In the forthcoming issue of All About Beer Magazine, I discuss Brouwerij Westmalle’s Tripel, one of the most important beers in the Belgian canon, in my Classic Beer column. Until that beer came along in the 1930s, amber and brown beers were the overwhelming norm in Belgian brewing. (There was another early blond, Witkap Pater,... View Article
My wife’s family is scattered across New England, from Wrentham, south of Boston, to Norway in Maine (just a few miles north of Poland Springs, for you mineral water fans). Every couple years, I get to visit for a week around Thanksgiving, and it has allowed me to keep my finger on the pulse of... View Article
The word “innovation” is hugely overused in the beer world, but a recent news story points to some agriculture that really earns the title. Patagonia Provisions (owned by the outdoor clothing company) and Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Oregon, have brewed a beer called Long Root Ale with a novel ingredient: Kernza, a proprietary strain... View Article
In a recent post on “The Drinking Classes,” Jon Urch made the provocative case that IPAs are “doomed.” The most insightful part of his case was this: The modern IPA is so loaded with delicate hop oils it can barely go a few weeks without losing its complex, dank, citrusy aroma – maybe less if it’s... View Article
[Full Disclosure. The following post came as a result of a visit I made to Dublin to the Guinness brewery. The folks at Diageo, Guinness’ parent company, paid for the trip and put me up while I was in Dublin. Guinness is also a sponsor of my personal blog, Beervana.] In the 1970s and ‘80s,... View Article
We may think IPAs have been a big deal for a long time in American brewing, but they didn’t even become the best-selling style in the craft segment until five years ago. That was about the time when breweries started tinkering with the way they make these beers, using more and more hops later and... View Article
In May, Carlsberg flew writers from around the world to Copenhagen to witness the unveiling of a beer made with 133-year-old yeast. One of the reasons I took Carlsberg up on the offer, aside from the fact that they were paying for everything, was because it gave me a chance to explore this “new... View Article
Last Saturday, the world learned of a troubling schism in Colorado: 14 of the state’s breweries, including the five largest not located in Golden, quit the Colorado Brewers Guild to form their own rival organization. This is only the latest development in a quickly-fracturing craft brewing community that until a couple years ago could plausibly... View Article
[Full Disclosure. The following post came as a result of a visit I made to Dublin to the Guinness brewery. The folks at Diageo, Guinness’ parent company, paid for the trip and put me up while I was in Dublin. Guinness is also a sponsor of my personal blog, Beervana.] If you walk into any decent... View Article
