Among my interests, one which holds my profound attention is beer. I might say that I have a love affair with beer: not simply its tastes - as delicious, complex, and varied as they may be - but its history, science, lore, and evolving creation.

In the good beer trade since the early 1990s, I have been a brewer, a brewery manager, a brewpub owner, a brewery consultant, a restaurant manager, a beer writer and blogger, and a beer and wine salesman.

Beer may be my profession, but cask ale —the beauty of beer at its freshest— is my mission.

2008 - present: Select Wines, Inc.

The wines include an extensive selection from Bordeaux and Burgundy, Austria, California, and elsewhere.

The beers include those of American craft breweries Abita, Allagash, Brooklyn, Clipper City, Flying Dog, Lancaster, Otter Creek/Wolavers, Raven, Riverhorse, and Stoudts, as well as imports from Belgium, Germany, the U.K., and elsewhere.

Here's where I've been for 'good fermentables' this year: Adventures 2009.

2008 and Prior

From 2004 through July 2008, I was southeastern US Territory Manager for the Clipper City Brewing Company of Baltimore Maryland.

From 2001 through 2004, I was a representative for Legends, Limited, an importer of Scottish and British ales, and a distributor of beer and wine in Maryland.

In early November 2000, I purchased Sisson's, a venerable brewpub in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of a quartet of investors. As sometimes occurs, disagreements occurred. The brewpub no longer exists.

In a grand reach, I was the brewmaster (that is, the lead brewer and plant foreman) for Local Brewing Company, a brewing and bottling beer production facility in Westlake, OH, from its planning stages and construction in 1997, through operations from 1997 into late 1998. Begun with a potential of twenty thousand barrels per year, the brewery has since closed.

In 1996/1997, I was the original head brewer for the Manayunk Brewing Company, a brewpub in Philadelphia, PA.

From 1993 through November 1995, I was a brewer and then directed operations at the Oxford Brewing Company as its brewery manager. Founded in 1988 - then the British Brewing Company - it was the first post-Prohibition (and for a brief time - only) micro-brewery in Maryland.