Of all the choices available when a customer walks into a bar or brewery, one receives a steady amount of attention: IPAs. Maybe because “hoppy” can be a catch-all term that easily points toward particular flavor profiles or, as IPA accounts for about a third of “craft”-defined dollar sales, the piney, tropical or juicy flavors... View Article
Trend spotting in the city of Portland, OR, is tricky business. The most enduringly popular beers, as they are up and down the Pacific coast, are hoppy ales. Breweries and bars make sure there are always several choices at hand for the legions of hop heads who have come to populate the left bank. But... View Article
Celebration Ale, which has been in production since 1981 and in its current form since 1983, is an enigma of a beer. It’s a holiday beer, so consumers might expect it to have the standard spices—nutmeg, cinnamon—but instead will find hop aromas and bitterness akin to an IPA. Since 2010, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. has... View Article
For America’s brewers, the hop harvest is like Christmas. From about mid-August until the end of September, hops—the female cones of the plant Humulus lupulus that contribute to a beer’s aroma, flavor and bitterness—are picked, dried and baled or made into pellets and safely stored for breweries to use in the following months and years.... View Article
For the beer adventurer, there is nothing quite as exciting as the world of lambics. These exotic beers earned a pedigree by virtue of their long-perfected artisanal brewing techniques. The romance, however, doesn’t end with the finished product. Following the trail of lambics, you will inevitably end up at a classic café where the art of... View Article
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
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
At Hawthorne Hophouse in Portland, OR, patrons can order whatever’s new from several nearby breweries, perhaps discovering they love peppery saisons or tart krieks. But the 24 taps don’t end there, as there are fermentations from producers around the Northwest, all vying to create beverages locals might like. And locals like hops. So a dry-hopped... View Article
