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.  […]

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 […]

Our pal the Beer Poet shared an interesting link with us on Twitter this morning.  XXXX Gold Brewing Company in Australia has decided that a mancave isn’t a good enough place for dudes to escape the fairer sex – they need an entire island. Starting this October, the brewer will be holding contests for the […]

This study by the FABBS Foundation (which is short for something, I’m sure of it) has been making the rounds over the last week.  In a nutshell, it shows that men with a blood alcohol level of 0.07%, or a couple of beers worth of booze on board, performed better at “creative problem solving.” This […]

We rarely get political here on B&WB – how you choose to vote and what candidates you support is your own business.  But there’s a serious matter that has come to our attention, one that has been called perhaps “the most important election of our time!*

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Boston Beer Company does an excellent job of providing a road map for up-and-coming craft breweries.  They got started brewing craft beer for the masses more than a decade earlier than the big names that caught the brewing bug in the late 90’s, and they’ve […]

Advertising Age has reported that Heineken USA and the producers of Skyfall, the next Bond movie, have struck a deal which will have James drinking a Heineken on screen.  Apparently it’s the first time Bond has appeared with a branded brew, and I’m sure Heineken spent a pretty penny to have their product integrated into […]

. I know April Fools Day has come and gone, but honestly, this Schlafly video transcends that single silly date and deserves to be seen by every beer geek in America. Not only do they razz Bud Light Platinum’s stupid name, they also mock the dickens out of the hype surrounding rare beers.  Plus anything […]

UPDATE:  It turns out those “experts” we hired are the same people who came up with the idea for Bud Light Platinum – stoopid experts!  So we’ve fired them and reset the site to its former glory.  Sorry folks, there’ll be no Panty Hamsters here! ________________________ You may notice the blog looks a little different […]

Over on my TODAY post…uh…today, I review a quartet of gluten-free beers, which are brewed without the traditional grains (no barley, no wheat, no oats allowed).  As a result, they are mostly poor substitutes for “real” beers brewed with gluten-rich grains.  It’s basically no grains, no good. That got me to thinking – what’s the […]

If you’re a foodie, you know the James Beard Awards are a big deal.  I know this because Padma announces any Top Chef guest judge who has won the award like it’s an important honor.  It’s right up there with that Zagnut review and whatever prize the Michelin Man gives out.  🙂 There is a […]

If you’re a kid who lives in New Jersey, you know that a nirvana of finger-popping fireworks lies just across the Pennsylvania border.  But if you’re a beer nerd who lives in New Jersey, you hardly notice all of the FIREWORKS signs as you cross the Delaware, because you’re not looking for bottle rockets, you’re […]

Okay, so this might look like an SAT question, but it’s actually pretty simple, and it’s about beer (BONUS: and bacon!). Stay with me here. I’ve been thinking about how the quality of a craft beer and who owns the brewery that made it affect my purchase-making decisions.  It’s easy for me to say “no” […]