Brews and Bikes in Bicycling Magazine

Bicycling Magazine has a feature on their web site called "Brews and Bikes: The best bike-related summer beers." Being two of my favorite topics, I took a look.

First, let me say that I'm not a fan of the format they chose for this feature. You see one slide at a time and when you click for the next, the entire page reloads. They also have a popup window ("We are conducting a research survey on this site. You will be invited to participate when you leave. Please do not close this window") which, will trigger your popup blocker (I'm using Firefox) every time you click to see the next beer in the article. I switched over to Google Chrome to avoid this and to see what the fuss was about the constantly blocked popup windows. My last complaint about the article is that it does not give you a link to any of the breweries mentioned or a final list of all 12 beers. Yeah, I know, I can search for any of the breweries myself, but I shouldn't have to. This is the internet, not a magazine.

The article was well written and got me interested in trying to find at least one beer I hadn't tried, like Pike Brewing Company's Tandem Double Ale. Unfortunately, their web site had no information on whether it's distributed in my area. I also liked that the article emphasized breweries that didn't just have a picture of a bike on the label, but also showed support for cycling in some other way like Full Sail Brewing Company and Oskar Blues. In any event, I learned about six or eight bike-related beers that I can add to my "to-drink" list.

This also gives me an excuse to plug a local brewery that is heavily invested in the local cycling community, Half Acre Beer Company. I have seen these guys on the road in their Half Acre kits and at many of the cyclocross races that my faithful readers know about. I also like that their web site gives me everything I need (tell me about your beer and where I can go get/drink it) in an easy-to-navigate layout.

Oh, and that survey I was promised? Would it surprise you to learn it was to see how well Nissan's latest marketing campaign was working? After the basics, there were a lot of questions about how much you like several of their ads. "Don't care" wasn't one of the choices.