Depending on what you drink and where you eat you might have thought sommelier refers to a mythical character in a fantasy restaurant world. But there seems to be no way these days for a small-batch beer drinker to avoid the concept, and perhaps the physical reality, of a person – whatever you call him [...]

A quick note: “Extreme Beers” seem to be getting a new round of attention these days, including from the the NY Times, in part because Sam Calagione is busy promoting his book. Also Stephen Beaumont riffed on the subject in the current Celebrator (sorry, it’s not on line). That’s why I dug out this piece [...]

When Vinnie Cilurzo stepped to the helm at Blind Pig Brewing in Temecula, Calif., in 1994 he started out by brewing the first commercial Double (or Imperial) IPA anybody had ever heard of. “Our equipment was pretty antique and crude, so I wanted to start out with something that was big and, frankly, could cover [...]

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a story today about how “Craft Beers Have Big Breweries Thinking Small.” This is, in fact an advertising story, with the focus on Coors’ Blue Moon. Typically, linking a large brewer to a craft beer would be the kiss of death. But Coors has managed to have it [...]

More than 10 years ago Mark Dorber, the venerable publican from London, told perhaps 30 beer enthusiasts who had gathered for a seminar prior to the first Real Ale Festival in Chicago, “The god of beer . . . is not consistency.” Dorber might appreciate the new book Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer [...]

. . . and that’s OK. The Brew Blog reports that Miller’s “Take Back the High Life” campaign begins tonight. With the ads Miller is positioning Miller High Life as the best beer value. Miller High Life brand director Tom McLoughlin sees the campaign fitting in with a countertrend to the trading up movement. “We [...]

Missed this story for about a month: Young adults key to wine growth (and breweries are figuring that out). The articles reports the surge in wine consumption by the so-called millennial generation – defined generally as teens to late 20s – is one of the key reasons the U.S. wine industry has experienced robust growth [...]

The beer vs. wine debate goes to the university classroom. with Andrew Waterhouse, chair of the department of viticulture and enology at UC Davis, and Charles Bamforth, chair of the department of food science and technology, duking it out. Waterhouse: “Putting a bottle of wine in your shopping cart immediately makes you look smarter and [...]

This is the way it is supposed to work, but when you interrupt your beer culture for about 100 years then some things – like ongoing addition of “new blood” and thus innovation – start to fall through the cracks. Food and wine magazines are constantly featuring the hot new chefs, new winemakers and even [...]