Deschutes – Fresh Squeezed IPA

Nearly every weekend I enjoy hitting the local shops in search of the latest brews from around the country. An unabashed IPA fanatic and admittedly obnoxious beer freshness advocate, I’m … Read More

#FreeTreeHouse – Let my people brew!

“’Cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been coming to see/To forget about neighbors for awhile” sang Dean Rohan, one of the four owners of Tree House Brewing Co, while … Read More

New Glarus Totally Naked

ABV: 4.25%

I recently had the good fortune to visit Wisconsin and have a tasting of many delightful craft beers including the New Glarus Totally Naked Extra Pale. I know, I know, I said “New Glarus” and that makes all craft-beeries get excited like a kid at Christmas but just settle down for a minute. . . Naw, I’m just kidding; get excited my babies! It’s New Glarus! Besides being ripe for innuendo, the Totally Naked is also an excellent brew. Let’s shed a couple layers and dive right in, shall we? Read More

Why the Phillies Won’t Trade Cliff Lee

I guess most important to preserving any credibility I have is to acknowledge my Philadelphia bias and all the territory that comes with it….i.e. Washington should have never sat Strausburg … Read More

Q&A with Mad Fox Brewing

Bill Madden has set much of the pace of the craft brewing scene in the Virginia-DC-Maryland region for the past few years. As the CEO and the executive brewer for … Read More

Surly Brewing Company – CynicAle

Surly Brewing Company – CynicAle

ABV: 6.6%

IBUs: 33

There is nothing better than finding a hidden gem among a myriad of unknowns. That one album you picked up based … Read More

Fort George Brewery – Sunrise Oatmeal Pale Ale

ABV: 5.2%
IBU: 49

Ninety-seven miles Northwest of Portland, where the Columbia river meets the Pacific Ocean, is the gritty fishing town of Astoria, Oregon. This former center of thriving fishing and canning industries is a recognizable locale to anyone who has seen The Goonies (1985), Short Circuit (1986) or Kindergarten Cop (1990), all of which were filmed in this hilly, oceanside town. Coastal tourists, Oregonians and Washingtonians alike flock to Astoria for the charming downtown area, Columbia River Maritime Museum, Sunday market, playful harbor seals, Goonies house and, especially since 2007, the beer.

Read More

Awesomesauce- Internet Comments

We’ve all been there- right before making dinner, you hop on your laptop to do a quick check of Facebook and your email, and six hours later you look up with a glazed expression on your face and absolutely no idea where the last quarter of your day went.  Read More

Dogfish Head Burton Baton

Dogfish Head – Burton Baton 10.0% ABV, 70 IBU

For almost a week, I  tirelessly opened my refrigerator door to see a bottle peering at me from the bottom shelf, imploring … Read More

Roundtable Discussion: Locally-Made Gateway Craft Beers

In this week’s roundtable discussion, the staff here at PorchDrinking discuss their favorite local gateway craft beers. Here are some local craft beer options for that friend who still drinks Milwaukee’s Best:

Read More

Ultimate 6er – An Intro to Sour Beer

Working at a beer store I find the most common style people are insatiably curious about is the sour beer category. There are a few different ways to make a sour beer. The most common methods include using wild yeast strains like brettanomyces or adding certain types of bacteria into the brew – saccharomyces, pediococcus, and lactobacillus being the most common. I’ve done my best to include an ecclectic mixture that showcases a little taste of each in my Ultimate 6er – An Intro to Sour Beer. Read More

Flying Fish Brewing Co. – Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA

ABV: 8.2%

IBU: 62

When it comes to choosing beers, I am generally a stylistic creature of habit. Hoppy? Sold. But on occasion, I am drawn to a brew because … Read More

The A(i)les of Being a Craft Beer Lover in College

How about this scene:  You swing open the back door to a house that leads into a dark basement.  A cloud of body heat, and body sweat greets you at the door.  Each step taken down the stairs (that surely don’t meet building code) enters you into another level of this nimbus dense, wet heat cluster.  Finally on the basement floor you immediately identify the source—a hundred sweat dripping college kids standing shoulder-to-shoulder yelling to one another over the boom of the music.   As thirteen dollar handles of vodka are being passed over your head you scale across the side of the basement to make your way around the crowd.  There are solo cups filled with last weekend’s beer that were placed and forgotten on the shelves beside you.  And is that something growing in the beer?   Hard to see, but you can sure smell a festering sourness woft out of the cup.  Buddy, that ain’t no lambic.  Human traffic is backed up at an unchilled keg.  Pour yourself a cup.  Oh great, a nice head to this one.  The whole cup is foam but it quickly dissipates into a lukewarm puddle.  Take a gulp.  Gotta’ love Natural Light.  Then take a look over to the beer pong table.  There’s a guy, ping-pong ball in one hand, snifter glass of Dogfish Head 90 Minute in the other.  That’s me.   I love craft beer and I’m in college.  That guy is me.

Read More

Mud Hound Brewing Company

Leesburg is less than an hour west of Washington, D.C., past the closely-knit suburbs and into rolling Virginia countryside. It has a quintessential small-town feel, with white fences, antique stores and colonial-style homes. It is also chockablock with brewpubs.

Read More

Dragoon Brewing Company – The DOS

Dragoon Brewing Company – The DOS Russian Imperial Stout

ABV: 10.4%

While sampling the offerings at Dragoon Brewing Company in Tucson Arizona, I was absolutely blown away by the DOS … Read More

Southern Tier Brewing Company – 2X Stout

With the summer heat looming, it probably doesn’t make the most sense that I should be reviewing a milk stout. Chalk it up to being strange, or the fact that Cliff Lee surrendered four solo home runs in consecutive innings. Instead of picking up his 11th win of the season, it was just one of those nights … and we have had a lot of those nights. Dark and foreboding is what I saw behind this 12 oz bottle and I knew that I had picked correctly (especially after enjoying a couple Stone IPAs with dinner, thinking things would go otherwise).

Read More

Homebrew Gadgets

Homebrewing is a great way to experiment, have fun and get your friends to tell you stories that they may not otherwise tell you. As I became a more advanced homebrewer, there were certain gadgets that I found that improved my brewing and some that frankly made things more stressful. Here are some of the more useful homebrew gadgets that I have come across. Read More

Sixpoint Brewery – Resin IPA

I’m going to start this review with a short story that actually happened a couple months back. As I sat down on an empty bar stool at the newest bar in Oxford, OH, O’Pub, the bartender asked me what I wanted to drink. “Well, what’s your best beer?” I asked. Read More

Ultimate 6er | Floral Beers

Flowers may have given you a headache this spring, but now they’re really trying to make it up to you. This summer there are a host of floral beers available, and this Ultimate 6er is just a jumping off point.

Read More

Goose Island – Madame Rose

Colored in crimson, aged in red-wine barrels and soaked in sour cherry deliciousness—what more could you ask for? A seductive member of Goose Island’s now famed ‘Three Sisters’ group, Madame Rose is one of the brewery’s elusive bottled wild ales that tantalizes and plays with our taste buds from start to finish.

Read More