Experience this beer fest just once, and you’ll become a regular. With a mix of local, national, and international breweries, combined with educational seminars, and hearty local fare, All About Beer Magazine’s World Beer Festivals are among the country’s premiere beer events. Currently held in four cities—Cleveland, OH, Columbia, SC, Durham, NC, and Raleigh, NC—the... View Article
Editor’s Note: The following tasting notes are from a 2013 vertical tasting of the Stone Vertical Epic series at the home of Tom and Susan Brown in San Diego. The Browns were joined by a few of their friends and Stone’s research and small batch director Steve Gonzalez. Read more about this tasting and the history... View Article
They called it the Ghost Whale tasting. A gathering of the world’s foremost beer hunters. It was to be the tasting to end all tastings, the one that all others are judged against. Big words, big statements, but these guys had what it took to put it together: deep pockets, strong connections and an almost... View Article
The draft selection at one Bend, OR, shop is just what the locals in this beer-savvy town have come to expect: Boneyard’s Hop Venom, GoodLife’s Evil Sister and Southern Tier IPA, among dozens of labels on tap that frequently rotate. While such selections are common at bottle shops and bars, these particular pints and growler... View Article
A brewpub was always in the cards for Jeremy Tofte. The dream of opening one led him to sell off his thriving Jackson, WY, restaurant, Thai Me Up, to the highest bidder (literally, the transaction occurred via online auction site eBay) and use the proceeds to move to New Zealand to forge his ambition into brick,... View Article
Bottle openers, for most of us, tend to be taken for granted until those times when we don’t have one. (You’ll think of this the next time you’re opening a bottle on the edge of a stump, or—please don’t—considering using your teeth.) But our choice of bottle-popping tools also says a little something about us.... View Article
It all begins with a name. A word or series of words, strung together, capturing an essence, a spirit. Telling the world who you are and what you’re all about. Maybe inspiration strikes in a flash. Or maybe it takes months of mental calisthenics. In the end, it’s perfect. Until the letter arrives or the... View Article
Ever since the McMenamins chain of brewpubs opened its first location, Barley Mill Pub in Portland, OR, in 1983, brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin have embraced art. For a time, the McMenamins even referred to their brewers, themselves, as artists. Not counting these brewer artists, McMenamins currently employs three full-time artists and several others on... View Article
Fifty-six American breweries began operating in 1988. By necessity, 55 of them started small. That they all started 25 years ago was mostly coincidence. Noteworthy breweries opened in pretty much every one of the years before and after. But ultimately, as Goose Island Beer Co. founder John Hall put it, “It was a special year.”... View Article
