One day in August, 1965, a 27-year-old former graduate student in Japanese studies at Stanford walked into his favorite bar, the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Francisco’s trendy North Beach neighborhood. He ordered his usual: an Anchor Steam. The bar’s owner, a World War II veteran and local eccentric named Fred Kuh, ambled over. “You... View Article
Amidst the clamorous American microbrewery scene resides the modest, ubiquitous and steady pale ale. It is essentially the beer that launched the revolution in America, and is a mainstay on nearly every craft brewer’s call of roll. The English sibling, though different, is a bastion of the brewer’s craft and a favorite among cask ale... View Article
We all know how craft beer history goes. Beer was great until the 19th century, when mass production of lagers took over the world, and American brewers put corn and rice in their beer to make it cheaper. By 1950, everyone was hypnotized by marketing into drinking the fizzy yellow beer. It looked bad, but... View Article
Born during the Industrial Revolution, out of necessity and fueled by novelty, India pale ale is the subject of a 300-year-old saga that remains an unfinished book. The abridged version of British brewers sending their hoppy, fortified pale ales to troops in India is merely the veneer of this rich legacy.
So many trends—from Starbucks coffee to grunge music to gourmet pizza with capers and duck sausage—started on the West Coast that it’s enough to give some East Coast residents an inferiority complex.
