Walk into a good multi-tap bar these days or, especially, a good beer retail store, and Belgium rules. A beer lover shopping for new flavors is confronted with bewildering choices: bottles that are corked and wired in the manner of champagne, beers that claim religious connections and others with fruit incongruously depicted. The labels, written... View Article
So you’re at your local beer store, looking to purchase some of the fine Belgian brews you’ve been hearing so much about. How do you really know what you are getting? Three categories of breweries—family brewers, lambic brewers, and Trappist breweries—are sufficiently under threat from more commercial entities that they have established associations to certify... View Article
Poland has a cruel nickname: “The country on wheels.” For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was ruled by Austro-Hungary, Russia and Germany, and then became a satrapy of the Soviet Union for 50 grim years. Its modern borders bear little relation to the ones it enjoyed a century and a half ago.... View Article
In a world of refined and sophisticated beercraft, the most cutting-edge beers today may also be the most reckless. They shun laboratory yeast strains. They scoff at sanitation. They are ancient, magical and funky—almost mythological. They are known as wild ales.
Walking into the brewery at the Glacier Brewhouse in Anchorage, AK, you might think you were in a wine cellar instead. There in one alcove is head brewer Kevin Burton’s “wall of wood”—an impressive row of about 50 oak barrels, all filled with beer. “Everything goes in the barrel,” Burton says, especially his stout, porter,... View Article
If cats have nine lives, then India pale ale can certainly lay claim to two. Its first span was relatively brief, not more than a hundred years. But during that time, this beer style refashioned 19th century brewing, not only in Britain but also on a world scale.
A visit to Burton-on-Trent can still yield delights for the discerning beer drinker. These beers may not fit the American idea of what an IPA should be, but they are all heirs to the tradition and have much to recommend them. Pedigree 4.5% ABV, Marston’s Unlike Coors, which strips the minerals out of its water... View Article
Ask your typical British beer drinker what Burton-on-Trent is famous for, and you might not get the answer you were expecting. They’ll probably frown, think for a second, then say, “Oh yeah, the FA Cup upset last year!”
Try this experiment: Ask 10 of your friends what mead is. You are likely to find most do not know that mead is honeywine. Even fewer are likely to have tried mead. They might think that it is some sort of grog that used to be concocted during medieval times using beer or grape wine.... View Article
