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Notes about the latest episode of One Iconic Beer, plus a program note or two from the road in Philadelphia.
The Brewers Association has their annual year-end numbers out for 2025 and as expected, it’s a bit grim. Yet within the overall dark picture, there are a few fascinating trends and details, and I have ‘em all for you.
Pop quiz: which state has more expensive beer, Wisconsin, Colorado, or Texas? The folks at Toast have some numbers out this week, and they’re quite interesting.
With ten varieties released in the past year, hop breeding enters its most prolific era. Three trends define the hop industry: commercial consolidation, the arrival of small players, and the overall decline in acreage. Let’s look at the new varieties and where things stand today.
We are about to go through a massive, society-wide disruption I don’t think most people see coming. It has to do with the written word, not beer, but as a practitioner of the former, I have a few thoughts.
Last night, the Oregon Beer Awards were handed out in a joyful celebration. A few notes on some of the winners, and how the mood of the night may suggest a transition in the beer industry.
Increasingly, states are hosting their own beer competitions, and the way they organize them tells us a lot about what kinds of beers people are actually drinking. And here’s a cool thing: we can discern regional preferences in them.
Celebrate Oregon Beer is looking for some volunteers — and all you have to do is visit breweries to help. What could be easier? We’re also looking for an Oregon-based podcaster.
Exactly ten years ago, I predicted where beer would be in 2026. Well, how did I do?
Where naming is concerned, meeting customers where they are seems like sensible advice. Describing your beer as a black lager will appeal to more people than “schwarzbier” would. There are limits to this advice, however.
What is the main driver of the way a base malt tastes, the barley variety or the malting process? In a long-overdue part two on my series on malting, we learn the answer.
I am very excited to announce the launch of a new podcast: “One Iconic Beer.” It will land in your favorite email service on Monday, and in the meantime, here’s an introduction about what it’s about.
A quote from a founding-era craft brewer about why he started his brewery got me thinking. Maybe less romance would be a helpful way to think about it.
In the final post celebrating this blog’s 20th anniversary, I revel in the weirdest stories, happenings, and trends of the past two decades. There were a lot of them!
BrewDog has been sold, and for the astounding, low, low price of $40 million. Once again, Tilray was the buyer. Increasingly beer industry’s buyer of last resort, the erstwhile cannabis company now owns 15 breweries, most bought on the cheap.
This blog turns 20 years old today—almost old enough to drink legally! I reflect on what an immense presence it has had in my life.
On Thursday, I’ll be telling the very interesting story about American beer culture in a webinar for WSET. It’s a multigenerational epic and describes the birth of a new national brewing tradition—the first we’ve seen in nearly 200 years. Details herein.
Collectives aren’t a new thing in the beer industry, but they usually involve larger breweries. Two newly-born collectives show how it might be even more valuable for smaller players.
In the first celebratory post of my 20 years blogging, I offer a list of the 17 most transformational developments in beer in the past two decades. Which items made the list: Glitter beer? Brut IPA? The vortex bottle? I offer the definitive list.
Czech breweries understand that we drink not just with our tongues and noses, but our eyes, too. They prize presentation, and three interlocking elements make their beers the prettiest in the world.
Over the past year, pFriem Family Brewers and Rahr Malting have been working on a pilsner malt specifically suited for a brewery making full-flavored lagers and lean IPAs. It could serve as a model for craft breweries and maltsters going forward.
Recent research and analysis reveals the way young adults are using AI to avoid scary social encounters. What effect is this going to have on pubs?
Today, grassroots organizers have called for a national strike in the US, asking businesses to close, and people to stay home from school or work. Breweries are using the event to speak out, with surprising force and transparency.
Brewery acquisitions rarely warrant celebration. But the news that Schneider, the famous Bavarian weissbier brewery, had acquired a nearby monastery brewery with a thousand-year brewing lineage, was certainly one of them
Columbia Distributing announced it has acquired Portland’s Point Blank, a distributor founded in 2003 to serve the metro area’s craft breweries.
The Michael James Jackson Foundation recently awarded scholarships to seven working brewers and distillers. Two of them are brewing in Oregon, and here’s their stories.
Some exciting announcements and updates as the new year begins, including a new podcast, a free webinar, and an important milestone.
In the event, it’s a can of Hamm’s and something water-clear that smells of grain alcohol. (Which turned out to be a kamikaze.) Mark ordered one each for the three of us to sample on our little ethnographic exploration. Tab: $12. For all three.