Booze

The Beer Index: The Only Gauge That Counts

Early last Thursday morning, right around the time I had poured myself a third beer – not enough can ever be said about the nutritional value of barley malt and hops — an idea struck: Someone should create a site that compares the price of a pint of beer in the all the countries of the world – sort of like The Economist’s Big Mac Index, only in this case it would concern an item that really matters.

As ideas go, it was brilliant, if I do say so myself. If only there were some way of overlooking the fact, as I later discovered, that someone had beaten me to it.

Pintprice is an indispensable Internet location for peripatetic and cost-conscious beer lovers. The site contains information from 206 countries on the price of the universe’s favorite beverage.

If anything, the site serves as a warning not to work up a thirst in Greenland ($12.05 per pint on average) and provides the best reason yet to plan a tour of Tajikistan and North Korea ($0.48 and $0.62, respectively, per pint of liquid wonderfulness).

One Thing Europe Has Going for It: Bigger, Usually Better and Often Cheaper Beer

Beer sold in a big, fat bottles doesn’t necessarily have to be equated with “getting blotto faster.”

Throughout vast swathes of Europe, beer lovers are used to drinking their favorite libation from half-liter (or roughly 18 ounces) bottles and cans as opposed to the common 12-ounce packaged brews sold in North America.

What’s more, beer in many parts of Central Europe is in general much tastier than that of most major breweries — let’s exclude microbrews here— and it is generally less expensive. And, if the location is not the downtown Bucharest train station at 2am, can be accompanied by that oh-so-special European ambiance.

Vores Ol Is No More, Long Live Free Beer

While surfing through the waters of websites past, we were saddened to find the Danish site for Vores Ol, the folks that started the open-source beer movement, is no longer with us.

Thankfully,though, the spirit behind the movement is alive and well, and perhaps stronger than ever. For, in its place, is the Free Beer site, featuring the free beer recipe.

Remember, however, that should you decide to have a few, to walk instead of driving your open-source car.

Cocktail Recipes for Halloween

The wit and brilliance that our loyal reader(s) have grown accustomed to over the last decades do not always come naturally. Indeed, the savvy plays on words, les mots justes and the stylistic mastery contained within the virtual walls of this website occasionally require a bit of fuel. Serendipitously a bottle of Three Olives politely tapped on our door the other day -- providing us with the energy source we need and a few cocktail recipes for the Halloween weekend.

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