Happy Birthday HopHeadSaid

It is hard for me to believe that small side project, one I started a year ago to keep me busy writing, has become the major focus of my budding writing career! Originally I created HopHeadSaid to give me an excuse to try local beers and write reviews of them for a local entertainment blog. One thing I learned early on was that there are a gazillion beer review blogs, not to mention websites like BeerAdvocate and Rate Beer, so I started looking for another beer niche to write about. Today HopHeadSaid is a beer education blog, first and foremost. Educating on styles, glassware, food pairings and most recently, breweries. I am using my 15 years of homebrewing knowledge and my various beer certifications like Cicerone’s Certified Beer Server to lend credibility to my writing.

The future looks bright, in my eyes anyway. I have started writing beer and food pairings for a local CSA (community supported agriculture) who has 250 subscribers. Each week those subscribers , my very own captive audience, will receive a beer and food pairing suggestion in their “in-box”. This is going to be a fun and challenging writing exercise, pairing beer with veggies isn’t going to be easy.

Also, I started doing a radio segment for KVTA’s number one rated local show, a station that averages 33,000 listeners a day! There are two segments posted on the front page of www.hopheadsaid.com right now. There will be more, though. I will be on again this weekend and then I am scheduled to be on the show the first two weekends in October. Be sure to listen to 805 with Tom and Sand on KVTA.com at 8am Saturday mornings, I will post links to the podcasts if you aren’t local. This weekend, at a beer festival, I was introduced to another DJ and we hit it off. He does a sports show on another station and we are going to talk about creating a segment for his show. The only caveat is that the segment be related to sports. I am not sure if that can be done!-)

Click to visit 805 with Tom and Sandy

As a new year starts, I am most excited about a beer and food pairing book that I am writing. Without giving too much away, the book will teach you how to pair beer with food. Most books skim the surface of teaching and are heavy with pre-prepared suggestions without really explaining “why” they go well together. The proposal is being reviewed by an agent and I should learn soon if she will accept or pass on my proposal. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

So it has been a good year, indeed and cheers to many more!