The small town of Bend, Oregon produces about a third of all the beer made in the state and has a remarkable two dozen breweries. But there’s more to assessing a town’s heft than counting mash tuns. Bend is one of the few places that has developed a unique culture and is a fascinating case study.

One of the newer breweries in Portland features accomplished, balanced, and delicious barrel-aged saisons and fruited ales. But while the brewery may be new, co-founder Chuck Porter is an old hand with these beers, and it shows.

McSorley’s Old Ale House has aged so little in its 165 years that it functions as a time machine for New Yorkers. And those who stop in for a visit.

When breweries take up cider, they often make a hash of the new craft, treating it as a feat of engineering in order to produce something sweet and fizzy. One brewery in Hood River is taking cider seriously, And the early results are most promising.  

Earlier this year, Higgins Restaurant turned 25. Owner Greg Higgins is widely credited with ushering in Oregon’s farm-to-table movement and turning Portland into an A-list destination. But Higgins gets less credit for his other transformation: establishing beer’s credibility as a gastronomic equal to wine on the city’s finest tables.

Bill Coors was an important and unusually successful corporate titan; he was also a plutocrat who sought absolute control over his workers and whose toxic racial politics sparked decades-long boycotts.

When it was founded back in 1997, Ommegang was one of the most unusual breweries in America. In some ways, it is today even more unusual. In a hop-crazy country, Ommegang favors yeast character; in a time when hyper-local is hot, the brewery looks to Belgium. Let us consider its unusual ways.

In the final installment on my report about Guinness’s new $80 million Baltimore brewery, I look at the brewers and their approach in creating “American Guinness”—and how reproducing the way beer used to be made at St. James Gate might point one path to the future.

Five years ago, Bellingham, Washington was a decided laggard among impressive beer cities. Ten new breweries have opened since then, and several are quite impressive. If you find yourself in town, here are three you can’t miss. 

Kona Beer is a brand in a larger company's portfolio, and is brewed in large quantities at the Widmer Brewery. The beer consumed on the island is brewed there, at the original 25-barrel brewpub in Kona, though, and it turns out that brewing beer in a state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 miles from the nearest hop field, is a fascinating challenge.

Tom Cook has ended the franchise he had with Fat Head's Brewery so that his brewpub in the Pearl can be reborn as Von Ebert. But it's not just a simple reboot; Cook has very aggressive plans to make it an "all-around, world-class brewery." Can such a thing be engineered?

Late last year, Pabst Brewing, which owns the Ballantine brand, decided to do another recreation--this time of what we might call the original whale, Ballantine Burton Ale. It follows the brewery's recreation of Ballantine IPA and, like that beer, is a careful evocation of one of America's legendary beers.

A report on day two and breweries 5-8 in our lightning tour of Seattle breweries. Reuben's was the day's focal point, but we also popped into Old Stove and an Elysian outpost. My report, plus a comment on where Seattle stands now.

"Gluten-free" brewing is a niche in the brewing world that our modern minds place into a special, denigrated category: beer with some essential part of the beer removed. But this really is a modern view. By sixteenth-century standards, these ingredients would have been entirely normal.