If you ask David Flynn what prompted him to buy a membership share in Seattle’s Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery last year, he’ll give you an honest answer. “I have no idea.”
Is it accurate to call gose, a salty, 1,000-year-old German wheat ale, mainstream? The answer from Brewmaster Brian Edmunds at Breakside Brewing in Portland, OR, is decidedly yes. “We actually do—or have done—a number of different ‘Old World’ styles at different points,” he says.
Finding Great Leap Brewing is a distinctly Chinese affair. The journey to the vanguard of Beijing’s nascent craft brewing scene involves leaving a historic tourist strip and wending your way into the old residential city. Here, eccentric old Communist China lingers alongside evidence of the country’s new capitalist dawn, encapsulating what makes life in the country known as the Middle Kingdom so textured.
The logo for Imperial, by far the most popular beer in Costa Rica, is a black predatory bird set against a field of gold. Inspired by the black eagle from Germany’s coat of arms, the logo is so omnipresent in Costa Rica—on bar signs and T-shirts, not to mention the fact that the product itself can be found anywhere—that it is nearly a national symbol. To those who live there it’s as recognizable as the flag or rice and beans. Read More…
A few years ago, Bill Manley, communication coordinator for Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., CA, was at the Great American Beer Festival “when this huge drunk guy saunters up to our booth and says, ‘Gimme your strongest beer.’ We pour him a Bigfoot, and he downs it like a shot. ‘Gimme another one,’ he says. We tell him that’ll be his last and hand him another. He downs that one the same way then slams the sample cup on the table. He turns and walks away, but not before he growls at us, ‘Your beer tastes like shit.’” Manley is laughing as he tells the story. But his sense of humor doesn’t change the fact that he would have liked to dump the beer over the guy’s head.
The craft beer movement has always been one part quality, one part creativity and one part rebellion against corporate business practices that place an emphasis on efficiency, operating systems and conformity. In the early days of craft beer this, David vs. Goliath philosophy came to life most vibrantly in the form of brewpubs.
