FIRST TASTE | 2018 Bourbon County Stout

If Greg Hall hadn’t been at a Beer, Bourbon and Cigar dinner with Jim Beam’s Booker Noe when Goose Island was nearing its 1,000th batch of beer, who knows if we would have Bourbon County Stout today?

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2018 GABF Route Preview | Big Beers Route

For the past month and a half our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through that list of beers to bring you a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

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pFriem Family Brewers | Pilsner

Pilsners tell the truth about a brewer’s acumen and prowess as there is no place to hide within pilsners; many beer connoisseurs rely on pilsners as a litmus test for a brewery’s overall quality. If beer styles were musical compositions, then pilsners would be the Inventions and Sinfonias of Johann Sebastian Bach. And trust us when we say that discerning beer lovers want to give pFriem Pilsner a careful listen.

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Chicago Quick Sips September 17 – 30

Quick Sips is our way of highlighting beer events, tap takeovers and other notable beer news around the city of Chicago, IL. If you’d like to submit something to be included in the next Quick Sips, please email us at [email protected].

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A Newbie Guide to Oktoberfest in Munich

America has a lot of beer festivals. I mean… a lot. I could practically book every weekend for the next few months with at least 2-3 Chicago beer festivals. The heightened popularity of these events resides on a foundational bedrock of human existence: people like drinking, and people like drinking together. And while things like the Great American Beer Festival draw massive crowds and a considerable amount of hype amongst USA-based beer drinkers, there’s typically one beer fest that appears on any beer fan’s bucket list across the globe: Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

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2018 Great American Beer Festival Pour List Preview

As the 2018 Great American Beer Festival approaches, I bet you’re wondering what kind of delights you can expect to sample on the festival. A hazy IPA from that Vermont brewery that doesn’t distribute in your state? A rare whale stout aged in the most fantastic of barrels? A wild, enamel-stripping sour ale full of hand-picked snozzberries? PorchDrinking has you covered!

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81Bay Brewing | Coffee Porter

There are some breweries that capture the essence of the laid-back Florida Gulf Coast lifestyle, and many are named as such. Their brands sport designs featuring sails, pelicans, and palm trees. Others boast more of the so called “Florida Native” style, straying from the touristy tropical ideals and more toward the warmth of the sun and friendly spirits of the locals.
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Guide to Out-of-State Breweries Available in Denver for GABF

As we’ve all come to know, the Great American Beer Festival has far greater implications for Colorado beer fans that extend beyond the four-day festival itself. One of those external benefits is the growing practice of out-of-state breweries utilizing the week to make a special limited drop of beers either as a means to test the market, or just to make a splash to help grow their brands. In previous years, breweries such as Fremont, Perennial and Burial have all used GABF week as a launch pad toward regular, or in some cases semi-regular distribution to Colorado. In other scenarios such the short-lived Bell’s Brewing’s drop a few years back, these brief market flirtations can help stoke the hype for breweries that may eye a future full-time distribution play, which in Bell’s case finally came to fruition this year.

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WeldWerks Announces GABF Releases to Exceed 100 New Beers in 2018

In today’s landscape of experimentation and variety, it’s not uncommon for a brewery to diversify their portfolio with an ever-rotating lineup of new beers. However for a brewery that’s less than four years old, to be able to pull off over 100 new beer releases in less than a year, is an almost unfathomable feat.

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What We’re Drinking | September 14, 2018

This week has been an emotional one as we honor the anniversary of 9/11 and watch the crazy number of storms brewing in our oceans. Even as I write this, there is a deluge happening outside my window, which means it’s time to kick back, grab a good book and a cold beer. My fellow PorchDrinking staff found some great brews this week, along with some much needed sunshine. This is What We’re Drinking.

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The Weekly Buzz | September 7 – 13

Have you ever had to move? It’s pretty brutal. I’m to the point where I can’t even bribe people with pizza and beer anymore. No one will help. Well, the joke’s on them. There’s more beer for me, and all horrible chores are better when you’re drunk. So, raise a beer in one hand, and pivot that couch around the corner with the other. This is The Weekly Buzz.
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Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company | Dunks Ferry Dunkelweizen

The change of seasons means cooler temperatures, leaves falling and the inevitable pumpkin beers. Some brewers take a different approach, however. Instead of pumpkin beers, they opt for darker beer styles, like Dunks Ferry Dunkelweizen from Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company. Brewed in Croydon, Pennsylvania on the outskirts of Philly, this 5.2% ABV authentic Bavarian-style dark wheat beer is brewed with wheat malt, Herkules, Hallertau and Tettnanger hops, and fermented with a hefeweizen yeast.

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Freshcraft’s GABF Week Schedule of Events

This is a sponsored post from Freshcraft

Over the past eight years, Freshcraft has emerged as one of the premiere craft beer-focused bars/restaurants in the city of Denver. Located just a short walk from the Colorado Convention Center at 1530 … Read More

The PorchCast | Ep 53 – Charlie Papazian Interview on Final GABF

In episode 53 of the PorchCast we had a chance to sit down with the Godfather of craft beer, the man who literally wrote the book on home brewing in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, the founder of the American Homebrewers Association, founder of what is now the Brewers Association, founder of the Great American Beer Festival, the man who brought fist bumping back, Charlie Papazian.

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St. Louis Breweries Debuting New Brut IPAs

New beer styles don’t come along every day, so when I first stumbled upon the new, increasingly popular Brut IPA, I wanted to know more. So, I reached out to Rob Abel, head brewer at Ferguson Brewing: “The Brut IPA is a new IPA, the rationale for that name is that much like Brut champagne is extremely dry, the IPA is extremely dry, having zero residual sugar left.”

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A Look Into the Judging of GABF Beers

Have you ever wondered what it takes for breweries to win medals at Great American Beer Festival? You might say “Easy, make great beer.” That is technically correct, but as it turns out, it takes a ton of behind the scenes organization, planning and coordination to judge all of those great beers that get entered.

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