A quintuple IPA arrived in my mailbox and promised to answer a question I’ve long wondered about: is there a point of diminishing return on IPAs, where hop intensity can no longer increase with the strength of a beer? The answer lay within.
Read MoreAs the pandemic launches into its fifth and potentially most-virulent wave, politicians are stepping back. Private retail businesses are left to make decisions about how to police their customers, and the fallout might last years. It’s a bad situation.
Read MorePliny was a bright light in the fog. Despite its hurricane of flavors, it was more focused, refined, and elegant than other IPAs of the day. With the benefit of time, we can see that it reset expectations about what was possible, pointing to the future we now inhabit.
Read MoreWorkman Publishing is being sold. The Publisher of The Beer Bible also owns Storey, an imprint with a number of excellent beer titles. It’s probably not good news.
Read MoreFor people like me devoted to the culture, craft, and history of good beer, mass market products are like clouds passing through a blue sky. Once the new products were dry beer and wine coolers and now they’re alcoholic sodas and seltzers. They will be passing overhead forever because people like them.
Read MoreOf all the interesting stuff that has appeared at this site over the past 15 years, nothing was more important than the forty-odd posts from brewers and one cidermaker that constitute the Coronavirus Diaries series that ran on the site from March 2020 to this May. They’re now available as a book.
Read MoreMolson 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.
Read MoreThree months ago, we were all excited to be entering a time when life could go back to something approaching normal following 15 months of a pandemic. But now cases are spiking again, and it’s time to take drastic action to prevent a return to shutdowns and death.
Read MoreThis annual list began as a way of giving visitors to Portland a place to land when they were searching for breweries to visit. It includes the best breweries working in a number of different styles, so any beer fan will find at least one or two recommendations for breweries they’ll love.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreMuch-anticipated Steeplejack Brewing opened to the public in Northeast Portland yesterday, becoming in an instant the most impressive place to drink a pint of beer in the city. Here are my first impressions of the space and the beer, along with a photo essay of the remarkable spaces.
Read MoreBoston Beer overestimated growth for its Truly brand of hard seltzers and is getting roasted in today’s business sections. But are the writers declaring the “hard seltzer craze has come to an end” right? Is hard seltzer really dead?
Read MorePortland has so many breweries that many get lost in in the scrum. Yet while they may not be as buzzy as Great Notion or Breakside, some of these lesser-known breweries have a lot to celebrate. Here are seven of the best underrated breweries you should check out.
Read MoreIn a shocking expose of regional weirdness, Kate Bernot reveals that Montanans love love love Scotch ale. Can this be so? And if it be so, what weirdness lurks elsewhere?
Read MoreEvery 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.
Read MoreAs my perambulations take me around the beautiful sort-of post-Covid City of Roses, I have been finding a number of great beers to try. Today we have a look at stouts at Assembly, hoppy wild ales at Little Beast, and cask summer ales at Upright.
Read MoreWe love good beer, finding good beer, talking about good beer. But identifying what that “good” is in beer—that’s a lot harder. Truly great beers are defined by subjective, often subtle elements of a beer. Yet they aren’t unknowable. Here’s a proposal for how to identify them.
Read MoreLet’s spend a moment celebrating the unusual, quirky, and visionary breweries that drive beer culture.
Read MoreA vignette that illustrates how the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Read MorepFriem recognizes the importance of educating their customers, particularly about unusual styles of beer like lambic. I’m happy to have helped with the current series of videos that describe what they’re supposed to taste like, how they’re made, and the foods they complement.
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