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.
Read MoreAn international effort to raise money to help Ukrainians during the Russian invasion. One component is an auction—including a hardcover, signed Beer Bible. Click through to bid!
Read MoreMany American breweries make sixty beers a year. Rochefort hasn’t offered a single new release in sixty years. Because monks don’t do anything without considering the long view, the abbey also built a new brewery to handle the increased production.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreA chance discovery of an old homebrew book takes me back to 1971. Man, things were bleak.
Read MorePortland’s Von Ebert pulled off the singular trick of winning gold at both the GABF and Oregon Beer Awards for Volatile Substance, their IPA. A year earlier, their IPA Nothing Noble took bronze at GABF. It was high time I spent some time at the brewery to figure out their secrets.
Read MoreA few hours apart, longtime stalwart Hair of the Dog and relative newcomer Modern Times announced they would close the respective breweries that sat a quarter mile apart in industrial Southeast Portland.
Read MoreIn the 1990s, American brewers discovered Belgian beer and developed a new consciousness around yeast. A similar process went into overdrive a decade later with hops. Malts remain sadly under the radar. But with dozens of small malthouses popping up, are we due for an era of malt consciousness?
Read MoreBud Clark died last week. He was one of Portland's most popular mayors, and sneakily famous for his “Expose Yourself to Art” fundraiser. In a city famous for beer, however, the old publican was also the city's most iconic figure.
Read MoreCulture 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.
Read MoreSeltzer is made with buckets of highly processed “natural” flavor, which doesn’t seem very crafted. But that same flavor is used in some beer—does that mean it’s not crafted, either?
Read MoreThe Hop Growers of America have issued their final, official report on the 2021 harvest, and it contains a number of intriguing details.
Read MoreHere are two beer reviews, one written by a human at BeerAdvocate and one by AI software. Can you tell the difference? Whether you can or not, this is an unnerving demonstration for those of us who write for a living.
Read MoreDuring an annual deep clean, I surfaced a small cache of personal memories.
Read MoreConsolidation among craft brewers happens so often most people just shrug at the announcement of a new acquisition. One small brewer explains why you should care.
Read MoreFor the most successful of craft breweries, “independence” is increasingly a losing proposition.
Read MoreWe have a guest for the first event! I’ve got further updates and logistics to report as well. If you haven’t signed up yet, now’s a good time!
Read MoreMonster Beverage announced the purchase of Canarchy today, a collective composed of the breweries Cigar City, Oskar Blues, Deep Ellum, Perrin, Squatters, and Wasatch. The deal was valued at $330 million.
Read MoreSo we bid adieu not just to Saint Archer, but the over-exuberance of an era that thought a buying such a brewery was a good bet. I don’t expect to see Molson Coors buying another small, two-year-old brewery founded by a bunch of surfers anytime soon.
Read MoreMedia in general has gone through a massive transition in the past decade with the rise of social media, the death of magazines, the arrival of podcasting, and, lately, a sort-of return to blogging in the form of email newsletters. But if you think blogs have no place in today’s media, you couldn’t be more wrong.
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