Americans are increasingly aware of kveik yeast, which comes from the Western fjords of Norway. Too few are aware of the surviving tradition that preserved those yeasts, or how it’s so much more than just about brewing. I hope my description, along with a short film, offer more context.
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Standing in front of the taplist at Brygg in Oslo, you might mistake it for a pub in Ohio. After a few days in Norway, one brewery tour, and three sessions at the Oslo Craft Beer Festival, I can tell you we’re not in Ohio anymore.
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Ukrainian writer Lana Svitankova recently brought a Ukrainian specialty to the world’s attention: a strong, sweet golden ale that has become popular in recent years. She’s hoping it will receive international recognition—and it should!—but it really doesn’t need it so long as locals drink up.
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With one exception, Portland has long been one of the best places in the world for any type of beer you’d happen to fancy. The lacuna has always been cask ale, somewhat curious given that the craft era began with British styles. Now, after forty years, something has changed—cask is surging.
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A Lviv brewery shifted production from beer to Molotov cocktails over the weekend, as columns of Russian soldiers marched toward Ukraine’s cities. War, in an instant, changes everything.
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Culture is often something observed in small gestures or when no one is looking. Here are a few observation from my visit to Dublin in 2016.
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“I love these beers and this tradition,” Ben told me (I didn’t take notes and I’m paraphrasing.) “But it feels a bit strange to be making a perfect recreation of a German beer. I wonder what an American lager would look like if we developed a tradition as rich as Franconia’s.”
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I was pleased to see his eyebrows shoot up during his first sip, and I caught him murmur “this is good” as he placed the glass back on the bar.
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I spent more than a month on the road, passing through several regions in the US, including stops at something like 44 breweries. Here are some notes on what I found in common in the US, and how regions differed.
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Writers and brewers have identified most of the useful frameworks we use to understand beer. An important one, often hinted at but never fully explored, is national tradition. It’s never been more important to understand, though—especially now amid the birth of the American tradition.
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The 20-stop national Beer Bible book tour begins on Sept 23, and we’ve planned events every beer fan will enjoy. Have a look at the schedule and save the date.
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We now accept the fairly rigid classification of beer styles offered by groups like the GABF and Cicerone program. Where did they come from, and who decided how they should be organized? The short answer is Michael Jackson, but the longer answer is more intriguing.
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Molson Coors announced it was ceasing production of a bunch of minor brands it owned, including one that hurts Oregonians’ hearts: Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve. It was a beer that helped make the city Beervana, but also a remnant of a dying era.
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In the latest article in the Sightglass Series, I’ve spoken to a number of women in the beer industry to highlight how their creative expressions have changed the way we make, market, write about, and of course, drink beer. It’s a process entirely of addition, and we are all the beneficiaries of their work.
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Every beer contains a whiff of history. Traditional Berliner weisse, which went extinct in the mid-aughts before enjoying a revival years later, contains more than a whiff. Yesterday, at Portland’s Zoiglhaus brewery, I sampled both the ghost and its reincarnation.
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In the final post of Teri Fahrendorf’s remarkable career, we hear how she created the Pink Boots Society, the nonprofit that has given thousands of women support and connections in their professional lives.
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In the second of three posts about pioneering brewer Teri Fahrendorf’s remarkable career, we hear how it was to enter the brewing world in the late 1980s, and how she built Steelhead into a regional chain.
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With her sterling career as a professional brewer and groundbreaking work in bringing women into the industry through the Pink Boots Society, no American has had a greater impact on brewing than Teri Fahrendorf. Here’s part one of her oral history.
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In the last two weeks we have learned about the crisis of sexism in beer. Today I repost one of four pieces on the subject from 2014. The stories are at turns illuminating, painful, and harrowing, and with each story reveal what it's like to be a woman working in the beer industry.
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A brave woman in Massachusetts exposed an enormous amount of sexual misconduct in the industry last week, including accusations of a high profile OR/WA brewery. That plus a personal note.
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