Beer Topics
PorchDrinking’s own discuss beer.
Branch & Bone Artisan Ales | Black Razzath
April 10, 2019 | David Nilsen
Since opening in June 2018, Branch & Bone Artisan Ales in Dayton, Ohio, has created eye-opening beers in a wide range of styles, including bright and juicy IPAs, crisp and inquisitive session sours, and velvety smooth stouts and coffee beers. Head brewer Brett Smith loves them all, having carried many recipes over from his homebrewing days, but the beers that really have his heart pour from two wooden vessels in the back room of the brewery: oak wine foeders Smith picked up from American Solera in Oklahoma City. They once held Italian Vin Santo.
A Drinker’s Guide to Griffith, Indiana
April 9, 2019 | Paul Lewis
While I can’t say anything bad about the Chicago beer scene (we DO have the most breweries per capita), everything else about this city is exhausting, to say the least. From the rampant corruption, violent crime, high taxes and crumbling infrastructure, there is no shortage of issues that make a resident of Cook County want to drink. When I am in need for some fresh air, fresh ale and small-town charm, my day drinking location of choice has always been my hometown: Griffith, IN, located right over the border, 30 minutes south of Chicago.
Griffith’s downtown has the charm of a small town, but also the amenities of some of Chicago’s most sought-after neighborhoods. It’s no wonder people are leaving Illinois in record numbers; many of them are moving here. Real estate is hot and the secret is out—Griffith is a pretty hip(ster) place to be. The town of 17,000 now boasts a small but bustling downtown complete with a bowling alley (with a large outdoor patio area), gourmet popcorn shop, meat market, coffee house, arcade bar, vegan hair salon and three microbreweries. All of the three microbreweries are within a short walking distance from one another with plenty of cool local businesses between to browse, shop or grab a snack to soak up some of Griffith’s fine local beer. On a personal note, I grew up here (my most of my family still lives here) so this small town and its breweries have a special place in my liver. It’s my pleasure to bring you a drinker’s walking guide of downtown Griffith, IN.
District Brew Yards | Three-Brewery Collective, Pour-Your-Own Beer Hall and Eatery
April 9, 2019 | Mathew Powers
The innovative and imaginative District Brew Yards, new home to Burnt City Brewing, Around the Bend Beer and Bold Dog Beer, stands as the nation’s first brewery collective, pour-your-own beer hall, eatery and swag shop all operating under one roof. With an ability to provide customers an expansive — and routinely experimental — beer menu, Brew Yards (opening Friday, April 12) adds tremendous allure to the already impressive Chicago Brewing District on the west side comprised of nearby All Rise Brewing, as well as On Tour, Great Central, Finch and Goose Island.
Why CBC Returned to Denver in 2019 and CBC 2020-2022 Locations
April 9, 2019 | Mathew Powers
As the Brewers Association (BA) gears up for this week’s Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) we decided to catch up with the governing body of craft beer to dive deeper into their decision to move this year’s conference from Indianapolis to Denver, just months before GABF will once again be held in the same city. Ann Obenchain, Marketing Director for the Brewers Association, spoke with PorchDrinking.com about this year, and the years to follow.
East Brother Beer Co. | Oatmeal Stout
April 9, 2019 | Constance Carter
In a world filled with outlandish new beer style varieties, sometimes you just want a classic style: something without all the bells and double dry-hopping. After a long day, no matter the season or temperature, a stout sounds like a nice way to end my evening. I escaped my Oakland/Berkeley/Hayward/San Leandro bubble the other weekend and made my way up to Richmond (it’s really not that “far”) and I was a happy lady! East Brother Beer Co. is nestled over by Point Richmond and has the classic beer style game down. That’s their schtick: classic styles done well.
WeldWerks Brewing Opening Second Location in Colorado Springs
April 8, 2019 | Tristan Chan
Since inception, WeldWerks Brewing has defied convention. Before anyone thought it was possible, they put the agriculturally driven city of Greeley on the map as a national beer destination when no one thought possible. Liquor stores scoffed when WeldWerks introduced Juicy Bits in 16oz cans, and people thought they were crazy when they announced last year, that they would be introducing over 100 varieties of beers throughout the year, but they surpassed that mark as well.
Funkwerks Talks the Opportunities and Strategy of Launching in a New Market
April 8, 2019 | Taylor Laabs
Colorado makes a lot of good beer; thankfully, many of the brewers that call the state home have made it a point to distribute their goods outside of their state lines. As margins continue to decrease and shelf space continues to dwindle, the mid-size breweries that distribute on a regional basis have shrunk as well. Throwing your beer into a new state is a harrowing business venture that requires a variety of planning and strategy to ensure that your beer competes well on-shelves and on draft with more local options. Fort Collins-based Funkwerks recently made such a move, announcing that four of their offerings are now available in Chicago, tallying their total distribution presence to 11 states.
Locavore Beer Works | Split The Baby
April 8, 2019 | Jaclyn Menendez
Have you ever heard the phrase “splitting the baby”? Apparently it comes from the Old Testament, when two bickering women both claimed to be a baby’s mother. King Solomon, who sounds like he had a few beers under his own belt that day, offered to split the baby in half so both sides could win. His suggestion was meant to flush out the truth, as he suspected that the real mother would never agree to such a clearly terrible plan.
It may have been a dubious method for figuring out the truth, but centuries later, this phrase gave birth to one majestic beer: Locavore Beer Works’ Split The Baby, a blueberry lemon wheat ale made with real blueberries and lemon zest, brewed with Sorachi Ace and Citra hops. Read More
CBC Week Specialty Beer Releases Guide
April 5, 2019 | Tristan Chan
Much like we’ve come to know from when the Great American Beer Festival come to town, one of the major external benefits of major industry centric events like next week’s Craft Brewers Conference coming to town, has been the growing … Read More
Stone Brewing Sells Berlin World Bistro & Gardens Facility to BrewDog
April 5, 2019 | Tristan Chan
After just three years, the Stone Brewing experiment in Germany is over. Founder Greg Koch penned a letter via the Stone Brewing blog to announce the sale of their Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Berlin to BrewDog.
Koch’s letter cited several reasons that lead to Stone Berlin’s demise including bureaucracy, construction hold-ups, cultural price point preferences and more.
What We’re Drinking | April 5, 2019
April 5, 2019 | Anna Dacosta
I really miss out on the drastic changes spring delivers in contrast to winter because of my location. But I have beer to reel me in to the spring vibes. It’s been pretty wild first quarter of the year, and I don’t know about you, but I am ready for the warmer weather. Here are a few beers from our PorchDrinking family to help ease you into the season.
Vasen Brewing Company | Savvon
April 5, 2019 | Eric Jackson
Every once in a while, you have that experience with beer that completely blows your mind and excites your taste buds in ways others have not. Vasen Brewing Company out of Richmond, Virginia, has done just that with the recent and first bottle release of Savvon–a dry-hopped Farmhouse Ale. The complexity and flavors capped within these bottles were amazing and worth every drop.
Brewery Showcase | Southern Grist Brewing
April 4, 2019 | Dave Drury
Having a few great beers with some good friends after a long week of work is one of the greatest feelings in the world. So, it’s no surprise that Southern Grist Brewing Company was born from moments like that.
SGBC wants every person to experience that amazing feeling and that’s why they make beers for everyone – they want to make sure that every person that walks through their doors can find a style/beer they’ll enjoy while not feeling like a customer but, rather, a friend.
Jared Welch, the co-founder and head brewer, was nice enough to sit down with us and talk all about Southern Grist and craft beer. Read More
Blending the Old with the New | How New Belgium’s Sour Program Continues to Resonate
April 4, 2019 | Taylor Laabs
In today’s U.S. craft beer market, tenure is a very relative term. So, when something has been around for 20 years, you take notice. That is the case with New Belgium Brewing’s wood-aged sour program, which is the oldest in the United States. The program has created sour trendsetters like La Folie; all the while continuing to set the mark for what consumers should look for in a good wood-aged sour.
Urban Roots Brewing | A Momentary Lapse of Judgement
April 4, 2019 | Robert French
How much do you love collaboration beers? This collaboration was brewed and packaged at Urban Roots Brewing, with the Alvarado Street crew coming to Sacramento for the brew day. The name pokes fun at some of the beer names and labels that appear to “borrow” trademarked artwork. While the name of the beer is A Momentary Lapse of Judgement, the label includes a large eagle carrying the C & D letters.
2019 Craft Brewers Conference External Events Guide
April 3, 2019 | Mathew Powers
While the Craft Brewers Conference is an amazing opportunity to gain valuable education from the multitude of sessions and seminars, as brewers we know the real fun comes with the after-parties surrounding the conference. To help you navigate the week-long schedule of tap takeovers, beer dinners, special releases and more surrounding CBC we put together a day-by-day external events guide. Use the menu below to quickly navigate to the corresponding day.
Additionally we will be updating this guide throughout the week, so if we missed an event be sure to shoot us a message.
Special thanks to our friends at OnTap Credit Union, who have been crafting banking solutions for breweries, brewery employees and beer lovers for the past 64 years in Golden and Arvada. Their support in underwriting PorchDrinking allows us to continue to research and present in-depth pieces like the the 2019 CBC External Events Writeup
PorchDrinking’s Weekly Denver Beer Beat | April 3, 2019
April 3, 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
An Interview with The Athletic’s Baseball Analyst & Craft Beer Guru Eno Sarris
April 3, 2019 | Brian Haitz
Few things can stir up nostalgia like the smell of fresh cut grass, hearing the crack of the bat, a vendor in the distance yelling “Beer here, beer here! Peanuts!” As we kickoff one of the most anticipated times of the year in the U.S. (MLB season), it can cause excitement, sentimentality and expectation. We at PorchDrinking, had the fortunate opportunity to speak with baseball analyst for The Athletic and former beer writer, Eno Sarris, about the evolution of baseball’s growing relationship with the craft beer industry. Eno was generous enough to talk through his own love of craft beer and “the game,” lending an extremely fascinating insider’s perspective.
Telluride Brewing Co. | AlpenGOSE
April 3, 2019 | Kara Rowland
As a big fan of Telluride Brewing Co., I couldn’t resist the presence of a new can offering in my neighborhood liquor store. But wait—a Leipzig-style gose brewed in the winter?
Indeed. AlpenGOSE is such a fanciful elixir.
The 4.5-percent beer represents the brewery’s first seasonal sour. Telluride released it last year on draft only under the moniker “There Gose the Snow,” a nod to the anemic snowfall. This season, the creation took on the name AlpenGOSE in hopes of a winter full of powder.
Avery Brewing Expands Majority Investment with Mahou San Miguel
April 2, 2019 | Tristan Chan
This morning, Boulder-based Avery Brewing announced that it has increased its partnership with Spanish family-owned Mahou San Miguel. What began as a minority 30% ownership agreement announced in November 2017, has been expanded to majority ownership of 70% of the … Read More
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