Say what you will about the online antics of Ashley Rouston (A.K.A. The Beer Wench), but you can’t argue with her success or her work ethic – the girl is all hustle and knows how to play the game. She’s long been out front on the craft beer social media scene and has worked it […]

Not long ago, Sam Calagione’s show Brew Masters was cancelled by the Discovery Channel (or as Sam says, it wasn’t renewed).  The plot soon thickened when iconoclastic chef Anthony Bourdain tweeted that Brew Masters was killed by “Big Beer” who threatened to pull their ads off of Discovery and its sister networks if the show […]

There are things in this world that some people love but are totally lost on me.  In many cases, I’m totally okay with it. I don’t need to watch Modern Family, or read The Hunger Games books, or drink Kombucha tea to feel like I’m living a full life. In other cases, it kind of […]

Thankfully, I have no idea who Adele is, but apparently she’s an important cog in the industrial macro music machine because she’s been nominated for six Grammy’s.  They reserve these honors for industry insiders, not decent indie singers like Jenny Lewis or Leslie Feist or Chan Marshall, so I guess if Adele were a beer […]

Here’s a hint… I was drinking a beer while watching a football game this weekend, and it struck me that it did everything pretty well.  It had the big and malty flavor that I love this time of year, it’s heavy enough to feel substantial, but light enough to not bog me down.  It also […]

Let’s be clear from the outset – I won’t ever be wishing anyone “hoppy holidays.”  It’s not that I don’t like hops – sometimes they call to me, especially when I have an Avery Maharaja chilling in the fridge.  But hops and holidays don’t mix in my book.  This time of year I want big […]

When someone says “It’s the Cadillac of…” you know they are saying it’s the best, the most feature-rich and the most prestigious of its peers. The phrase is used to describe something that provides both pampering and pride, something that probably exceeds your needs and will make those around you green with envy.  Of course […]

You may have heard that 90’s “supergroup” Hanson has recently declared “We are soon going to be selling our own beer. I’m not joking – MMMhop IPA anyone?”  And some in the craft beer world groaned.  After all, many folks consider the Hanson boys to be more Partridge Family than Jackson Five, a used up […]

Just when you think something amazing has been achieved, it turns out there’s a catch that totally ruins it.  In this case, two enterprising young fellas have sent a can of beer into space and back down again so they could have the privilege of drinking the world’s first “space beer,” and what do the […]

I don’t follow hockey, but I know that when you score three times in a game it’s called a hat trick, and that’s exactly what I did over the holiday at a little hole in the wall beer store I stumbled into.  It was one of those magical beer (and in this case, whiskey) moments […]

Turkey Day is tomorrow, and I’m finally getting around to planning the beer portion of the proceedings.  Last year I broke the day down into three beer courses: before the meal, the feast itself, and the afterglow.  I’m thinking along the same lines this year, with a few different beers and even *gasp* a little […]

. Every once in a while you see something that makes you feel totally transparent, like someone is looking right through your skull into the inner working of your feeble little mind.  That’s just what happened to me when I watched this video from homebrew supply mecca Northern Brewer.  It’s just a marketing video full […]

I recently had the pleasure of sampling a very rare, very highly regarded beer, and it was pretty good, but not as good as I thought it would be.  The problem?  High expectations, or hype. It’s like a nasty ester that spoils the brew, an off flavor that casts a pall on an otherwise good […]

. It looks like Sam Adams is trying to rekindle the romance with hardcore craft beer geeks with the release of their small batch series of beers.  Glancing at the labels, you wouldn’t guess that these are Sam Adams products, and I think that’s the whole point. When we discussed our “no-go” breweries here yesterday, […]

We got to talking in the comments yesterday about the new Sam Adams small batch beers, and during lunch I popped into a liquor store near work to see if they had any on hand.  They did, but as I reached for one I paused, because I had seen the same beer at the liquor […]