Greetings, beer lovers! Happy (Black) Friday, and hope that you all had a nice Thanksgiving. So, once (or not) again, ‘tis chingchongchinaman as your semi-friendly substitute FNBB host, with esquimaux again getting a well-deserved break from FNBB’ing this evening. Everyone here knows about about the slew of branded days after Thanksgiving, like:
* Black Friday
* Small Business Saturday
* Cyber Monday
* Giving Tuesday
Note the missing day of the week in the middle of this particular roster. Well, guess what: per the Brewers Association’s CraftBeer.com page, there exists a Small Brewery Sunday, something of a “first derivative” (for those who remember calculus) of Small Business Saturday. 2021 marks the 3rd year for Small Brewery Sunday, as noted from this PR release from last week:
“Small Brewery Sunday — observed every Sunday following Thanksgiving — is a day we make a point to support small and independent breweries with our dollars. Because these small businesses can’t do it alone!”
From looking at the YT video stats each year (biased by my clicks on them, of course):
* 2019: ~3013 hits
* 2020: ~3282 hits
* 2021: ~322 hits (but the 2021 video looks exactly the same one as last year’s version)
Of course, as the video states towards the end:
“You might be thinking; isn’t every Sunday Small Brewery Sunday? To that, we say: we like the way you think.”
To expand the picture from here, every Saturday is Small Business Saturday, and every Tuesday is Giving Tuesday; aren’t they? You get the idea. At this moment, it’s not clear if self the loser is planning to shop a local brewery on Sunday, although it is a nice idea, to support a local business and all that good stuff. Plus, it’s not as though I have big plans for Sunday already ;) . For now, I’ll just mention tonight’s featured beer chez 3CM, namely a "Hindsight ‘Blood Orange New England IPA’” from McAllister Brewing Company, where their write-up actually captures the flavor pretty accurately:
“This heavily hopped hazy IPA is loaded with heaps of blood oranges to compliment the bitterness of the hops.”
Of the modest number of McAllister Brewing Co. brews that I’ve tried, I’ve noticed their tendency to go for flavors that do indeed have a bitter edge to the taste. Maybe the presence of the blood oranges is indeed what mitigated that edge for me on this one. It’s certainly good, and something a bit different for me.
So it’s time, as usual, to turn the e-floor over to you folks. What beers are you sampling tonight? Anyone brewing their own? In the spirit of the holiday weekend, beers from last night are also welcome for discussion :) .