.

I would have never thought so until I tried it, but heavily roasted brews go really well with seafood: I was astonished at how well raw oysters paired with a stout I had recently, and a sea bass was absolutely perfect with a nice, malty dunkelweizen.

I also think beer generally works better than wine with spicy cuisine like Indian, Thai, or the hot barbequeue dishes. I remember a BYOB Indian place that my friends and I loved, and we'd usually bring a witbier along. The coriander and orange peel worked really well with all the Indian flavors.