Intermission

It's clear that I've been distracted away from the blog for some time now, but I thought I should let both of my readers know what's going on. June and July were quite heavy with work travel, taking in Rotterdam and Stockholm and finishing with my annual trip to San Diego topping it off in mid-July. I have to admit, I was badly hit by jet-lag, by far more than I ever have been, and as a result had little appetite for beer. Well, I managed a few Stone IPAs and Pale Ales, both of which went down a lot better than last time, and a rather delicious Imperial Stout of some sort, but you know, I never took notes, and I can't remember what it was. That was on my last night there, when the memory of the night has been clouded (well, more like thick fog) by an excess of Cuba Libras. I was dancing, which in itself is an indicator of going too far.

Immediately after San Diego was three weeks "holiday". I say "holiday" as it was a house hunting expedition which yielded some promise, nothing 100%, and was pretty tiring. As well as test driving some Lagunitas Imperial Stout on my brother-in-law to-be (beautiful aroma: coffee, caramel, light roast with the same on the tongue: light toffee, mild roast, liquorice and a slightly lemony backdrop. Surprisingly smooth and light considering the 10% ABV, finishing dry with black pepper and anise), I drank quite a lot of Schefflenzer Pilsner, not least because this is from the village where we are thinking of moving to.

I'm pretty preoccupied with houses, mortgages, navigating the tax system and the rules of the Denkmalamt, as it turns out the house we are looking at is a protected structure, simultaneously a potential benefit and nightmare. Whatever happens, if we do take this house it'll be a lot of work to modernise it, but the barn and old half-timbered tobacco drying house/pigsty are great!

Spare time snatched from these preparations is being diverted to the rollout of the new Beoir website (Beoir being the new beer consumers organisation we announced in January), which is already a month behind planned launch, but we're nearly there.

So, I'm parking the blog for a while to concentrate on work, finding a home and fulfilling promises to the craft beer drinkers of Ireland. No doubt I'll throw some posts in as I empty my beer cellar prior to a move, but certainly not with my former regularity. Actually, I just realised The Bitten Bullet is exactly two years old! Not exactly an auspicious date for an intermission. :)