Ultimate 6er | Bon Appetit Chefs Paired with Beers

There is one universal truth in this world: the Bon Appetit YouTube channel is perfect. From Claire Saffitz attempting to recreate your favorite snack foods to Brad Leone’s chaotic fermentation process, the chefs at Bon Appetit have become minor celebrities. What better way to honor the hours spent in quarantine binging their videos than to pair each chef with a beer? So, next time you press play on Chris Morocco recreating Guy Fieri’s trash can nachos, make sure you have the perfect beer in hand.

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Ultimate 6er | Netflix & Quarantine?

With many states still closed and stay-at-home orders extended through at least the end of May, most people have a lot of time on their hands. What better way to spend that free time than drinking beers and re-binge watching all your old favorite shows. These six beers are the ones you’ll be wanting to pair with some of the most popular series on Netflix. Read More

The Brewing Projekt | Dare Mighty Things IPA Series

The Brewing Projekt Dare Mighty Things Single Hop IPA and Double IPA are something to be grateful for during the monotonous hours of being at home. This brewery located in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is almost five years young and truly making pieces of liquid art. They absolutely crush this experimental Hazy IPA series, and their fruited beers are out of this world. Don’t pass if you have an opportunity to open one of these beers. Even here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re fortunate enough to be getting a few drops every couple of weeks and the beer community couldn’t be happier. These are challenging times and this beer is a reminder that we can persevere this pandemic and all enjoy a great craft beer for some sanity.

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Newbies & Freshies Adapts, Illinois Craft Beer Week Postponed

For the past three years, PorchDrinking and Bitter Pops, a craft beer bar and bottle shop, have put on Newbies and Freshies during Illinois Craft Beer Week to highlight the freshest and newest breweries in Chicagoland.

This year, with all events postponed, Newbies and Freshies will change the format. Instead of people coming to Bitter Pops to experience new and fresh beers hitting Chicago over the past year, we’ve created a box that you can take home full of a dozen beers from a variety of breweries.

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Creature Comforts Brewing Co | Automatic

Pure excitement. That’s one of the many emotions that Athens, Georgia, beer lovers are feeling as Creature Comforts announced Automatic, their seasonal Pale Ale, was finally joining the ranks of their year-round offerings. Creature Comforts chose Automatic as their sixth year-round beer as part of their six-year anniversary celebration. 

Automatic has been a staple of summer since its first splash onto the Georgia craft beer scene more than four years ago. Now, summer never has to stop. Read More

Koval Distillery Finds Solution for Unused Beer: Hand Sanitizer

Current social distancing and shelter-in-place orders across the country have left bar stools empty and taps dry. On-premises sales of draft beer have all but halted, leaving millions of gallons of beer undrank. Even worse, the lack of demand for future kegged beer has left thousands of breweries with untapped kegs, which will slowly go bad. This unfortunate consequence has led breweries across the nation to dump their beer. However, creative thinking has presented an alternative use: turn the unused beer into hand sanitizer. This was the case for Chicago’s Koval Distillery, which partnered with local breweries to create and donate 500 gallons of beer-made hand sanitizer to community organizations in need.

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Ultimate 6er | The Last Dance

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 90s spoiled me as a basketball fan. When I was five years old, I remember my mom giving me a wooden spoon and pot to go out into our driveway to make noise right after the Chicago Bulls won the first NBA Championship in 1991. I probably didn’t quite understand what was going on.

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Ultimate 6er | Postponed

‘Postponed’, a word that is becoming more and more common each day we work through this pandemic. Every day, huge events are choosing to take the safe route by cancelling or taking the lesser of the two by delaying the event to a time when everyone will be much safer and more comfortable. Everything from sporting events, expos, movie premieres, beer and music festivals, and of course massive world tours from some of our favorite bands have halted. Read More

Celebrate German Beer Day with America’s Best German-Style Breweries

German Beer Day, April 23, celebrates the enacting of the Bavarian Beer Purity Order, or Reinheitsgebot, which officially restricted beer ingredients to water, hops, and malt (the existence of yeast was not understood in 1516 but was later added). While it is impossible to say where German beer would be today without the Reinheitsgebot, it has helped make German beer synonymous with high quality and consistency across the five centuries since it was signed.

In honor of German Beer Day, we’ve put together a roundup of some of America’s best German-style breweries, who focus primarily on producing and preserving these historic German-styles. Read More

5 Stones Brewery | Galaxy Shepherd

On a clear night in the Texas Hill Country, you can look up into the vast unknown and see more stars than you could count in a lifetime. If conditions are right, and you let your eyes adjust to the night skies, you can even see the colors of the Milky Way swirling through the sea of stars. That’s a spectacular sight to see, and 5 Stones Artisan Brewery Galaxy Shepherd Pale Ale is a stellar brew to pair with the occasion.

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The Answer | Heh Heh Heh Hrr Rrr Heh Huh! Rakau! Ha Hrr

The Answer Brew Pub is well-known across the mid-Atlantic for its fruited sours (Joose, anyone?) and phenomenal IPAs, but whoever names their beers is the real superstar here.

You read the title of that beer above right. It’s been double-checked it for you. Can you guess the beer name’s reference?

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What We’re Drinking | April 10, 2020

It’s time to turn off the news, grab your favorite beer and reflect on what you are most grateful for during this very weird time. I hope you are all staying safe and finding creative ways to move through your days. One fun way is to get a local beer-to-go and raise a glass once again as part of the #NationwideCheers going on every Friday promptly at 5 p.m. wherever you happen to be. Here are some great ideas for beers to cheers with from your PorchDrinking team in this week’s What We’re Drinking.

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Deschutes Brewery Unveils Pay it Forward Sixer to Support Local Hospital Workers

While breweries typically serve as an important third space during normal times, they have had to readjust their visions and priorities over the past few months to better reflect our current reality. As breweries continue to adjust their sales strategies towards to-go and delivery purchases, they also continue to find ways to give back to the communities they serve. Deschutes Brewery’s Pay it Forward Sixer program is just one example of this.

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Pink Boots Austin Chapter Cranks Out Record Number of 2020 Collaborations

It seems like so long ago we got together and brewed some beer for the annual Pink Boots Society Collaboration Brew Day. I wanted to publish this article weeks ago, but things were beginning to escalate around the country, and it just didn’t seem like good timing.

Last year, Austin hosted a record number of collaboration brew days, releasing seven collaboration beers in total. For 2020, a full twenty-one breweries signed up to do a collaboration beer, and some of those collaborations have been postponed for a few months. However, several Austin breweries are gearing up to release their collaboration beers, and a few have them available now.

We spoke with Maggie Pace, marketing director at Circle Brewing, Karen Killough, co-founder, Vista Brewing and Libby Brennen, events coordinator at St. Elmo Brewing, about their respective collaborations.

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Left Hand Brewing | Galactic Cowboy

Traveling through the ever evolving galaxy that is craft brewing requires a delicate balance of knowing your roots, but willing to experiment. One of the pioneers of craft beer, Left Hand Brewing of Longmont, Colorado, is not one to rest of their laurels. With recent changes such as launching a CBD infused beverage called Present with WAAYB Organics, modifying the iconic red Left Hand logo and re-designing packaging to include the new logo, announcing a new Denver taproom location, and adding beers to both their regular and NITRO series of beers, you can clearly see that Left Hand is preparing for the next frontier.

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Five Chicagoland Patios for Craft Beer We Can’t Wait to Visit Again

Chicagoans cherish their patios as much as their tavern-style pizza or beef sandwiches. While we’re all staying inside to help flatten the curve and get through this pandemic as safely as possible, I couldn’t help but make a list of the patios I want to visit as soon as it’s safe to do so.

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4 Chicago Routes for Brewery Curbside Pick-Up

As we continue to adapt to the changes that are occurring seemingly everyday, curbside pick-up from your local brewery is the new normal.

Chicagoans are lucky to have so many local breweries to choose from but like the city itself, they’re spread out. So we created four routes to help you visit as many breweries as possible that’re doing curbside pick-up.

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Join Us Every Friday for a #NationwideCheers

Community Beer Company out of Dallas, Texas came up with a brilliant idea. To support your local craft brewery, buy your favorite local beer-to-go (observing all social distancing requirements), open one up on Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. and take a picture or video to post it on social media with the hashtag #NationwideCheers. By doing so, you will not only be supporting your local craft beer industry, you will also be joining a community of your fellow beer lovers with a virtual cheers.

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O’Connor Brewing Company | Proper Lager

It’s always impressive when a brewery breaks away from their most popular beer. For years, O’Connor Brewing Co. was known for its El Guapo, an Agave IPA that you’d find at just about every supermarket and Mexican restaurant. The brewery had some nice beers here and there, but most got overshadowed by El Guapo. O’Connor finally broke through the mold last year when it released Proper Lager, a new flagship Helles-style lager that ranked #4 on Paste’s 102 of the Best Craft Lagers, Blind-Tasted and Ranked. Read More

Ultimate 6er | The Perfect Quarantine Beers

The entire world has recently been shaken to its core by COVID-19, more cordially known as Coronavirus. With many countries under full quarantine while others seek to choose the best option for the citizens of their respected states and countries, one fact remains widely consistent wherever you may live. Many of us are becoming stir-crazy while in quarantine.

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