Columnists

Beer is the new wine. Cliché opener I know, guilty as charged, but it’s true. Microbreweries are popping up like wineries were 15 years ago. The experimental brews are flowing from taps and the industry is happy to come out and peddle their liquid wares. The Morgan Hill Downtown Association is right in step to capitalize on the trend and I’m excited about the Second Annual Brew Crawl coming up on Saturday, Sept. 14 from 1 to 5 p.m. downtown. Great idea. Have my tickets, which are $25 in advance at www.morganhilldowntown.org. For that, you get a glass and all tastes from the 22 breweries scheduled to show up. That includes 21st Amendment, a San Francisco brewer that  sells the very popular “Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer.” It’s strange, but good. And there’s  Goose Island Brewing Company based in Chicago which makes my middle daughter Cayla’s favorite brew – “312 Urban Wheat Ale” – which is delicious. She’s become something of a beer connoisseur  in the last year with all the new brew pubs popping up in Nashville. Our hometown brew, El Toro, will be on tap as will Kona, Redhook and Speakeasy brews. If it’s not too late, organizers should reach out to English Ales in Marina, a local brewery that makes a spot-on beer called “1866.”

Everyone gets so excited about “Social Media” when it comes to things like the General Plan update for our city, and the consultants who are paid the big bucks – hundreds of thousands to assist in crafting the plan – talk it up like the Second Coming. So far, 55 responses to the very simple  “interactive” web survey on the city’s future plans. Let’s see, there are how many adults living in Morgan Hill? City Council better prescribe a new direction for the consultants, one that yields results.