Believe it or not, Jim and I do take this blog pretty seriously.  We really enjoy ourselves here, but we also have to put up new and semi interesting things for you to read in order to get the conversation we love going.  This week the wheels have fallen off of the blog, and it […]

Beyond TODAY is an extension of our weekly column for the TODAY Show food blog. Over there, I explore why The Simpsons features such a bad beer if the show takes place in Oregon. Over here, Don has a recommendation for Homer and his buddies – switch to Hop Valley!  Click here to check out […]

Jim and I have talked before about our early childhood experiences with our Dad.  Dad was a Pabst Blue Ribbon drinker through and through.  If he had beer it was PBR.  It wasn’t until the company started to struggle and PBR became a little more scarce on the grocery shelves that he began to branch […]

The other night my son came over and wanted to smoke a cigar, and split a beer with me.  This is not an unusual event, as Dad is an endless supply of beer and tobacco, or so they think.  But there was a difference.  Usually I have my cellar beers, and my “available” beers.  This […]

Green Flash came to Idaho, and as quickly as they got here, they were gone… in a flash…could’a been green. Here is the story.  It starts with a new distributor in Boise.  This new distributor who shall remain nameless, wasn’t fully aware of the legal issues around his profession.  See I guess he thought he […]

This was the third ungettables gathering put on by our buddy Chad of @BeerPoet fame on Twitter.  It was a great line up of beer while pedestrian for some, for us out west in the wilds of Idaho, these represent some of the hardest beers to get in our little corner of the intermountain west. […]

Wednesday I put together an article warning about Big Beer’s influence on craft beer.  In this particular example I used Old Dominion’s Oak Barrel Stout as a beer that may have been influenced by the Big Beer bean counters.  Turns out all that speculation, was just that…speculation.  Yesterday I received a very nicely worded letter […]

Yesterday I posted an article about ungettables I shared with some friends that were sent to me from Old Dominion Brewing.  In particular I liked the Oak Barrel Stout, but was confused as to why they used oak chips, but it was called oak barrel in the title.  Well yesterday I got my answer in […]

I love having friends that have beer!  And what’s better is I love having friends that have Whiskey!  And what’s better still is I love having friends that have beer and whiskey that I can’t get, and they are willing and eager to share.  So it went last time I went into my local bottle […]

I know I’ve not been around too much lately.  I’ve been trying to secure employment, and my journeys over the last two weeks have brought be all over the State’s of Oregon and Washington.  I told you about the Cascade Barrel house in Portland a while back, but I also went to Good Life Brewery […]

I am enlightened.  I know this because I have found Nirvana, or maybe that should be Beervana at the Cascade Barrel House in Portland, Oregon.  As some of you know I’ve been unemployed for several months now, and looking for work in a bunch of different places.  A friend of mine and I went to […]

If you will recall waaayyy back in the early days of the blog I said I wanted to find the worlds best oatmeal stout.  Said that here.  All the way back in December of 2009.  Well my search is over.  I’ve had some awesome oatmeal stouts in the mean time, with the best being (until […]

Well, truth is “most” of you can’t get this delightful nutty sweetish brown ale from Bitterroot Brewing in Hamilton, Montana.  So why bother doing a review?  Well first of all it is a fine example of what a Nut Brown Ale should be, and secondly, like the old russian saying goes “men (or women) are […]

This weekend was a pretty good one where beer was concerned, but when you drink as many new beers as I do, you learn to enjoy the really good beers, and let the bad beers just kind of roll off you.  Chalk it up to part of the craft beer lifestyle, you have to “kiss […]