While I’ll travel something fierce to experience the best or most beautiful, most remote or most weird breweries, it’s less reported that I’m also a sucker for doughnuts. I profiled a veteran doughnut baker before I ever interviewed a brewer. I just produced the fourth Baker’s Dozen Festival in Portland, Oregon, which juxtaposed coffee-infused beers... View Article
Even though I am a globe-trotting beer writer, one of the things I love most is boasting about my hometown’s craft beer scene. Since moving to Atlanta in ’94, I knew it would be a matter of time before the entire state of Georgia embraced the craft beer movement. Though I was initially welcomed by... View Article
Nashville is reveling in its newfound status as “It City,” attracting millions annually to take advantage of its music, art and culinary scene. Tourists plan “eat-ineraries” to visit Music City’s most popular restaurants and sample the iconic hot chicken that will burn the taste buds off your tongue. When it comes to craft beer, Nashville... View Article
For as long as he has worked in beer, Peter Bouckaert has also worked in wood. He spent a decade early in his career at Brewery Rodenbach, a brewery with several cellars filled with large, oak foeders containing sour ales. Later he would grow his own “foeder forest” at New Belgium Brewing Co., where he... View Article
Many breweries have no trouble moving India pale ales. If anything, some breweries have trouble keeping up with production, as crowds line up outside taprooms to purchase limited batches of IPAs as soon as they’re released. It’s a good thing, too, as most agree that IPAs are best consumed fresh, when the hop character is... View Article
The Craft Brewers’ Compendium: An Omnibus of Brewing Materials By Ted Bruning and Don Burgess $18.99, Posthouse Publishing Does the world need another encyclopedic approach to beer? Ted Bruning and Don Burgess thought so. The two have undertaken the Herculean task of cataloging as many varieties of malt, hops and yeast as they could find.... View Article
The Wildcrafting Brewer: Creating Unique Drinks and Boozy Concoctions from Nature’s Ingredients By Pascal Baudar $29.95, Chelsea Green Publishing There’s been a resurgence of interest lately in foraged or place-based beers, as evident by a number of new books on the subject. This latest is less about beer—especially as most know it—and brewing here loosely... View Article
Best Beers: The Indispensable Guide to the World’s Best Craft & Traditional Beers By Stephen Beaumont and Tim Webb $14.99, Mitchell Beazley While Stephen Beaumont and Tim Webb are two accomplished beer writers, there are—believe it or not—beers they have yet to consume, breweries they have yet to visit (in the introduction, they estimate that... View Article
The Scratch and Sniff Guide to Beer: A Beer Lover’s Companion By Justin Kennedy $22, Harper Design Given how critical the sense of smell is to enjoying beer, it’s surprising it took this long for such a book to hit the market. But it’s here, complete with scratch-and-sniff stickers for everything from the obvious (hops)... View Article
