By Gregg Glaser
Published March 2001, Volume 22, Number 1
A guy walks into a bar and asks for a beer. The bartender says, “Anything special?” The guy replies, “What have you got?” The bartender smiles and says, “Well, we have some old ales.” “Sure,” says the guy, “give me one of those.” “Fine,” responds the bartender. “Do you want one from 4,000 years ago, 3,800 years ago, 2,700 years ago, 1,500 years ago, or something more current, say, one from 1554 or 1825?” Read More…
By Pete Brown
Published November 2009, Volume 30, Number 5
Most people would call it crazy, but the crazies call it ‘living archeology’: if material remains of our past no longer exist, we have to recreate past times as best we can in order to figure out the truth of how people lived back then. It drives some to live as bronze-age villagers, others to dress up as Roman legionnaires and go ten rounds with Gaulish barbarians. It drove me to recreate the greatest journey beer has ever made, an 18,000 mile sea journey that hasn’t existed for 140 years. Read More…
By Jay R. Brooks
Published November 2009, Volume 30, Number 5
In today’s more sophisticated and educated beer culture, it certainly feels like this may be the best time for American beer that has ever existed. If you know where to look you can find more styles of beer than anywhere else in the world. For many people, craft beer is responsible for raising the status of American beer to heights thought impossible thirty years ago. Read More…
By Stephan Michaels
Published September 2009, Volume 30, Number 4
Theoretically, that brew you just finished should have traveled a pretty straightforward route from the brewery to your glass. Shipped from the brewer who created it, the beer was warehoused by a middleman, who then loaded it onto a truck and delivered it to a retailer, where it eventually found its way onto the shelf or into your local pub.
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They Were Ready; Where Were You?
By Lew Bryson
Published July 2009, Volume 30, Number 3
You’ve probably heard of the ‘inventions’ of Leonardo da Vinci. The archetypal Renaissance Man designed a submarine, a tank, a steam cannon, a bridge to span the Bosporus, an airplane, a helicopter, a hang glider and—quite practically—a parachute. Genius indeed, for one man to envision and sketch things that no one had ever dreamed before. Yet none of these designs would come to practical fruition for almost 400 years, waiting advances in metallurgy, textiles, power generation, and power transmission. Leonardo was too soon.
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With a New Administration, a New Beer Scene
By Greg Kitsock
Published March 2009, Volume 30, Number 1
I’m hugging a bottle of Anchor Steam at RFD in Washington, DC, sister establishment to the famed Brickskeller, watching a group of picketers wend their way around the crowded bar with signs reading, “We Want Beer.”
It’s a puzzling sight, as everybody here seems to be well served. In fact, the “protest,” organized by Premium Distributors of DC, is actually a celebration of the 75th anniversary of Repeal, which took place on December 5, 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment.
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