Editor’s Note - June 14 2006

Mmmmmm, beer

Good Lord, this beer is good.

I’m looking at the empty bottle on my desk: Chimay Ale, Peres Trappistes, Grande Reserve — whatever all that means. Nine percent alcohol.

Man, that’s tasty stuff, and I’m not even much of a beer drinker. But I am glad I work at a place I can send somebody out to buy the very fanciest brew available. And, then, I get to drink it with her.

Just investigating, you understand. Just making sure that Besha Rodell’s story on boutique beers and where they’re available in this week’s Beer Issue (p. 37) is founded on precise, in-depth criticism. It’s investigative journalism. A public service. We report, our taste buds decide.

Besha and Senior Editor Scott Freeman are the really lucky ones. She got to drink her way through the city over the last couple of weeks, slurping down Chimay and Cantillon Organic Gueuze, and checking out beer events at places like Restaurant Eugene. She went for the fancy stuff. She decided she needed to do that so she could report back to you on the beer-as-fancy-as-wine phenomenon. Pretty selfless, huh?

Scott went for more of the common touch: He sat down with the guy who may be Atlanta’s prototypical bartender, Pat Glass of Manuel’s Tavern, to discuss the fine art of pouring and serving.

Well, Besha’s convinced me I need to check out more of the fancy stuff that she writes about in this week’s issue. And as I turn my cup upside down over my nose and flail my tongue around to taste every last drop, I can make this solemn commitment to you: We at Creative Loafing are dedicated to bringing you this kind muckraking journalism just in time for the summer heat wave, because, well, it’s the right thing to do.

ken.edelstein@creativeloafing.com