To (list)Serv Man...

I'm right on top of that, Rose!

Somewhere between hitting refresh on my fantasy baseball homepage every 14 seconds and obsessively trying to get to the second world in Angry Birds on my iphone, I find that I get an email that draws my attention upward towards my monitor with some immediate demand for attention. "Well you are at work," you might offer, assuming incorrectly that I meant a work email that demanded an attentive response. You'd be dreadfully mistaken.

No, in fact, I have found myself signed up for no less than 5 separate beer and brewing related listservs. Over the past couple months, I whipped myself into a frenzy with the dream of running away from my day to day job and entering the heady world of professional brewing...so of course, the only logical thing to do then was to gather information until my brain was so jam packed with useful knowledge that I'd be turning down offers from Sam Adams and Miller Brewing alike. Instead, what I've found is that my gmail inbox gets slammed by a variety of hits everyday, ranging from useful "how to keep your fermenter cool in the summer" strings to slightly less useful "house party at Cincinnati brewery next week." Granted, it's my fault for joining an Ohio based listserv, but still... one cannot be blamed for seeking knowledge.

Everytime my phone jostles against my desk, creating that light fuzzy rumbling that means I've either gotten an important text or someone is spamming me with Viagra sales offers, I find myself cursing my over aggressive listserv signups. The real winner listserv is hands down the New York City Homebrewers Guild which continually puts out some awesome info on how to fix broken batches, or even where you can get some free carboys around the city. They're super interactive and good at geting some info out there in a hurry. Other than that, save your disk space I'd say.

Going forward, tastemasters, I suggest signing up just for that one listserv if you're in desperate want of brewy knowledge. The continual stream of random "have you seen my gasket"'s I've been sifting through shall serve as an electronic albatros to us all. In your zeal for joining organizations, try to show some self restraint.