First impressions about England

This August marked my return to England after an 8-year absence, just in time to take in what appears to be something of a resurgence in the UK brewing scene. The first stop, of course, was London, and it didn’t take long to notice that the capital has a number of new breweries, and [...]

Imbibe Highlights New Hop Varieties, Alcohol Trends

It’s rare that I’ll lean upon outside news sources or magazine articles as primary content (which probably just points to the fact that good bloggers are significantly more savvy and reactionary than I tend to be), but the recent issue of Imbibe magazine (July/August 2010) touched upon two topics that figure in prominently in this [...]

It’s About Flavors, Not Styles

So, for everyone from beer neophyte to beer devotee, here’s a list of some familiar flavors you can find in some of my favorite beers.

The Most Hopiful Time of the Year

With no disrespect to crooner Andy Williams, hop harvest is “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” And on Monday, Full Sail Brewing — headed by brewmaster John Harris — took about 50 or so lucky beer writers, pub owners and servers on a field trip (literally) to be a part of this year’s big [...]

2010 WaZoo Beer Festival – A View from the Other Side of the Bottle

Every year, Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo holds several major fund-raising events.  The best of them, in this craft beer lover’s opinion, is WaZoo.  Listed by USA Today as one of the “10 Great Beer Festivals” in America, it is also – in the words of Cigar City Brewing’s Wayne Wambles – the “biggest sweat fest [...]

The Maturity of the Craft Beer Industry

Beer has an interesting history. It goes back well before history was a major in college. In goes back before history was something written down, in fact. Beer goes back a long ways.
At the same time (time being a term used to describe my explanation of history, not history itself), beer has highs and lows. [...]

It’s Official: Beer Tastes Better 1700m Above Sea Level

Growing up in sub-tropical Brisbane, there wasn’t much opportunity to be exposed to snow, nor to craft beer for that matter. Hot and humid was the usual refrain from the weatherman; bland and weak was all you got from the barman.
So to be standing at a trailhead with the intention of traipsing through snowy Patagonia [...]

Quality Beer Leads to Quality People

My past week in England marked the first full month that I have been overseas studying brewing cultures. The time already seems to be flying by, and I blame my full schedule of brewery tours, pub crawls and meetings with organizations for the feeling. Something I have noticed greatly throughout this past month, as well [...]

A Change of Seasons

All of the typical signs are evident that summer is coming to an end and that fall is almost upon us; school began in most local districts this last week, the Champlain Valley Fair starts its 10-day run today and the summer green of the Vermont hillsides are slowly showing a hint of that blaze of color that will be dominant in a month or so.

Deschutes Brewery VIP Tour and Media Event

On Thursday I (along with a group of other local media folks) was invited to Deschutes Brewery for a special VIP brewery tour and media event. I was entirely unsure what to expect beforehand, and as it turned out the Brewery had set up a special tasting for attendees beforehand, presented by one of the senior brewers Jimmy Seifert and marketing manager Jason Randles.

While the brewery tour was great (particularly so due to main tour conductor Aaron), it was the tasting that was the main event of the evening. For each beer tasted, Seifert talked about the making and history of the beer, and there were interesting nuggets of information to be gleaned along the way.