Clik here to view.
The Next Frontier in Barrel-Aged Craft Beer
Last Christmas I brought a bottle of beer to a gathering that I consider to be undeniably delicious, if not exactly revolutionary in the beer world. Yet when party guests tried Other Half’s Veldrijden...
View ArticleClik here to view.
You Don’t Hate IPAs, You Just Think You Do
In 2013, Slate published a story by Adrienne So entitled, “Against Hoppy Beer.” Like many of the other reductive craft beer stories that have appeared in the national media over the years, beer nerds...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What the Hell Is “Summer Beer”?
It’s inevitably coming. Soon just about every food or drink-dabbling website will release their “Best Summer Beers” listicle. Some lists will have five entries, some could have 50, but one thing will...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Quick Rise and (Tragic) Fall of Bed Clubs
What happens when you take ancient Greek and Roman dining concepts, an Austrian count by way of Holland, of-the-moment celebrities and some of the most groan-worthy wordplay a new millennium had ever...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Whatever Happened to the Singles Bar?
In 1903 the Wright Brothers out of Dayton, Ohio built the world’s first successful airplane. By 1965, 20 percent of Americans had flown commercially and tens of thousands of stewardesses were stationed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The American Brewers Redefining Farmhouse Ale
For the bulk of brewing history, from, let’s say, Mesopotamia all the way up to about a decade ago, defining farmhouse brewing was easy. A farmhouse brewery was a farm where beer was brewed using local...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Confessions of a Beer Ticker
I remember one of the happiest moments of my childhood: I was ten and attending Oklahoma City’s largest annual baseball card show. I walked the convention center with my buddy, stopping at booths...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can Big Beer Really Make Great Beer?
Upon landing at St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport, I immediately had my Uber take me to an old Coca-Cola syrup plant in the sleepy Carondelet neighborhood. Nowadays, the 14,000-square foot...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Brief History of Collaboration Beers
Back in the early-2000s, when I was still in my nascent days as a beer geek, there was one brewery whose beers I yearned to try more than any other’s. California’s Russian River may have had a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drinking with Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh
“I could go fly an airplane!” Steven Soderbergh shouts at the end of our first night drinking together. We’d been at it steadily for four hours straight, a group of us having bar-crawled Brooklyn. And...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are the World’s Most Iconic Lagers Just Bud in Different Bottles?
Frank Zappa once claimed that you can’t call yourself a real country unless you have your own beer. Today, it’s hard to think of any country that doesn’t have a singular offering dominating local...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Are Beer Geeks So Obsessed with Ratings?
The first weekend in February brought thousands of beer fans to Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center for the annual Extreme Beer Fest (EBF), “the ultimate throwdown of craft beer creativity.” Despite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who the Hell Invented Edward Fortyhands?
I’m 37 years old. I go to bed most nights before ten and wake up most mornings around six. I live in a quiet brownstone in family-friendly Park Slope, Brooklyn. And, on a recent Thursday night, I had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Don’t Beer Geeks Like Wheat Beers?
If “whales”—those ultra-rare, ultra-tasty beers—reside on top of the modern beer geek’s perceived quality spectrum, then “shelf turds” would sit at the other end. While whales can only be purchased...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Invented the Shotski and Why?
Breckenridge, Colorado’s annual Ullr Fest, a week-long celebration honoring the Norse god of winter, is intentionally goofy. There’s a viking-themed parade, a Christmas tree burning, a frying pan toss,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Current State of American Gose
Just five years ago, no one would’ve predicted that the gose would go full Hollywood. In fact, until recently, the style was so obscure, so nearly extinct, that in 2011 it didn’t even merit an entry in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Glassware Became a Beer Geek Obsession
At last month’s TalkBeer Charity Bottle Share in Edison, New Jersey, there were countless rare offerings, like Deschutes Jubel 2000, 3 Fonteinen Hommage, even a 1999 vintage of Rodenbach Alexander. A...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Are Craft Brewers Making Beers That Taste Like Macro Lagers?
By 2:50 p.m. on a recent Friday, there was already a line snaking out the entrance to Brooklyn’s Threes Brewing and onto Douglass Street. The growing crowd had come for the first-ever canned beer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Making the Case (or Not) for the Fruited IPA
Back in 1996, your average beer drinker might have guessed “IPA” was an abbreviation for the Independent Pilots Association, perhaps the Institute of Public Accuracy. The general public had not yet...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Behind the Boom of Brettanomyces Beers
Even just a decade ago, yeast was an afterthought for most American beer drinkers. Malts, hops, water—sure, but festishizing the particularities of fermentation was more the domain of wine. Even if...
View Article