Since the first style medals were awarded in 1987 (from the inaugural Great American Beer Festival in 1982 through 1986, awards were decided by popular vote rather than professional judging), the number of styles has exploded nearly sixfold. The Brewers Association (BA), the Boulder, CO-based trade group that runs the festival, may tweak one or... View Article
It was a week out and I was scrambling to assemble a bottle hoard to disburse as I toured the breweries of Germany and the Czech Republic. Double Mountain Brewery had just begun bottling its beers, and I shot an email to Charlie Devereux about acquiring one of the brewery’s most popular brands. He was... View Article
Sorting through the evolution and chronology of beer styles can be an interesting, if somewhat muddled, trip. Seldom do things travel along an uncluttered, linear path. Instead, the interwoven events tend to resemble a Venn diagram. Politics, agriculture, tradition and even serendipity figure into the equation. Many styles are fairly recent designations for brews hundreds... View Article
Back in early days of North American craft brewing, there was one thing you could be pretty much certain of if you were to order a glass of golden ale: It would be boring. Oh sure, there was variety to be found in the thinly defined golden ale category even then. There were, for instance,... View Article
Once again, the fall seasonals have come and gone. Pumpkin and fresh hop ales, both of which fit the bill of “harvest” beers, have recently become eagerly anticipated offerings for many. But it is the venerable Märzen/Oktoberfest genre that has served autumnal revelers for centuries. Märzen, the historical designation, was made in the waning cool... View Article
Could the next big thing in beer actually be whiskey? We are not talking about the use of former bourbon barrels for aging beer. That trend is well-established. We mean the real 90-proof variety. Some think that breweries might just propel the craft spirits sector—and whiskey in particular—through the roof. According to the Brewers Association,... View Article
The familiar tale of IPA is simple enough: Pale, hoppy beer is ingeniously invented by the Brits specifically to weather the voyage east to sate the troops and expatriates in India. In truth, IPA was neither novel nor necessary, but opportunistic marketing of existing 18th-century ale, refined further through good fortune, then widely popularized back... View Article
Porter in all its forms may be one of the more misunderstood and underappreciated of all beer styles. Common porter was the dominant brew on the planet during the cusp of the 18th and 19th centuries, bringing rock-star fortunes to the beer barons of London and great beer to a global clientele. Porter was sent... View Article
California earned its place on the world wine stage at the Judgment of Paris in 1976 when, in a blind tasting, French judges selected both a Californian white and a red over wines from their country. Not only was this a major hit to the French psyche, it also signaled to the world that Americans... View Article
