‘Tis the season for folks named Old St. Nick, Rudolph, Frosty and Jack Frost. Contrary to what some people say about Christmas being a way bigger event in America than it is in Europe—and while it’s true that you don’t see nearly as much commercialism splattered in each store aisle, painted on all shop windows... View Article
The annual Copenhagen Beer Celebration parades 40 of the world’s top brewers in front of a limited number of dedicated beer geeks, who are in fact the ones who do the marching from brewer to brewer. The grand marshal is Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, the prominent roving brewer behind Mikkeller, whose brands, it can be said,... View Article
I was born in Los Angeles, but unless you polled only my mom, my absence is hardly felt. Nearly 4 million people call it home, and if you include the suburbs that make up the Greater Los Angeles Metro—and some say that all of LA is just an unceasing smattering of suburbs even though they’re wrong—then... View Article
Drinking locally was great fun and great tasting when I lived in San Francisco. Same for Portland. After all, California and Oregon are synonymous with IPA, so much so they named a sub-category for them—West Coast IPA. The same goes for Cascadian dark ales around the Pacific Northwest. So imagine my surprise, and interminable delight,... View Article
There’s a spot in Portland, OR, called Meat Cheese Bread that serves permutations of said foodstuffs in a delicious assemblage we now call a “sandwich.” (Thank you, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, for the eponym if not the origin.) Tasty food matter with moist, flavorful adhesive betwixt bread slices has become a gustatory sensation... View Article
Louisville, KY: Hot Brown and a BBC Nut Brown Ale. The Brown Hotel (335 W. Broadway) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, giving the notion of hunkering down in the Lobby Bar for a Hot Brown more import. This sandwich, created at the hotel, boasts turkey, bacon and tomato on an open-faced island... View Article
The whole purpose of the American craft brewing revolution was to authenticate once again a beverage that the industrial beer complex had turned into fizzy artifice. Craft beer is beer made real. But that pint of bottled, canned or draft carbonated IPA you’re enjoying or that delectable nitro stout you recently had isn’t Real Ale. ... View Article
Beachgoers go to the beach in the summer. But why let all that spectacular coastal real estate go to waste in the winter? As giant swells overtake the Pacific shoreline, winter storms generate thunderous waves on the sandy, or rocky, coast, providing a free waterworks display courtesy of Mother Nature that no Hollywood director could... View Article
A hundred miles north of Birmingham, there’s a brewery boom occurring in Huntsville. Straight to Ale (3200 Leeman Ferry Road) in the Olde Towne Brewing’s former space, was the first to open a tap room in 2010. Try its Monkeynaut IPA. That same year, Blue Pants Brewery (500 Lanier Road) opened down the road in... View Article
