It’s been well-documented in this space that I have a problem with hipsters. There’s something about those people and their “fixie” bikes and their trucker hats and their ironic facial hair and their koi fish tattoo sleeves and they’re lumberjack shirts and their love of Pabst Blue Ribbon that makes me want to expose them [...]

Homebrewing for special occasions is more common than I thought.  I realized this as I started doing research (which should be a four letter word) for this week’s Today Show article, which is all about guys who homebrewed for their own weddings (you can find it here). I stayed on the topic of brewing for [...]

If you live under a rock, then I have some news for you: American Craft Beer Week started on Monday!  It’s week full of special craft beer events across the nation, unless you live in New Jersey, perhaps the lamest craft beer state in America.  Sure, we get some pretty awesome beers here, but the [...]

What can be harder than going from Home Brewing to starting your own brewery?  Doing it in San Francisco!  But that is exactly what Jamil Zainasheff has done as the founder of Heretic Brewing in Pittsburg, CA, which is actually about 25 miles east of San Francisco, but still within the greater San Francisco Metro [...]

If I were to ask you what beer has the strongest brand equity in America, you’d probably grimace a bit and reply with a dejected “Budweiser.” And I say, “nope.” “Coors Light, then,” you might say. “They have those stupid frozen train ads during football, where they blast through neighborhoods, probably running down pets and [...]

My post this week for the Today Show Online is about how I went a little nuts when I saw that out of 39 entries, Coors Light won gold at the World Beer Cup for “American-Style Lager or Light Lager.”  I know the big boys have been winning this category for years, but it still [...]

I know it is HARD to believe, but BrewDog is in the middle of a Media Kerfuffle. I know…what are the odds…right?  Well to set it up properly, BrewDog has been doing some pretty wonderful things to change the beer culture in their native Scotland.  They have introduced the Brew Pub in a totally unique and [...]

What is old is new again.  Truer words were never spoken where Churchkey Can Co. brewing is concerned.  The other night I went to Brewforia and my buddy Rick had picked these up on a recent trip through Washington.  The concept is simple and as old as metal packaging itself.  Put a liquid in a [...]

I’m in full-on get-in-shape mode right now.  I’m waking up at the crack of dawn to work out, I’m watching what I eat like a hawk, and I even got one of those Nike+ Fuelband gizmos to remind me to get off my ass and move around. On the beer front, I’ve gotten very rigid [...]

My most recent post for TODAY.com is about the Big River Brewing Company at the Boardwalk Hotel in Disney World.  I was down there last week with the family, and Big River was a life saver – a lush desert island of craft beer in an otherwise barren sea of industrial light lagers. While I [...]

Good news for beer nerds trapped in the Magnolia State – starting July 1st, you’ll be able purchase beers with up to 8% alcohol by weight (roughly 10% ABV) without playing Smokey and the Bandit and making a run to Alabama or Louisiana (or eBay). The previous limit was 5% alcohol by weight (about 6.25% [...]

Hype can ruin a beer, because few brews can live up to the expectations heaped upon them by mad beer geek love.  Hype ruined Pliny the Elder for me, and it screwed up my approach to sour beers – had I know they tasted like week-old laundry left in the washer, I would’ve expected less.  [...]

Charlie Papazian wrote an interesting article for the Examiner .com a couple of days ago asking people what the best beer city is for 2012.  This got my head spinning as there are so many great beer cities out there as is evident from the map above  (I know its a state map, but play along). [...]

For this week’s Today post, I explore whether or not Sam Adams kept intact the home brewed essence of the winning LongShot recipes when they ramped them up to an industrial scale. As part of preparing that article, I did email interviews with this year’s winners, but only used a few snippets in the actual [...]

Uinta Brewing had their 19th anniversary this year.  In celebration of this momentous occasion they brewed Birthday Suit a slightly sour ale brewed with cherries.  Now you’re talking my language when you say sour ale and cherries together.  Throw that sucker in a barrel for a little while, and I’m in heaven…or so I thought. [...]