Charlie Papazian, world-famous beer lover, recently wrapped up his 2012 BeerCity USA poll.  What he ended up with was BeerCities USA, a statistical tie between Asheville, NC and Grand Rapids, MI.

From Papazian:

Voting for the annual BeerCity USA poll is over. From the start it was clear that communities from several areas of the United States intended to make a run for winning the honor of becoming 2012 BeerCity USA. Facebook, Twitter, other community networks and local media were active throughout the 13-day polling period.  With 55,926  votes cast for 31 different American cities the results clearly indicated that both Asheville, North Carolina and Grand Rapids topped the poll with a statistical tie.

We’ll be a slight voice of dissent and say 1) who cares?  Craft beer is inherently regional/local, and comparing two cities seems fairly useless.  It’s like being named the city with the most popular meteorologists — unless you live there, it doesn’t matter.  But 2) assuming you’re really trying to rank-order cities, it doesn’t seem very logical that Grand Rapids would end up tied with Asheville, which is quickly becoming the place where western breweries open their second locations.

But either way, congrats to both, and to Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, Portland, and any other city that is working to develop their beer culture.

Finally, the US Postal Service may be able to ship you beer and wine. With restrictions dating back to prohibition running up against budget pressures, logic may finally prevail:

“With the onslaught of e-commerce, as long as [beer and wine] ship legally in terms of states that we’re allowed to ship, I think you’re going to see it take off,” says Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe.

But there are a few hurdles the post office would have to jump over to begin shipping booze. First, it would have to make sure it wasn’t shipping to anyone underage. Donahoe says the post office can get around that by requiring a signature either at home or at a local post office. USPS would also have to make sure it wasn’t delivering to states that don’t allow the shipment of out-of-state beer, wine or alcohol. For example, only 14 states allow the importation of wine from out-of-state wine retailers, while 40 states allow an out-of-state winery to ship to them, according to Tom Wark, executive director of Specialty Wine Retailers Association.

Donahoe says he doesn’t believe that getting a federal agency like the post office involved in shipping alcohol across state lines is in any way disreputable. In fact, he already has some shipping ideas if the bill passes: two-, four- and six-bottle wine boxes for one flat rate that would ship anywhere in the country.

A genius beer lover, kegerator engineer, and piano recycler has built one of the most interesting kegerators we’ve ever seen. After getting a busted-up, out-of-tune piano for free, Eric Townsley went to work on making something much more useful. He’s posted a whole album of photos to Google+, including photos of the build and the massive CO2 tank that fuels the whole thing. Click through for more.

Dragon-heating a kettle probably does add something to the taste.

From flickr user HamishM

The team at Moa Brewery reckon a cold beer will be just as satisfying in the freezing Antarctic as it is on a hot summer day.

Their beer will get the ultimate test this year when 2000 bottles leave on a ship today for Antarctica, destined for New Zealand’s Scott Base.

Organisers of the shipment say it will be the first craft beer to hit the fridges in the base bar, called The Tatty Flag, which sells mass-produced beer including Tui, Speight’s and Heineken.

What’s most amazing about this is that at just one Antarctic base, nearly 30,000 cans of beer are consumed annually. That seems like an astounding amount of beer for a place for such a remote outpost.  But, I suppose there’s not a lot else to do, and it’s damn cold, so you had might as well drink.

Also interesting are the packaging concerns, because you can’t simply haul the trash to the curb for the garbage men every Tuesday morning.

The beer headed for the base is the first to be bottled in plastic by the company.

The beer has been put in 600ml bottles, designed to be lightweight, reusable and recyclable, because all rubbish is brought back to New Zealand.

They still believe their beer tastes better from glass, but say they will not hesitate to do another plastic run if the need arises.

The specially made labels feature an “Antarctica Edition” logo along with a silhouette of seals and penguins.

From flickr user Chris_J

The Boston Globe is up with an article about what to get the beer lover in your life — and most of us would appreciate any of this stuff.

One big tip: steer clear of the beer-of-the-month club.  They’re expensive and rarely that unique. The rest of the list seems smart.

• Beer
• Beer literature
• A mystery
• Glassware
• Mix Packs
• Gift Sets

We would also add Lautering gear to that list.  Either an I [hop] Craft Beer or I [hop] Home Brew shirt would make any beer lover happy (and us).

From flickr user allerleiau

With the Christmas season officially started, Peter Genovese at the New Jersey Star Ledger decided to tackle the 30 beer days until Christmas.  Basically, it’s a 30-beer countdown — because the holidays could always use more beer.

In the continuing countdown in our 30 Beers until Christmas series, we’re going to go all patriotic this time, in the form of Samuel Adams Revolutionary Rye and Yards Brewing Co.’s Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale.

I had my first taste of the latter, appropriately enough, in Philadelphia, home to the Liberty Bell and Yards, long one of my favorite brewers. Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale is a strong ale based on Jefferson’s original recipe. Seems like twice a year his wife, Martha, would brew a batch of beer at Monticello.

Check it out and follow along as he tries and reviews 30 beers on the way to Christmas.

Have you voted yet?  If you’re a craft beer fan, chances are very good that you’re old enough to be registered.  We won’t make a pitch either way because that’s not what this space is for (but, you know, there’s been a middle-class tax cut, kids now have health care, a recession was stopped, corporate corruption is better policed, and while there was a “bailout,” many of those reluctant investments actually turned a profit for the American people — we’re just saying) make it a point to go out and vote your conscience today.

To help motivate yourself, make a personal pledge: no beer until you vote.

Now, if you’ve already started drinking, stop right now, make absolutely sure you can safely drive or walk, and get to your polling station.  Then come back and treat yourself to another beer.

SABMiller's brewery boat

Last week we wrote about an ocean-going scientist who missed beer just a little too much while at sea.  He found a way to brew by using a coffee maker and ingredients available on the ship.

Well, if that was a nano brewery, SABMiller has answered with the macro version — a full-sized ocean-going cargo ship, turned into a floating brewery.  A consulting firm helped Miller plan for 2030, a time when they think massive ecological or societal issues could disrupt the production of beer.

SABMiller has envisaged a “Marginal Survival” scenario for 2030 whereby breweries are located on ships so beer makers can move with people and resources and away from natural or man-made catastrophes.

The scenario is one of four that SABMiller has developed with the help of innovation consultancy, Innovia Technology, to imagine what brewing will look like 20 years from now.

Marginal Survival is the most extreme scenario under which the world is faced with major water and energy limitations forcing people to migrate from areas of water shortage or turbulent weather.

In such a situation SABMiller imagines that brewers could build smaller, mobile breweries that would move from place to place on the back of a ship.

I love beer, and in the face of natural or man-made catastrophes, it could be a nice stress reliever at the end of a long day of apocalyptic cleanup or zombie wrestling.  But even as much as I love beer, I think the world may have other priorities.  Credit to SABMiller for planning ahead though.

From flickr user ifranz

You know how some banks offer you $25 to open a savings account, or how some will give you a free iPod if you refer a friend?  Well, one Vietnamese bank has taken this a step further and decided to give people what they really want:  free beer.

A small Vietnamese bank has started giving away beer to customers who make deposits, the latest in a string of gimmicks deployed by lenders in the Southeast Asian country to attract savers.

Western Bank launched the nationwide promotion on Wednesday, offering a large can of Bitburger beer imported from Germany for each one-month deposit of at least 7.5 million dong ($385) made until November 25.

$385 will get you a small amount of interest, and a free beer.  Sounds like a winning deal to me.