Beer Topics
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The Classic Pale Ale in a Modern Craft Beer World
October 28, 2019 | Mathew Powers
You remember the Pale Ale, don’t you? Sure you do. It’s a beer style born in England during the early 1700s. It was then resurrected and reinvented in the U.S. when Fritz Maytag introduced the lovely Cascade hop into his Anchor Brewing Liberty (Pale) Ale in 1975. He was followed by Jack McAuliffe of New Albion Brewing Company, and then most famously by Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in 1981. Early American Pale Ales profoundly altered the modern craft beer scene. Even the first canned beer to emerge in modern craft beer was Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale in 2002. Its place in craft beer history is forever cemented, but is still relevant as we approach 2020?
Event Preview | Traverse City Craft Beer Week
October 28, 2019 | Mike Zoller
Known for beautiful scenery, cherries and wine, Northern Michigan’s Traverse City has also become a hotbed for craft breweries. With a population of just over 15,000, the city has 10 breweries and even more in the surrounding towns. The Traverse City Craft Beer Week is an opportunity to explore the region’s expanding craft beer offerings.
Chapman Crafted Beer | Hazy Like Sunday Morning
October 28, 2019 | Robert French
Chapman Crafted Beer is located in Old Towne in Orange, California. It’s a family-owned brewery that’s, in their own words, “community focused.” This includes brewing beers honoring the local university’s homecoming and the city’s festival. Read More
Interview | Graci Harkema on Resigning as Founders Brewing Diversity & Inclusion Director
October 26, 2019 | Tristan Chan
The on-going saga with Michigan’s Founders Brewing continued yesterday when Graci Harkema, who was hired in January to serve as the brewery’s Diversity and Inclusion Director, announced via social media … Read More
9 Best New Mexico Breweries to Import After Trump’s Wall in Colorado
October 25, 2019 | Tristan Chan 1
Two days ago, President Trump announced that he would be building a wall in Colorado to presumably keep out the New Mexicans for whatever offense they may have committed against him. One could surmise that their green chile was too spicy and flavorful for his bland palate, or perhaps saw tweets from their visitor’s bureau of Meow Wolf and thought we were being attacked from another dimension by another planet’s space force.
Regardless, Trump’s alleged wall in Colorado will surely have dire repercussions for the rest of the country including the fact that we’ll no longer have easy access to a number of the state’s prolific breweries. Here’s a list of the nine best breweries out of New Mexico, which we’ll have to import once Trump’s Colorado wall is built.
Founders Brewing Flounders | Why We Saw This Coming
October 25, 2019 | Jaclyn Menendez 1
For the past 20 years, Michigan’s famous Founders Brewing has walked the delicate line of balancing immense popularity, while maintaining high-quality craft beer. But in the past few days, a former employee’s lawsuit which was first filed last year has resurfaced to shed light on a disturbing trend of pervasive racism throughout the company.
Primitive Beer Redefines Spontaneous in America and Launches Bottles
October 25, 2019 | Scott Davidson
Primitive Beer is Colorado’s first exclusively spontaneous, barrel-fermented and barrel aged beer blendery, that uses only 100% Colorado ingredients (hops, grain, fruit, microbes, and water), inoculated and fermented entirely by … Read More
What We’re Drinking | October 25, 2019
October 25, 2019 | Justin Carter
It’s that time of the year again; all things spooky, frightening and pumpkin spice is everything and everywhere. It’s a time of year when candy is shaped like spiders and gummy worms are dumped into mash tuns. It’s the perfect sugar-coma lead-up to the gluttonous holidays. While trying to not develop type 2 diabetes, check out what some of our writers have been drinking.
Oskar Blues | One-y IPA
October 25, 2019 | Taylor Laabs
I love IPAs. I also can’t stomach several in one drinking session anymore. The intensity of the flavors and hop-bill typically restricts me to a small pour or one sole can at a time. It’s a common occurrence for many beer drinkers today. Craft brewers continue to push the limits on flavor in IPAs, ramping up the ABV and ingredient list while lowering the drinkability in the process. Every IPA has a place, but I’ve increasingly found that Session IPAs continue to gain more space in my beer fridge than their hoppier counterparts. One new addition that I’m dedicating shelf space to is Oskar Blues’ One-y hazy session IPA.
Learn to Homebrew Day is November 2
October 24, 2019 | Jadon Flores
In 1999, Learn To Homebrew Day was established by the American Homebrewers Association to promote the most rewarding, and delicious activity of all time — homebrewing. This is what is written on the AHA’s website about this event. It is a day that many homebrewers the world around have come to their local homebrew stores or friends or even the internet to learn the hobby that you can literally drink to!
Grisette | The Grey Lady of Belgian Beer
October 24, 2019 | David Nilsen 1
The name “grisette” has popped up on brewery taplists more and more in recent years, but the style is still poorly understood by many. What is this curious little beer, where did it come from, and why is it growing in popularity? Turns out none of those questions have easy answers.
The popular origin stories for many historical beer styles are often festooned with fanciful narrative elements of dubious veracity. Ask any dudebro at a bar about how IPA was created and be prepared for a tall tale involving colonialism and sea commerce. The true story is often a little more complicated if it can be uncovered at all, and grisette’s backstory is no exception.
First Taste | 2019 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
October 24, 2019 | Mike Zoller 4
Following a year that saw Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout go heavy on adjuncts such as vanilla, orange, berries, and chocolate, the 2019 lineup is focused on the barrel itself.
The eight-beer lineup will be released, as is the tradition, on Black Friday but those attending FoBAB or Prop Day will have a sneak peek at the beers ahead of their official release. The media was invited to the Goose Island Barrel House for the first public tasting of this year’s lineup.
Dancing Gnome | Black Clouds Double Vanilla
October 24, 2019 | Gregory Acero
It has been quite some time since my last article, but I figure I would come back and write about one of my absolute favorite breweries in Pittsburgh, Dancing Gnome. DG has been brewing, hazy deliciousness IPA/DIPA/TIPA, fruity goodness sour ales and delicious pale ales. But the one other beer style that has been talked about and that has craft beer patrons lining up early are their stouts, such as Black Clouds!
Event Preview | Detroit Beer Experiment at the Detroit Fall Beer Festival
October 23, 2019 | Danny King
The Michigan Brewers’ Guild 11th Annual Detroit Fall Beer festival is coming up this week (Friday and Saturday, October 25-26), which means Detroit beer fans (and writers) get the privilege of having some of the best breweries in the state in their backyard. It also means the return of the Detroit Beer Experiment. Last year, the festival provided fans with the enjoyable Faygo-infused (and inspired) beers, so what’s in store for this year? We asked Dave Cicotte of Brew Detroit, who was able to provide a sneak preview.
PorchDrinking’s Weekly Denver Beer Beat | October 23, 2019
October 23, 2019 | Jeremiah Cornelius
The Denver Beer Beat is a weekly roundup of brewery openings, special tappings, firkins and one-off batches, bottle releases, dinners, pairings, and more happening in the Front Range and beyond. Be sure to check in each Wednesday to discover anything and everything happening around Colorado’s beer scene. Now let’s get to this week’s can’t miss beer events. Read More
Revolution Brewing Releases First 3 Deep Wood Series Beers
October 23, 2019 | Mike Zoller
As they did last year, Revolution Brewing is once again staggering the release of their Deep Wood barrel-aged series. The first three beers got released last week at its now routine release party, which included cans to-go and a draft list full of rare and stand out beers you won’t find packaged.
Bad Weather Brewing Company | Tippin’ It Down
October 23, 2019 | Max Sundermeyer
The four weeks of mid-September to mid-October represent the greatest weather of the year in Minnesota. It’s often around 68 degrees and sometimes sunny. Everyone is donned in flannel (my personal outfit of choice). Orange-, red- and yellow-leafed maples line the streets as Oktoberfest celebrations begin. Everyone it seems is in a jovial mood.
That’s because this time of year depicts what is often the beginning of the end of favorable weather in the state. After this beautiful window, the temperature plummets, and we often see our first snowfall. Read More
Brewery Showcase | Wild Creatures
October 22, 2019 | Karl Kalinkewicz
It’s a hard-knock life when you have beer-related engagements scheduled in two countries on two consecutive weekends. I recently found myself in Poland for the incredible One More Beer Festival before planning to meet up with friends in Munich for Oktoberfest six days later. Doing the wise thing and taking a full week of vacation, I started to scout out how I could spend the days between periods of copious beer consumption. Lo and behold, the world’s number one beer-drinking country per capita, the Czech Republic, happened to be smack dab in the middle of my two destinations. The gods smile upon me.
Beer Event | Collabapalooza Recap
October 22, 2019 | Jadon Flores
This past weekend was one of the most highly rated beer festivals in Southern California: Collabapalooza. The ethos of the beer festival is a sense of community within the beer industry–in most cases, all of the breweries involved were friends with each other and the brewers were all trying each other’s beer while talking shop. As we got to talk to several breweries in the preview article on the beers they were bringing, we got to experience the selection of a ridiculous tap list contributed by all the breweries. Here are some standouts.
WeldWerks Brewing Company | Fit Bits
October 22, 2019 | Karen Mills
Lighter, low-calorie, more health-conscious beers are becoming increasingly popular in the craft beer world. We shared six crushable options in an Ultimate 6er and talked about breweries such as Sufferfest Beer Company, (Sierra Nevada acquired them earlier this year) targeting a segment within craft beer that is constantly growing. WeldWerks Brewing Company, who wowed the craft beer world by creating more than 100 new SKUs in 2018, recently released their version of a low-calorie beer: Fit Bits.
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