News from air to beer

I seem to have chosen an odd time to take a break from blogging. I'm returning on a holiday Monday, as everyone else is starting their vacation. Just leave it to me to do it the weird way. I've missed posting, especially the Friday Fractal--my apologies to anyone who looked for it. While I've been gone, the world has moved on as usual. Pollution has been getting worse, naturally, and the effects are beginning to show in our National parks. Meanwhile, parks like Mesa Verde (which is celebrating its 100th birthday) are expanding their borders.

While some are working at protecting the wilderness, others are looking at less conventional plans to deal with global warming, including running fleets of trucks on a mixture of diesel and vegetable oil, discarded from some restaurants' deep fat fryers. As if that isn't savory enough to satisfy, scientists have revealed the flaws of another global warming-denying theory.

Most people are getting ready for the 4th of July, although my home town in Colorado has a ban on fireworks. Since the fire danger has continued to rise, I can't say as I mind. We're still watching the mountains recover from the Hayman fire.

See? It's just the same old... same old... Oh, wait. There's always the beer. Many people already associate Colorado with beer, considering the Coors brewery in Golden. In the last decade, however, Coloradans have turned their attention to microbrews. If you've never had a bottle of Fat Tire, I'd definitely recommend it for a 4th of July BBQ (if you're over 21, anyways.) Now, even if you're on the other side of the pond, and the 4th is just like any other day, you may still be able to pop open a Fat Tire. According to an article in this weekend's Denver Post, a number of Colorado-based microbreweries are sending more products to Europe than ever:

Growth in the craft brew industry was 9 percent last year, pushing total sales to $4.3 billion. The U.S. beer industry is a $78 billion enterprise.

Colorado's microbreweries are contributing to the growth, breaking into new domestic markets, expanding capacity and testing the waters in Europe.

The state has 97 craft brewers and ranks fourth behind California, Ohio and Oregon in production. Last year, Colorado brewers shipped about 8 percent, 581,000 barrels, of the 7 million barrels of craft beer produced nationally. Throw in beer giant Molson Coors' Golden operation and Anheuser-Busch's brewery in Fort Collins, and Colorado trails only California in the amount of beer produced.

I think it's safe to say that we know our beer.

Notes: Mesa Verde photo from the Mesa Verde site via the National Park Service. Fat tire logo via the New Belgium Brewing Company.