Colorado’s Best Pale Ales Blind Tasting Presented by On Tap Credit Union

Here ye, here ye! Another PorchDrinking Blind Tasting has been conducted! This time 24 of Colorado’s Best Pale Ales were submitted from breweries from all across the state. All beers were non-adjunct and needed to mostly follow the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) guidelines of the Pale Ale style.

For starters, the goal of the Blind Tasting Series is to find the best beer of each style in the Centennial, regardless of the beer’s label, the brewery’s marketing or notoriety.

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Artist Spotlight | Woodworking in Craft Beer

During this craft beer boom, the industry has provided so much more than just a new and exciting wave of beer styles, techniques and breweries. It has also created an outlet and newfound respect for the arts. Artists all over the country have found support and work from breweries looking for anything from taproom murals to label art to small batch glassware and other merch. Many breweries have even involved the arts at their events as a continued means of support. In fact, this was a huge focus of The Eighth State Brewing’s Altered States Festival in Greenville, SC. One field of artistry in particular that has really popularized itself in the craft beer community recently has been woodworking.

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Fulton Brewing Releases Hop Kingdom IPA Brand Family

Fulton Brewing, one of Minneapolis’ original craft breweries, is expanding its well-known IPA offerings by introducing Hop Kingdom — a brand family of various IPA styles inspired by and made for Minnesotans.

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Universal Studios Entertainment & 4 Hands Brewing Set to Release Voltron, Series One Beer

In an exciting development, St. Louis’ own 4 Hands Brewing Company has announced a collaborative endeavor with Universal Studios Entertainment, World Events Productions (WEP), LLC, and a selection of the country’s best breweries.

Voltron was a popular animated television series that originally aired in the mid-1980s. Produced by World Events Productions, the show centered around a team of young pilots controlling a group of robot lions that combine to form Voltron, a gigantic robot warrior. Voltron, often called the “Defender of the Universe,” battles evil forces to maintain peace across the galaxy.

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Melvin Brewing’s St. Louis Location Changes Ownership & Launches Renaming Campaign

Since the Roadhouse Brewery Group completed its acquisition of Melvin Brewing Co. last December, the future of Melvin Brewing’s Eureka location in the St. Louis area has been uncertain. This week, both Melvin Brewing & the St. Louis Brewers Heritage Foundation revealed new details on the future of Melvin Brewing Eureka.

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Together Is Not Always Better: How Consolidation In the Middle Tier Is Impacting The Future of Craft Beer Brands

For most craft breweries, the trajectory of brand growth follows a somewhat traditional path – starting with taproom sales, progressing to selling in the wholesale channel, and then alignment with a beer wholesaler to grow the distribution footprint. Sounds simple enough on paper, but if you drill down into the nuances of selling beer wholesale, things get complicated very quickly. The US is unlike any other country in the world when it comes to the three-tier alcohol distribution system. Some states do not allow suppliers to self-distribute (sell directly) their products to licensed retail accounts, yielding asinine practices like selling beer to yourself for your own taproom. Some states are also dubbed “franchise” law states where if your brand aligns with a distributor you must endure a contractual arrangement that makes changing distributor partners harder than selling beachfront property in Arizona. And we haven’t even begun to address the large big beer elephant in the room and how many large beer distribution houses are aligned with one of two big players in the US beer market. For many craft brands that are just getting started or fall into the category of small to medium-sized producers, strategizing how to enter the wholesale channel is a formidable challenge, including contending with a host of other legislative, litigious, and anti-competitive issues in the middle tier that have surfaced over the past few decades. As if growing craft beer producers didn’t have enough to contend with these days in the form of rising costs of goods, labor shortages, inflation, and the squeeze from alternative beverage choices in the marketplace, woes like wholesaler consolidation, unfair trade practices, and antiquated beverage alcohol regulations are making the middle tier the next big battleground for craft beer brands. 

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Colorado’s Best Light Mexican Lagers Blind Tasting Presented by On Tap Credit Union

Back with the first of four scheduled Blind Tastings for 2023, the starting style on this year’s slate is Light Mexican Lagers. The goal is to find some of the best Light Mexican Lagers around Colorado. For this Blind Tasting, a group of eight judges evaluated 35 Light Mexican Lagers. Beers were submitted from breweries of all different sizes from all across Colorado.

PorchDrinking’s Blind Tasting Series is presented by On Tap Credit Union.

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2023 Brewers Association Industry Award Winners

Yesterday, the Brewers Association announced its Industry Award recipients for 2023. The five recipients are Ret. Representative Peter DeFazio, Ben Edmunds, Jessica and Richard Fierro, and Julie Rhodes. All will be officially honored at a ceremony on May 8, 2023, at the Craft Brewers Conference. Starting in 1987, the Brewers Association presents the Industry Awards to individuals that “inspire, defend, and innovate within the craft brewing industry.”

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AleBlazers Series | One Year Later with Funkytown Brewery

A brewery that has made a huge splash on the Chicago craft beer scene over the past year has been Funkytown Brewery, who brews at Pilot Project Brewing in both Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI. Owners Richard Bloomfield, Zachary Day and Gregory Williams chatted with PorchDrinking in February 2022 as a part of our AleBlazers series, so naturally we needed to catch up with them and see how the last year has been and where 2023 is taking them!

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Flora Brewing Set to Make Commercial Debut at Pilot Project Brewing

Pilot Project Brewing, a brewery incubator based in Chicago, with a second location in Milwaukee, WI, is a collaborative space where multiple breweries are able to enter the market without certain barriers that traditionally plague startup breweries. Their newest addition is Flora Brewing, Sarah Flora’s brewery that started contract brewing recently, though many know her from her homebrewing videos over the past six years. Flora Brewing will be launching four beers, with the release event set for Saturday, April 29.

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BREAKING | Karben4 Set to Re-Release Ale Asylum Beers

For those across the Midwest, Ale Asylum Brewery in Madison, Wisconsin, was a staple of their beer fridge until they closed in July of 2022 after 16 years of operation. Less than a year later, however, their bold flavors are set to make a comeback under the Karben4 Brewing flag. Karben4 owners, brothers Ryan and Zak Koga, are excited to re-launch these staples of Madison craft beer in the same city that they operate their brewery.

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Hop Water—The Next Big Thing?

As the weather in some parts of the country is warming up, a bubbly, refreshing NA beverage is riding the shirttails of Dry January. Hop Water is sliding into a go-to position for many beer enthusiasts. Hop water, which is essentially dry-hopped carbonated water, provides that crisp punch of Lupulin flavor we love in IPAs without the carbs and alcohol—making it suitable to drink anytime, anywhere.

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Silly Valentine’s Day Cards for Your Craft Beer Fan

Finding the right Valentine’s Day card can be tricky. Wasn’t it easier just to buy a box of the fun cartoon valentine cards that you gave to friends at school? Well, if you’ve got a craft beer fan in your life, perhaps try one of these cheesy, good, terrible and maybe enticing puns for your valentine this year.

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Downloadable 2023 Bingo Boards for Super Bowl LVII

Whether you’re celebrating the return of Rihanna, the puppy bowl, or just the epic Cain vs Abel match-up between the two Kelce brothers, this Sunday’s big game has a ton of interesting storylines. And to help you stay engaged between all of the ridiculous commercials, and of course a sprinkling of football, we’ve once again helped by creating the 2023 Super Bowl Bingo Boards for Super Bowl LVII.

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Barrel Room Spotlight | The Eighth State Brewing Company

The Eighth State enters the Spotlight as one of the most unique breweries featured in this series so far. We spoke with head brewer and co-founder Cameron Owen to learn more—not only about the barrel program they’re running, but also to gain more insight on the mindset at The Eighth State as a whole. Departing from the traditional brewery model, Owen and The Eighth State transcend what we think about beer. It’s a lifestyle project run on passion and creativity, and it’s a mentality that has led to the development of some of the most exciting beers in the industry.

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Staff Picks for Best Beers of the Month | January 2023

Holy hell, happy new year, here we go again. We’re all signed up for another 12 months and assumingly it’ll go by quicker than the last set did. That’s alright. Whether you did Dry January or were soaking wet all month, we made it through it. That’s what matters. Keep on, keeping on. In the meantime, here’s some of our Staff’s favorite beers from the last month (or so).

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The Epic Origin Story of DuClaw Brewing’s Sweet Baby Jesus

Have you ever tried a beer that was so unexpectedly good that you immediately exclaimed your surprise at its serendipitous deliciousness out loud? Maybe it was another beer, but probably it was DuClaw Brewing Company’s Sweet Baby Jesus! Peanut Butter Porter.

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Zine Review | Pairing Beer & Chocolate by David Nilsen

Disclaimer: The author of this zine, David Nilsen, writes for PorchDrinking. 

Becoming incredibly good at something takes a lot of time, effort and patience. In our constant need for instant gratification and expectation to be perfect at something the first time you do it, it becomes more and more rare to find a true expert. Do you think that a master woodworker was making a canoe during their first time using an oscillating saw? Or an Advanced sommelier knew how to tell what region of France a grape was from when they were 21? No. That’s why when someone shares their expertise and encourages others to learn from the time and effort they have put in, it’s a gift.

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Barrel Room Spotlight | Phase Three Brewing

The first brewery cast in the Spotlight in 2023, Phase Three Brewing is a welcomed addition to this growing series. A culmination of three phases of built relationships, experience and passion, the story behind this young brewery never ceases to garner continued support. We had the opportunity to speak with Shaun Berns, co-founder and Head Brewer at Phase Three, to not only learn more about his passion project as a whole but to hear specifically about their impressive barrel program that has people across the country talking.

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World of Flavor | Sake’s Key Ingredient Unlocks New Possibilities at Hi-Wire Brewing

Hi-Wire Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina, won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2021 for a beer its brewers weren’t even sure was going to be any good. Their Japanese Dry Rice Lager earned the hardware in the Experimental Beer category, a catch-all for anything too weird for the nearly 100 other categories judged each year. Typical winners have included an Arnold Palmer-inspired Berliner Weisse and a Sour Rye Saison aged on Prickly Pear Cactus. So what was so unusual about this Rice Lager, a beer that — on the surface — was as simple and unassuming as any beer at the festival?

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