Sierra Nevada Brewing Company took on a hugely ambitious project this Summer with their Beer Camp Across America tour and variety 12 pack collaboration. The beer was amazing and they pulled off their 7 city cross-country tour. It’s been a few weeks since they wrapped that up the tour and the 12 packs are all shipped and have mostly disappeared from store shelves. Now that the brave folks at Sierra Nevada have had a chance to catch their breath they can get back to making their usual high quality brews and they can ask themselves an important question:

What can Sierra Nevada Brewing Company do for Keith?

I would like to help them out with that by suggesting they bring me to their next beer camp. I’m not talking about another crazy tour (not that I would turn that down). I’m talking about Beer Camp where they let us normal folk come brew with them for a week. In the past they’ve had contests where people could submit videos to get invited to Beer Camp. I have a couple ideas for a video bouncing around, but I’ve never taken the time to get past my lack of video production experience and create something. Then, a few weeks ago this coaster showed up in Sierra Nevada’s tap room:

It was gone a week later so maybe they decided it was a bad idea, but I for one could come up with wacky beer ideas all day. That sounds way easier than producing a video. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, so I wrote a script that generates random beers. Most of what it comes up with sounds disgusting, so that’s where you come in. I want to crowd source getting me to Beer Camp. Check out the random beer below; if it sounds awful click the “Ewwww, try again” button, if it sounds like Sierra Nevada’s next best seller click the “Sounds tasty, send it to Sierra Nevada” button. Keep clicking that Ewwww button until you find something that sounds tasty. I’ve limited it to one submission per hour so we don’t annoy Sierra Nevada too badly.

[insert_php]

$adjective = array(“Triple”, “Session”, “Whiskey Barrel Aged”, “Wine Barrel Aged”, “Organic”, “Zen”, “Winter”, “Fall”, “Spring”, “Summer”,”Barrel Aged”, “Acidulated”, “Single Hop”, “Dry Hopped”, “Wild Hop”, “Gluten Free”, “Fair Trade”, “Southern Hemisphere”, “Wet Hop”, “Fresh Hop”, “Estate”, “Harvest”, “Whole Cone”, “Brandy Barrel Aged”, “Anniversary”, “Wood Aged”, “Bourbon Barrel Aged”, “Collaboration”, “Cask Conditioned”, “Bottle Conditioned”, “French Oak Barrel Aged”, “GMO Free”, “Vegan”, “Smoked”, “”);

$adjunct = array(“Ghost Pepper”, “Bacon”, “Hemp”, “Hemp Seed”, “Kale”, “Raspberry”, “Avocado”, “Walnut”, “Blood Orange”, “Blueberry”, “Hazlenut”, “Persimmon”, “Cherry”, “Elderberry”, “Plum”, “Orange”, “Acai”, “Peach”, “Papaya”, “Passion Fruit”, “Peanut”, “Peanut Butter”, “Pistachio”, “Pomegranate”, “Nutmeg”, “Black Pepper”, “Avocado”, “Basil”, “Cardamom”, “Agave”, “Caraway”, “Cayenne”, “Celery”, “Chicory”, “Chili Pepper”, “Cilantro”, “Cinnamon”, “Chive”, “Cumin”, “Curry”, “Jasmine Tea”, “Gunpowder Green Tea”, “Earl Grey Tea”, “Dill”, “Elderflower”, “Fennel”, “Garlic”, “Ginger”, “Horseradish”, “Jasmine”, “Kumquat”, “Kiwi”, “Loganberry”, “Lychee”, “Macadamia”, “Mandarin”, “Mangosteen”, “Muskmelon”, “Nectarine”, “Juniper”, “Lavender”, “Lemon”, “Lemongrass”, “Lime”, “Marjoram”, “Oregano”, “Paprika”, “Parsley”, “Caramel”, “Pop Corn”, “Salt”, “Peppermint”, “Rosemary”, “Saffron”, “Sassafras”, “Spearmint”, “Szechuan”, “Thyme”, “Turmeric”, “Vanilla”, “Coriander”, “Wasabi”, “Watercress”, “Blackberry”, “Raisin”, “Betel Nut”, “Bilberry”, “Watermelon”, “Rose Hip”, “Tamarillo”, “Mulberry”, “Coconut”, “Guava”, “Mango”, “Breadnut”, ‘Buddha\’s Hand’, “Tomato”, “Mangosteen”, “Cantaloupe”, “Gooseberry”, “Carob”, “Currant”, “Cranberry”, “Maple Donut”, “Kopi Luwak”, “Coffee”, “Fig”, “Strawberry”, “Grapefruit”, “Hackberry”, “Honeydew”, “Huckleberry”, “Persimmon”, “Jackfruit”, “Honeysuckle”, “Citron”, “Chokeberry”, “Quandong”, “Quince”, “Olive”, “Durian”, “Duku”, “Chocolate”, “Banana”, “Cucumber”, “Mint”, “Sage”, “Prickly Pear”, “Chipotle”, “Rocky Mountain Oyster”, “Pear”, “Egg Plant”, “Nori”,
“Pumpkin”, “”);

$style = array(‘Amber Ale’, ‘Oyster Stout’, ‘Barleywine’, ‘Black Ale’, ‘Blonde Ale’, ‘Brown Ale’, ‘Dark Wheat Ale’, ‘Imperial IPA’, ‘Imperial Stout’, ‘IPA’, ‘Pale Ale’, ‘Pale Wheat Ale’, ‘Porter’, ‘Stout’, ‘Strong Ale’, ‘Wild Ale’, ‘Black & Tan’, ‘Chile Beer’, ‘Cream Ale’, ‘Pumpkin Ale’, ‘Rye Beer’, ‘Wheatwine’, ‘Belgian Dark Ale’, ‘Belgian IPA’, ‘Belgian Pale Ale’, ‘Belgian Strong Dark Ale’, ‘Belgian Strong Pale Ale’, ‘Bière Brut’, ‘Bière de Garde’, ‘Dubbel’, ‘Faro’, ‘Flanders Oud Bruin’, ‘Flanders Red Ale’, ‘Gueuze’, ‘ Pale Lager’, ‘Lambic’, ‘Quad’, ‘Farmhouse Ale’, ‘Saison’, ‘Tripel’, ‘Witbier’, ‘Baltic Porter’, ‘Braggot’, ‘English Barleywine’, ‘English Bitter’, ‘English Brown Ale’, ‘English Dark Mild Ale’, ‘English India Pale Ale’, ‘English Pale Ale’, ‘English Pale Mild Ale’, ‘English Porter’, ‘English Stout’, ‘English Strong Ale’, ‘Extra Special Bitter’, ‘Export Stout’, ‘Milk Stout’, ‘Oatmeal Stout’, ‘Old Ale’, ‘Russian Imperial Stout’, ‘Winter Warmer’, ‘Sahti’, ‘Altbier’, ‘Berliner Weissbier’, ‘Dunkelweizen’, ‘Gose’, ‘Hefeweizen’, ‘Kölsch’, ‘Kristalweizen’, ‘Roggenbier’, ‘Weizenbock’, ‘Irish Dry Stout’, ‘Irish Red Ale’, ‘Kvass’, ‘Scotch Ale’, ‘Scottish Ale’, ‘Scottish Gruit’, ‘Imperial Pilsner’, ‘Pale Lager’, ‘Czech Pilsener’, ‘Dark Lager’, ‘Pale Lager’, ‘Strong Lager’, ‘Bock’, ‘Doppelbock’, ‘Dortmunder’, ‘Eisbock’, ‘German Pilsener’, ‘Kellerbier’, ‘Miaibock’, ‘Helles Bock’, ‘Märzen’, ‘Munich Dunkel Lager’, ‘Munich Helles Lager’, ‘Rauchbier’, ‘Schwarzbier’, ‘Vienna Lager’, ‘Happoshu’, ‘Japanese Rice Lager’, ‘Irish Ale’, ‘Pale Ale’, ‘English Pale Ale’, ‘Pilsner’, ‘Amber Lager’);

$beer = $adjective[array_rand($adjective, 1)].” “.$adjunct[array_rand($adjunct, 1)].” “.$style[array_rand($style, 1)];

if (isset($_POST[‘submit’])){
$ip = $_SERVER[‘REMOTE_ADDR’];
$ips_file = “/var/vhosts/grubulub.com/ips.txt”;
$ips = file_get_contents ($ips_file);

$to = “keith.e.adams@gmail.com”;
$from = “keith.e.adams@gmail.com”;
$subject = “Beer Camp Suggestion”;
$submitted_beer = $_POST[‘message’];
$message = “Beer Camp suggestion from http://grubulub.com/beer-camp

“;
$message .= $submitted_beer;
$message .= ”

Thanks,

Keith Adams”;
$headers = “MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n”;
$headers .= “Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\r\n”;
$headers .= “From: <“.$from. “>” ;

mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);

echo “Thanks for sumbmitting “.$submitted_beer.”. I’m sure we’ll be seeing it on store shelves soon. Come back in an hour to submit another.“;

$handle = fopen($ips_file,”a”);
fwrite($handle,” “.$ip);
fwrite($handle,”\n”);
fclose ($handle);
}
else
echo “Random Beer: “.$beer.”“;
[/insert_php]

‘;
}
[/insert_php]

Update 8/21: Crikey, that got a bigger response than I anticipated. Our friends at Sierra Nevada have quite a few suggestions to sort through now. I doubt relentlessly spamming them with suggestions is going to help my chances of getting invited to Beer Camp, so I’m going to have the suggestions go to me instead of directly to them from now on. I’ll pick the best ones and forward them along to Sierra Nevada. Feel free to make your case in the comments if you think your suggestion would be a particularly yummy brew.

“Beer Camp Across America – San Diego” photo by Allagash Brewing