In today’s Coronavirus Diary, Alesong Brewing’s Matt Van Wyk gives a report from Lane County, which has been open more than a month. In that time, he’s observed behaviors of both two- and four-legged beasts.
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We celebrate the independents because they are the keepers of all those qualities we cherish as drinkers: they maintain tradition, but they also experiment with ingredients, techniques, and styles to push evolution forward.
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In this diary, Old Town Brewing’s Adam Milne describes the unique difficulties that his restaurant-first brewery faces in a time when government funds have run out and customers have abandoned downtown.
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In today’s diary, Gigantic’s Van Havig offers an incredibly heartfelt post on the social nature of brewing, how it feels wonderful to be open again, and how he’s scared to death.
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This annual list began as a way of giving visitors to Portland a place to land when they were searching for breweries to visit. This year, when visitors are absent, it's more like an appeal to preserve our best and brightest.
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George Floyd was killed a month ago today. In the aftermath of his death, many companies are trying to figure out how to respond.
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Now, of course, amber and brown ales are rare—blonds proliferate. This seems barely worth mentioning, since it mirrors the trends everywhere else, but consider this: The radicals at the forefront of this evolution in Belgium were Trappist monks. In particular, the ones brewing at Westmalle.
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For the past decade, the release of a new IPA contains within it the hint of promise: this is something you’ve never encountered before; it may blow your mind. But the release of two highly promising new IPAs raises a different specter: have we reached terminal IPA?
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Few things are as fun and enlightening as being confronted by unmarked glasses of beer and only your senses to tell you what’s inside.
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We’re bumping along toward a future we can’t predict in the middle of an angry fight over which road to take. I keep waiting for the picture to clear so we at least understand what needs to be done, but it just keeps getting muddier.
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How did the Pacific Northwest develop such a robust brewing scene so early? How was it practically born with a taste for hops? And where was the first craft-era IPA brewed? The answers all lead to Yakima and one of the great characters in craft brewing.
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A video clip of John Keeling discussing Fuller’s Vintage Ale—a lost fragment discovered this morning.
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Over the weekend, protests broke out across America, ostensibly over the murder of George Floyd. But amid a collapsing economy and growing death toll, there’s so much to protest.
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At Brouwerij t’Verzet, the young men may look like craft brewers, but they’re not interested in “innovation.” Here in West Flanders they plan a kind of restoration—making oud bruin, the regional specialty, a beer as broadly available as it was in the 1970s and ‘80s.
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Some brewers call their dry-hopped lagers “Italian pilsners,” but there’s more to it than that. Let’s check in with Agostino Arioli, the man who invented the style at Birrificio Italiano.
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In places that are reopening, tensions abound. “I know some folks who aren’t willing to wear masks have the cavalier attitude: ‘well, I’m not worried about getting sick.’ And that’s fine, but I’m worried about me and my staff, so I’ll keep this mask on and sanitize your picnic table when you leave!”
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Among the unloved styles, which is the most unloved? And for those of you who love them anyway, is there hope?
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Pilsner Urquell’s ubiquity obscures its importance—and also its general weirdness. Yet this is easily the most influential beer ever made, and one with a history deeply scarred by the darkness of empire and war. It is also, for those who taste carefully, a totally bizarre beer that is quite different from those it inspired.
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Last Thursday afternoon, Oregon Governor Kate Brown gave the green light for counties in Oregon to reopen businesses in most of the state. Below are accounts from a few breweries about the decisions they made about reopening and why they chose their present course.
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