Here are some of the better resources for keeping track of the outpouring of loss and celebration of Michael's prolific life; as you review you may be struck as we were by the realization of how many considered him a true friend:
- Michael's last written article, "Did I cheat Morte Subite?" for All About Beer Magazine--read this first. Even the title suggests Michaels extraordinary skill, vision and playful wit.
- The last interview with the Beer Hunter - video from Aug. 7.
- HopTalk's extensive list of links
- The Brewer's Association of America's Tribute Page opens with Charlie Papazian and Ray Daniel's eloquent rememberances--"Michael simply created the beer universe as we know it"--and includes those from many brewers and beer writers. Tomme Arthur: "We've lost our Elvis." You can contribute by sending your thoughts to mark@brewersassociation.org
- The Guardian Obituary by Roger Protz.
- The Washington Post Obituary by Adam Bernstein
- NPR's Weekend Edition Obituary includes two audio comments from Michael on Wine and Beer; comforting to hear his voice.
- NPR's In Memory of Michael Jackson includes a short interview with Terry Gross from 1991.
- The Celebrator Beer News Obituary with archival pictures
- Jay Brooks is maintaining excellent links and updates
- We all took something from Michael's generous education and writing; Tomme Swiped Something from Him
- The British Guild of Beer Writers page of rememberances
- Lew Bryson's Rememberance and many comment posts on the same topic
- All About Beer Memorial Post Page
- Excellent remeberance with biographical detail by Carolyn Smagalski of BellaOnline
- A few rememberances at Real Beer and Appellation Beer each with comment posts commemorating Michael
- Custom Google Search for Michael
Feel free to post simple urls/links of additional resources in the comments area below.
14 comments:
I've posted a from a Michael Jackson Beer Club launch event for free public use.
Please add your own public images to Flickr, tag them with "MJBeerHunter" for easy syndication and we'll create a massive slide show in his honor.
I can imagine this slide show playing via projectors and displays at hundreds of locations around the world on the National/International Toast event in development. Get posting.
I will miss michael, my mentor in brewing, a friend and most of all a great person who gave so much you will be missed ,jon cook
The NPR program Fresh Air had an item on his passing, including part of an interview from 1991. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154096
We'll feel the loss of Michael in the wine world as well. I've posted a memorial story at McDuff's Food & Wine Trail:
Michael Jackson's Last Grand Cru
Cheers,
McDuff
I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson. I was shocked at this news and posted my thoughts on my homebrew club's blog here:
Drink a beer and think of Michael Jackson
A link to an obituary on the Israeli "Bakbuk" wine beer and alcohol portal (Hebrew).
http://www.bakbuk.co.il/.
For those who speak German - I have written an orbituary for Der Standard here in Vienna. It can be found at
http://derStandard.at/Bier
Cheers
Conrad Seidl,
Bierpapst
I did not know Mr. Jackson, but like many of his readers, he had an effect on my appreciation of beer, food, and life.
My small tribute is here.
Just found this really cool tribute by a local beer writer:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-09-12/food/michael-jackson-r-i-p.php
Michael Jackson was a hero and inspiration to me and got me started writing about my favorite passions.
Here is a link that I posted on my blog as a memorial:
http://spiritsreviewblog.blogspot.com/
Here is my small contribution, a bit of art work:
http://www.barleylegal.ca/Cartoons/AToastToTheBeerHunter
I write a weekly beer column for a daily paper. The online version of mt column about Mr. Jackson is here:
http://www.masslive.com/beernut/republican/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1190186894141720.xml&coll=1
Peace.
On First Meeting Michael
My wife, Sue, and I were on the first evening of our first mid-winter break in Amsterdam. We’d delayed visiting that amazing city sooner because although we knew it had lots of bars of character (see the tantalising photo of the Papeneiland in the World Guide to Beer, 1977) its reputation for interesting beer had been as low as the lie of the land. (Belgium had been our destination of choice in a previous couple of years, inspired by the blessed Michael and, it has to be said, by other pioneering writers in CAMRA’s What’s Brewing).
But direct access from our local airport and a desire to lift the post-Christmas gloom brought us in 1986 to one Amsterdam bar that we had heard plenty of good about: Cafe Gollem. It was a quiet Tuesday evening so we were able to get stools at the bar easily. My perusal of the beer list was distracted, however, by the sight of a seemingly-familiar figure on the next stool.
Fortified by a prior couple of swift jenevers at the Drie Flesches, I plucked up the courage after a minute to say “Excuse me, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you Michael Jackson?”
“No”, he said, to my initial dismay. “I don’t mind you asking. But yes, I am Michael Jackson”.
What a line. Accurate, witty and delivered in way which invited us to join his company if we wished!
Which we did, chatting together over the next three hours and half-a-dozen or so rounds. It transpired that Michael had promised his partner some winter sunshine and they were now en-route back home to London from, I think, the Seychelles. As part of the deal Michael had wangled a stopover in Amsterdam, and had spent the morning, he told us, at a pre-arranged tasting session, of no fewer than twenty beers.
Being a good disciple of MJ - for nine years already at that time - I kept detailed notes of our overseas trips so I can read today of the beers we drank between us that evening. Some were our choice but most were as suggested by Michael. You might be interested in what they were: La Trappe; Koningshoeven (brewed at the same Trappist monastery for Allied Breweries); Arcen Prestige; t’Ij Zatte Tripel (“from a very new Amsterdam brewery”, MJ told us); Brand Sylvester; Maisel Hefe-Weiss, from Bayreuth; Westmalle Tripel; and De Ridder Pils.
Our share of the bill, and including the sustenance of Trappist cheese, came to 58.75 guilders’ or around £14.50. Not cheap for 21 years ago (I reckon it to be equivalent to about £40 or $80 today). And I remember at one point Michael gently chiding me, when I remarked that good foreign beers were expensive when you could manage to track them down in Britain. He told me - in my clumsy paraphrasing - that beer really needed to become expensive in Britain if it was ever going achieve the recognition and social standing it deserved.
Before we left, unable to balance on our two stools much longer after a pre-dawn start to our day, Michael signed a copy of The Pocket Guide to Beer, 1982 that I, naturally, had in my pocket. (He wondered aloud how an edition originally written for the US market came to have the imprint of British book club; something to take up with his agent later, no doubt!) Considerate and precise, he included both a personal note and the place and date: “To Sue and Brendan, Keep going on tour! - Michael Jackson, Amsterdam, Jan 14, 1986”.
Not that Michael left when we did, even though he too must surely have been tiring. Thirsty members of an Australian amateur rugby league team - on their way home from a tour of England - strolled into the Gollem just as we paying up. “Another passion of mine, rugby league”, he declared. Reinvigorated. he went over to socialise with them, into the early hours!
Brendan Boyle, Darlington, England
1 October 2007
Post a Comment