Today, we live in an automated society with debit cards, movies on demand and smart phones bringing things instantly to our fingertips. Everywhere we turn, automation has made our work less manual and more efficient. Today, fewer things are truly handcrafted than ever before.
Portland brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin have built themselves a modest empire of wondrous proportions. They operate some 56 (mostly historic) establishments. They include about 23 breweries and brewpubs, a vineyard, a really good winery and two excellent distilleries (one—Cornelius Pass—built in a barn, using age-old, traditional construction and distillation techniques). There is even a... View Article
All About Beer: With no professional experience and brewing for a brand new brewery in a city renowned for its beer culture, were you intimidated when you first started? Yeah, absolutely. For months I had a huge amount of anxiety. I was confident that I could make good beer, but I wanted to enter the... View Article
All About Beer: The words “environmentally and socially-conscious” appear first in a list of attributes that describe your company. Where did that commitment start? Pat Conway: It’s been an evolution. My brother Dan and I almost immediately had a recycling effort at the brewery back 24 years ago. Now we have the three waves in... View Article
It is Tuesday night in my neighborhood and a chance to procrastinate penning this piece. My neighbor Peter has hosted darts in his garage for the last 15 years, featuring a rotating cast of characters. The place is cool, everyone brings his own beers, good music, people don’t take themselves too seriously, my dog is... View Article
Presiding wedding official (curiously dressed in brewer’s boots and jeans): “Dearly Beloved Beer Lovers. We are gathered here today to join a beautiful barrel with this amazing amber ale. Do you Quercus alba take this heaven-sent Firestone Walker Ale to have and to hold, in sickness and in health?”
It was the first of a lot of things: my first trip to Chicago, my first chance to see Wrigley Field. It was the first time I had beers with author Michael Jackson; it was my first authentic deep-dish pizza and late-night Chicago Red Hot. But most importantly, it was my first taste of bourbon... View Article
In the old days, not the long-gone old days, but the recent old days, when craft brewing was new, I made an interesting discovery. I noticed that when I visited Seattle and sampled Oregon craft beers on draft, they didn’t seem to taste as good. I concluded that they did not travel well, hence the... View Article
Big Boss has been through a lot of incarnations, hasn’t it? It was Tom Cat, which became Pale Ale (it was really owned by the same people), then it became Rock Creek, and that’s when I became involved. Rock Creek became Chesapeake Bay for a very short time and nearly went under. We came back... View Article
