Questions of Note: Blake Williams

Stolen from their website

 

This week we find ourselves spending a few minutes in Illinois with Blake Williams.  He is a field correspondent with the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild.  Aside from promoting craft beer in Illinois the guild also organizes the annual Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers. 

And now, the questions...

1. What was the beer moment, when you knew you wanted to become involved with the craft beer renaissance?

This answer could take several pages, it has been a journey...I traveled in Europe at 18 and loved the beer, but then came back and drank NAIL through college and a few more years. After moving to Chicago, I discovered the Map Room. After drinking craft beer (FFF Alpha King was my gateway drug) a couple years, a friend talked me into learning to brew with him- I was hooked batch one. A couple years later I joined the BJCP and it accelerated from there, tasting, writing, judging, teaching, running a beer club...Craft Beer is the only industry where your biggest competitor will lend you a part. Where you can talk to the person that makes your beer. It is a community, not a group of companies.

2. If you could have any beer in your hand right now, what would it be?

I would probably say Bells Two Hearted, but Revolution Anti-Hero is jaw dropping.

3. Can you describe your beer life in a song lyric/title? If so what would you choose?

I haven't thought about this...The Who Teenage Wasteland-My first concert, and I "Won't get fooled again" into drinking crap.

4. Do you have a steady beer, or do you like to "play the field?"

Play the field. BJCP makes you curious for ALL beer. I make just about everything. I probably make 60% of my beer. HomeBrew and small craft brew is unfiltered and you get so many more flavors. But I love grabbing new sixers to "evaluate."

5. Crowded smoky bar or back porch watching the clouds float across the sky?

The porch. Especially if it is one of mine or a good friends.

And the lame one…
 
Who put the bomp in the bomp-sha bomp-sha bomp?

I thought it was Sha Na Na, But I was wrong...

 

Time for a pint...