Anything less than a Singha now would be making Martha Graham do the Hokey Pokey. – From the beer menu at Baan Sawan Thai Bistro in Columbia, S.C. The State in South Carolina found this beer menu quirky enough to write a story about, and discovered an interesting 27-year-old behind it. When Sam Suaudom Jr. [...]

The Wall Street Journal has a feature today on fresh hop beers. (it’s a subscription site, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a version of the story that works in a pinch). The story alone is good enough reason to pick up WSJ if you don’t subscribe. One highlight: The hop infatuation has resulted in a [...]

A post at Beerdata.org conjectures about why craft beer sales are up 11% so far this year. Brendan Picha gives a lot of credit to imported beers, starting the with UK icon Samuel Smith. Yes it’s true that dam was opened in this order: – Michael Jackson wrote the World Guide to Beer. – Charles [...]

Two news stories from yesterday: – The Wall Street Journal reported reported (fee required) that the trend toward “trading up” is slowing for many consumer products. – The Brewers Association reported craft beer sales roared ahead at an 11% clip in the first half of 2006. If the former trend continues through the coming months [...]

It’s fair to say that Anheuser-Busch’s “Here’s To Beer” campaign has not exactly been embraced by the craft beer community, and certainly not blogs (like this one) that have commented on it. But compare it to Miller’s “Man Laws” commercials and website. Which is about beer? First, in defense of both “Man Laws” and the [...]

Speaking of the “big picture,” news today from Boston Beer bodes well for the craft beer segment. The brewer of Samuel Adams beers reported core shipment volume increased 22.8% in the second quarter. It also indicated distributor sales of the Boston Beer brands to retail (depletions) increased approximately 17% from the second quarter 2005. In [...]

Gee, I’m not sure the article was that bad. Both Jay Brooks and Beercraft Blog take a piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to task for an article headlined “Beer sales falling flat as wine, other beverages grow in popularity.” Granted, the story had its problems, but having just returned from a couple of weeks of [...]