In pop music, when a bunch of famous musicians coalesce into a new band, it's called a "super group." Next Wednesday, a super group of brewers will be jamming at Laurelwood with the brewpub's executive chef, Aaron Nichols (6:30-9:30, at the main brewpub on Sandy). The brewers are Laurelwood's new man Vasilios Gletsos (drums

All right, sports fans, let's go to the tale of the tape. In the blue corner, I give you the dynasty of the aughts, the golden boy quarterback, the irascible coach everyone hates to love--the New England Patriots!* They hail from the Bay State, famous for tea parties and baked beans. They like their clam chowder creamy a

This is a bit of an oddity, but I thought you might appreciate it. I was reviewing the recording I made at Brasserie Dupont and found this little nugget I'd forgotten about. It is one of the dozens of examples I heard on my trip of a tiny little observation a brewery had made that affected their beer. The more you think

Two days back (really three, since we trail England by a day already), British writer and blogger Melissa Cole sparked multinational debate about which country's breweries were more open, the US or Britain. In one corner, BrewDog's James Watt, author of the hypothesis. In the other, Melissa and the rest of Britain. She

Fascinating developments. First, Yeager with the good news:For the last five years, much-decorated Belgian brewmaster

Some detritus that has managed to get caught my memory's holey filter.1. The economics of Sierra Nevada's new brewery, viz. the proximity-concentration trade-off:

Yesterday the Beer Nut wrote in comments: "Spare a thought for all the styles that didn't make it." I did a

Things are about to get meager around here. I woke up on Monday and it occurred to me that I have a May deadline coming up. That may sound like a long ways off, but I have to write as much between now and then as I have between now and last May. Yikes. So you'll probably get stuff like this...I was listening

The definitions are in. West Coast IPAs are:1) no caramel malts 2) unbalanced (really, no desire to be balanced), leaning heavily toward hops, both of these contributing to 3) a drier ipa than non-wcipa

BridgePort's new beer is called Dark Rain. It is a hoppy brown ale or, in the fashion of the day, a black pale ale. But let us not dwell overlong on the terrible collapse of the English language.Instead, let's consider the beer, which is actually damned nice.

Leaving aside the debate about who brewed it first--and I very much want to leave that debate aside--a more salient question arises: what the hell is a West-Coast IPA? If that which-is-first debate shed any light, it was, I think, on the insubstantiality of this "style." There is India Pale Ale. Even an anti-style guy lik

I called out Greg Koch, founder and impresario at Stone Brewing, last week over historical comments he made in a video over at the New School

I promise not to keep inundating you with commentary about this

Yesterday, Ezra posted the first part of an interview he did with Stone Brewing's Greg Koch--the irrepressible, irreverent face for the rock n roll side of craft brewing. Many people have voiced criticisms of Greg because

Okay, I have now completed my survey of non-lambic beers produced in mid-19th century Belgium. The tour guide was one G. Lacambre, a man in possession of prejudices but lacking an ed

The big news today is that Wikipedia's down, and I suspect 93% of the country is largely mystified about why the titans of Silicon Valley are battling the titans of Hollywood over obscure copyright law. The truth is, we all have a dog in the fight. The thumbnail background is this: to combat foreign copyright infringement

I have now left the island of Great Britain, traveled across the English Channel and found myself in 19th century Belgium--metaphorically, at least. After several months reading the past practices of British breweries, it is phantasmagoric to dive into the Belgian archive. The old British brewed more or less like the curr

I'm finally getting to my recordings of Belgian breweries. Last night, I transcribed portions of my visit to Cantillon--the first brewery I visited in Belgium. The next day I toured Brouwerij Boon and got a totally different presentation (more on that later, probably). Frank Boon is the consummate scientist--to the exten

One of the things I'd like to do in The Beer Bible (the Beer Bible--even I don't know) is give a verbal tour of certain breweries that offer insight into a country or style of brewing. For those of us who have had the opportunity to go on actual tours, it's wonderfully educational--I thought it mi

In an annual rite, brewers at Full Sail opened the barrels of aging Top Sail Imperial Porter yesterday. The beer had been gestating for a year (four days shy, actually, if you're a stickler for precision) in those barrels, and what came out was not only different from what went in--but different from what was in the next b

This is a rather remarkable statement from a brewery:We know Punk IPA have been a little inconsistent of late. Here is why and here is what we are going to do about it.However before we get onto that, 2012

How early did the idea of pitching brettanomyces occur to someone? Almost instantly:

Have you ever considered a thing so long that you came back to where you started from the other side, thinking maybe you had it all wrong in the first place? I've been thinking. The topic remains Scotch ale, a style that seems pretty clearly

Once, very early in my homebrewing career, I tried to brew an imperial stout. Unfortunately, the recipe included too little dark malts and what I got looked like iced tea. Consulting Jackson, I concluded that I had brewed an Old Ale. Thus was I introduced to the style.The designation "old ale" is itchin' for

The video's quite rough, and you may have to put your ear next to the speaker to hear some of the conversation--but still, it is rather rare footage of an almost-extinct profession.Of course, at one time, every brewery had a team of coopers on hand to make vats and casks. I haven't made enough of a

Last week, Brian Boe, executive director of Oregonians for Sound Economic Policy, wrote a very nice piece on the Oregon Liquor Control Commission in the Oregonian. In my periodic imprecations agai

I've been thinking a lot about Scottish ales over the past week or two. Like everyone else who's ever written a book about beer, I had a chapter planned on Scottish ales. But when I went to Scotland, I was mystified to find very little in the way of the beers we so often describe as "Scottish." For example, Google the st

A post over at the New School jogged my memory about one final year-end post I had in mind. It was written by Breakside's Ben Edmunds, and he was discussing the various exotic ingredients he tossed into beers.

On this New Year's Day (observed), I retreat to concerns of a lower order. Man can not live on beer talk alone--he must occasionally satisfy his baser urges. So as my Wisconsin Badgers gear up for what I fear will be a shellacking by the flashy Oregon Nikes Ducks, I will take this day to stop and reflect

Be safe tonight--