Bottoms Up

If you’re even a casual beer fan, you’re probably familiar with Charlie
Papazian. He wrote the first major book on homebrewing, “The Joy of Homebrewing.” Papzaian also founded what today is the Brewers Association, which
includess the American Homebrewing Association.

The AHA will be holding their annual conference this year in Oakland, from June 18-20 at the Marriott Convention Center. They’re calling this year’s conference “Sippin On the Dock of the Bay.”

Charlie Papazian also began blogging last year as The Beer Examiner.  In
a recent post, he’s asked people to vote for their favorite beer city.

Here’s how Charlie puts it: “

With beer enthusiasm on the rise, especially for small, local and craft brewed beer there’s a lot of pent up pride building.  I’ve heard many boast of their favorite beer city.  Here’s your chance to express your feelings and vote. One vote per person.”

There are thirty cities and/or metropolitan areas listed on the poll plus
“other” for write-ins. You’d expect cities like Portland to do well, and
they are. With nearly 3,000 votes in so far, Portland has 906 votes, or 34%.
But they’re in second place. The top honor so far is Asheville, North
Carolina! How on Earth could Asheville get 1103 votes, or 41% of the votes?

To be fair, Asheville is a great beer town, but they’ve mounted a grassroots
effort to stuff the ballot box by trying to get people to vote for them. I
admire their tenacity, but there’s only one thing wrong. Asheville, good as
it has become, is not the “best” beer city. You already know who that honor
should go to.

The “San Francisco/Oakland – Bay Area,” which is how we’re listed, has a
meager 46 votes, only 2% of the total right now. You know what to do. Get
out and vote. Tell your friends to vote. Tell your friends to tell their
friends to vote. You don’t have to register or sign up for anything. It will take less than a minute of your time.

You have until May 7, at Noon (Mountain Time) to register your vote. And the results will be announced just in time for American Craft Beer Week, which this year is May 11-17.