The Odell Brewing TwitterBrew

One (of the several) projects I've been working on lately that is consuming my life (in the best way possible) is brewing a beer via twitter for Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, CO.

After having the idea back in January, I worked with Reel Motion Media to pitch the idea to Odell's. In April we finally began bringing it to life and the rest is well documented history (search for the hashtag #odelltwitbrew to see the history on twitter.)

If you're reading this before 7am MDT on 5/29/09 go vote for your favorite label design for the beer.

And now it's all culminating in the release of the beer, Blackbird, this Saturday May 30th at the brewery in Fort Collins. You can see details on Upcoming or Facebook.

I'd love to see you at the event. If you find me and tell me you read about this on my blog I'll buy you a pint.

I'll be sharing more learnings from this project in the future when I have time to reflect on it. Stay tuned.

Odell Brewing Brews up the First Twitter Beer

Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, CO has decided to brew up the first "Twitter Brew." The beer's style, ingredients, tap handle, etc will all be chosen by followers of Odell's twitter. A few people have pointed out that 21st Amendment Brewing in San Fran did a twitter brew this spring, but it would seem to have been a twitter brew only in name, not in the way it was produced as the Odell version will be. Pretty cool stuff. From the press release:

A Twitter Taste in Your Mouth

Odell Brewing Releases First Twitter Community Brew

On May 30, 2009, Odell Brewing will release the first Twitter community inspired brew.

Followers have until April 19, 2009 to tweet their suggested beer styles for the first Twitter Brew poll. Subsequent polls will be conducted to determine beer qualities like color, strength, body, and hop character. Twittering beer lovers can also tweet ideas for beer names and tap handle designs.

The voting will end on May 8, 2009 and brewer, Jeff Doyle will then brew the Twitter Brew on Odell Brewing’s Pilot brewing system. “There are so many people who are interested in brewing but don’t really have the means to do it,” said Doyle. “The Twitter Brew will give them the chance to get involved with the whole process.”

Twitter brewers can try their beer at the brewery’s Tap Room during the tapping party on May 30, 2009.

Odell Brewing is a proud sponsor of the Cicerone Certification program and an award winning brewery, nationally and internationally: 2008 North American Beer Awards – gold medal for 5 Barrel Pale Ale. 2008 World Beer Cup® – gold medal for IPA, silver medal for Double Pilsner, silver medal for Cutthroat Porter. 2007 Great American Beer Festival® – gold medal for IPA, silver medal for Easy Street Wheat, bronze medal for Extra Special Red. 2007 Stockholm International Beer Festival – bronze medal for 5 Barrel Pale Ale. 2007 Australian International Beer Awards – silver medal for 90 Shilling, silver medal for Cutthroat Porter, silver medal for Easy Street Wheat and bronze medal for 5 Barrel Pale Ale.

Miami Ad School's Twitter Commercial

Miami Ad School of San Francisco (that's a little confusing) made a commercial for Twitter. I can't decide whether I like it or not. What do you think?

How Twitter Killed My Blog

Hi, uh, do you come here often?

I feel like a stranger on my own blog. It's been a while since I've devoted some serious time to it. Too long in fact. But it's nobody's fault but my own. Well, maybe Twitter is to blame as well. But more on that later.

I had an interesting conversation with my girlfriend the other night. I was ranting about how this really awesome place (www.bikefurniture.com) that makes furniture out of bike parts is, in my opinion, making a huge mistake by not listing prices on their website. I went on and on about how you need to make it as easy as possible for someone to buy your stuff and if you don't list a price I'll assume I can't afford it, whether that's actually true or not. Once I composed myself she turned to me and said "What am I supposed to do about it? Why don't you blog it or tell the company so someone who cares can actually do something about it."

And that's when I realized I needed to return to blogging. (ps- that bike furniture is AWESOME, but I'm not going to email you to find out the price. If you'd like me to buy it I need to be able to do so in as simple a way as possible.)

Aside from this revealation I also realized that I had fewer "urges" to blog. I attribute this to my increasing use of Twitter. I also wonder if other bloggers feel the same? It's so easy to bust out a few quick tweets that many of my thoughts, rants and ramblings get channeled there as opposed to on here. As I logged in to write this post I realized that I can compose a whole tweet in about the time it takes me to log into Blogger. In an age where instant communication is becoming more instant everyday I see this as a long term issue that blogging service may need to address. Obviously micro-blogging won't kill macro-blogging(?) but it could pour some water on the fire.

So I guess that's my long way of saying, "I'm back." Thanks for listening.

Get a copy of the Denver 50 Book FREE

If you missed out on getting yourself a copy of the Denver 50 book this year, here's your chance: @denver50 is giving away free books to the first 50 people to follow them and @reply on Twitter. One condition: you have to be able to pick up the the book at Karsh\Hagan in Denver, no shipping. Get your book today!

New: Tweets and Links

It's official, I'm on Twitter. Not that it changes anything, but it was kinda something I'd resisted for a while in the name of having one less thing to update / check / mess with. But now I'm on. So if you're on Twitter too let's get together, and follow and tweet and socialize our media forever. Since it's kinda scary to see that I have people actively reading this blog, but yet I have no idea who they are. So step out of the bushes and find me at twitter.com/justinmccammon.

Also, I added a few new links over there on the right hand side. I won't tell you which ones are new though, that'll be your reward for paying attention.